More than 200 students from Omaha, Lincoln and beyond turned out Wednesday for the inaugural Omaha Startup Job Crawl.
With upwards of 200 students and 40 companies on hand for the inaugural Silicon Prairie News Omaha Startup Job Crawl last Wednesday night at The Mastercraft, there wasn’t enough time in the evening to interview every last person in attendance about the event. But that didn’t discourage us from putting our reporter’s hats on anyway.
Throughout the night, we visited with a mix of students and company representatives to get a wide array of thoughts on a handful of Crawl-related questions. Below, we provide a sampling of the responses to those questions.
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For more from the Crawl, including a photo recap and by-the-numbers look at the event, check out our article from Thursday, “Startup Job Crawl fills Mastercraft with students, entrepreneurial energy.”
Students’ goals in coming to The Crawl
“Just meet great companies, meet great people, kind of see what’s available in this area. The Midwest is great, so just making sure I find opportunities that are available. Just trying to find a good place to work and that I know I would enjoy the culture and everything.” – Daniel Sveen (right), University of Nebraska-Lincoln senior
“I really just wanted to see all of the new entrepreneurs in the community, see what the scene was about, maybe got some connections and contacts for the future.” – Genevieve Alander (left), Creighton University senior
“I really just wanted to meet some more people from these companies. I’ve heard a lot of their names, and I’ve met some of them. But a lot of them you kind of assume you’re not going to be able to help out, or not fit in to them, and then you talk to them and you realize you have similarities. … I look at all these companies and I don’t know where I can help them out, and then you start talking to them and find that you might actually be a good fit for them.” – Jordan Johnson (right), UNL senior
Students’ reactions to the event
“It’s really good to talk to someone face-to-face as opposed to click on the careers page on a website and just sort of send off a résumé to a blank email. It’s nice to talk to them about what they want and what they’re looking for and be able to (have them) tell you what you can offer to them and things like that. That makes it a much better experience looking for a job.” – Kyle O’Reilly (left), 2011 Creighton graduate
“Exciting. I didn’t expect it to be as many students as there are, and it’s almost more comfortable just because, you know, it’s not business suit attire. I remember Dusty (Davidson) said jeans are the norm here. You know, don’t overdo it.” – Allison Lercher (right), University of Nebraska-Omaha senior
“People are so warm and so excited to talk about their companies. I have been to other career fairs, and people I generally find not interested (in) telling what they are. And it’s a nice feeling because they want to tell about themselves so much.” – Juber Mujawar (left), 2011 UNL master’s graduate
“It’s crazy busy. There’s a lot of great companies here, and it’s really cool to meet everyone, see how everyone’s kind of interacting. There’s a lot of different types of people here. … Even if you’re not interested so much in coming down here and looking for a certain company, just meeting everyone and seeing how the interaction is between people is pretty cool.” – Sveen
“People are so friendly and so open about their businesses. And I really thought that people were just going to, like, sell you on why their business is the best. But the whole community’s really connected, and it seems like you talk to somebody and they’re like, ‘Go to this company and talk to them, too.’ Just the whole startup community in Omaha has been really impressive.” – Lucas Turner (right), Creighton junior
Students’ assessments of the state of area startups
“It seems like a lot of people are making a living for themselves and thriving in different niches, so I’d say it seems like people are doing pretty well.” – Leonard Stuart (left), UNL master’s student
“There are a lot of companies here. And you pack them all in the room, and there’s just so many different ones and they’re so diverse. I think that’s a cool thing to see — that people are passionate about so many different things … because their passion is what connects everyone in the community.” – Johnson
Why attending The Crawl was important to companies
“Mostly, I care about the students. I think that we’re entering a time when just going to school is not enough … and it’s important for (students) to get out and see who these guys are, see what they’re doing, see what their studios are like and see that this is unconventional, really. There’s no cubes here; there’s no separators; we wear what we want — that type of thing. But we work really hard, too. That was always something that, to me, nobody ever really explained in school, because you don’t get out and you don’t get to see these places. So to be able to walk in and be like, ‘OK, I get it,’ gives them an attachment so they can be like, ‘This is what a graphic designer’s world is like.’ ” – Eric Downs (left), Grain and Mortar
“The event itself was set up twofold. It seemed like some people were here to hire interns and meet potential candidates for jobs, and other people were here to just engage people and say, ‘Listen, I have a startup. Omaha’s the perfect place to do it. Here’s how you can do a startup.’ Well, we thought that kind of fit both sides for us, because Wristband Radio for us was just an idea and then it grew, and this was the perfect place to kind of show a lot of students that they can do the same thing.” – Josh Tague (right), Wristband Radio
What companies took away from the event
“I think the future looks bright for a lot of the kids in college right now that are coming out. They seem to be go-getters. They’re approachable, and they’re very interested. They listen. They have good conversations, and I think that, no matter what industry or field they’re going into, is going to be important.” – John Stuifbergen (left), Jelecos
“It was very positive. It was positive for me even interacting with some of the companies. But it was good to see the variety of students. We not only did the technical stuff, but we did have a good chance to talk to a few of the marketing people and just dished out a bunch of cards and told them to get in touch with me at different times of the year for when I think we could be (hiring), so we’ll see how everybody follows through on it.” – Don Weber (right), Lodo Software
Note: Danny Schreiber contributed to this post.
Credits: Photos by Michael Stacy and Danny Schreiber.
