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Who’s the best at wooing IT students at @summeroftech

Last night, we (@redvspanz and @thebakit) were at Summer of Tech meet and greet in search for top BA and Design students who can help us with couple of projects during summer.

There were around 40 companies who are “fighting” to attract TOP talents (who doesn’t). Each company had JUST 1 minute to introduce themselves as well as the project. It needed to be brief, also straight to the point (no messing around here). As much as companies want best students, students want to work for coolest/best companies as well. There are quite a few intros caught my eye, for different strategies they were using in the intro. Personally, I would like to work for them if I was a students.

Catalyst - Concise and Most Energetic intro. Peter Torr-Smith @ptorrsmith nailed what the company does and what they are looking for under 1 minute. Most importantly, the intro is full of energy. I love people with great energy, and personally, I believe you need to have great passion in whatever you do.

Green Button - What’s in there for me? Green Button CEO (sorry, didn’t get his name) was also a very energetic guy. But what good about his intro was he used an example of his current employee who was a summer of tech intern from last year. He mentioned they offer the intern a job after 3 months, send her to HongKong for conference, gave her 2 pay rises and promotions and offer her stock options etc (I couldn’t believe it when I heard it), but if I was a student, I would like to work for him.

FNZ - Be Rememberable The Development Manager of FNZ introduced company and saying “FNZ doesn’t stand for anything” which brought laughters to the entire room. Although it’s debatable, but I am sure people would remember the company after the quick intro.

Southgate Labs - Creditability There were a lot of companies doing Rails in the Meet&Greet. While other companies merely using Rails, The co-founder of Southgate Labs, Michael Koziarski @nzkoz is one of the creators of Rails. You can’t top that, can you? If that was enough, @rowansimpson (trademe employee No. 3) and Amnon Ben-Or (former trademe creative lead) will definitely blow you away.

Unlimited Realities - Relate to the audience Unlimited Realities doing some tablet stuff which is pretty cool. But the founder is very good at relating himself to the audience. He mentioned that he was in the same seats 3 and half years ago, that immediately build a bridge between him and students. After all, people feel much more comfortable with people that are common to them.

Worknow - Leverage (whatever you have) The guy from Worknow wasn’t a great public speaker (sorry man). But what’s good about him was he knows how to leverage his resources. He mentioned that they are in the same office with Sounthgate Labs, working for them give students opportunities to “work” with NZ startup gurus. That’s smart.