16th Annual Conference & Career Expo

2005 was another record-breaking year.

We broke last year's record, with an attendance of more than 6,700. It was also a record year for the expo, more than 320 companies and universities participating; that's almost a 10 percent increase from 2004.

Dell Inc. and Microsoft partnered together again this year to offer the Dell and Microsoft Marketing Case Competition. This year's winners, Shalini Bhatia, Marina De La Torre, Natalie Prutsky and Ramon L. Rodriguez, were from Northwestern Kellogg School. The winners received a Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook, Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Microsoft Office 2003 Professional software and a certificate for an Xbox 360 – Microsoft's newest gaming console set to launch this November. Winners and finalists alike all received a copy of Money 2006 from Microsoft.

This was the second year for the Citigroup Finance Case Competition. The winners were Karine Chami from Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College, Boris Leoro from Northwestern Kellogg, Rohit Narayanan from Rutgers Business School and Carlos Sandoval from UNC Kenan Flagler School of Business. The winners received a Citigroup Gift Card, and an interview with the business of the choice within the global consumer group at Citigroup. Last year two winners were hired.

Thursday was dedicated to professional development. Twenty-four different work-shops were available, four workshops in six different tracks. The tracks included professional competencies, career development, finance, marketing, leadership and management. The day also included two enjoyable panel events, the Dell Kick-Off Luncheon and the PacifiCare Leadership Plenary. If you weren't able to make it to the professional development day, some of the workshops will be available online. We will keep you posted on when they will be available.

Each night was filled with great networking opportunities. Thursday offered a corporate networking reception and more than 20 companies participated, followed by the PepsiCo. Opening Party. Friday night included the United Technologies Corporation Networking reception, and Saturday offered even more. The events offered attendees a chance to expand their professional network and to make connections that could propel their career.

The career expo opened on Friday and was filled with those who were looking to make a career move. Companies were on hand to talk with potential hires.

2005 Conference Basics

2005 Conference Statistics