Kurtis Karn is the associate vice president of talent acquisition at KLJ Engineering, a Bismarck-based civil engineering company that plans and supports projects across the Midwest. Karn spoke with the Spectrum about what he looks for in a new employee and shared some advice for those looking for jobs right now.
1. What does a recruiter look for in potential employees including qualities/skills and experience?
This is based on the position itself. There are key knowledge, skills and abilities that are required on the job description to fit that position. So it is a mix of the skills needed for the job and the skills that match those on their applicants resume. That is why it is good to list your skills, knowledge and abilities as much as possible on your resume.
2. What “soft skills” do you look for in candidates (aka what is a good trait to foster that doesn’t involve their education)?
I think communication is the quick answer, but that entails a lot of different circumstances. Can you talk to your team members, can you communicate with customers or clients, your supervisor. But regardless of what degree or job you are getting you are going to have to find a way to communicate effectively.
The other one is emotional intelligence. The definition of emotional intelligence is the ability to understand emotions in positive ways to communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Anytime you are communicating with another human, this soft skill is going to be used.
3. What is important about a candidate’s education? Do grades, extracurriculars, what school they went to, whether they worked during school, etc. matter?
I love all of it. But what I really like to see is if it is important to you, can you talk about it? Did you work super hard to get your good grades? Did you go out of your way to be in an extracurricular to engage with other people? Did you work? But then, how did that prepare you for coming out of school? What did it teach you? Time management, the ability to speak in front of a group, work ethic? I love the extras during school, but you have to be able to express how you think it made you a better person.
4. What majors do you cater to? What does KLJ do(as far as projects and type of work)?
In short, we build roads, runways, pipelines and parks! Really, we are building better communities to improve the quality of life for future generations. We are currently working on NDSU’s campus doing survey and marking the utilities and piping on the old engineering building. We are also doing the new parking ramp at Hector International Airport.
We are a civil engineering company, and we do a little bit of everything in that industry. We have specialist in Aviation, Oil and Gas, Power, Telecommunications, Transportation, Structural Engineering and Water. But we also have Environmental, Survey, Construction Services, Tribal, Land Development and Public Input. With all of those things in-house we can take our engineering projects from the very start to the end.
We cater to programs associated to Civil Engineering, Construction Management and Environmental/Survey majors most. We also have Accounting, Communications, Marketing and Human Resources in the business, but the majority of our hires will be in Civil Engineering and Construction Management.
5. Do you have internships and if so, what do those include?
We do! Those would include internships with our Engineering Construction group, Engineering Design Group, Environmental and Survey! They are all paid internships, and the role is treated just like a full-time employee. We go through onboarding and get you acquainted with your supervisor and your team. You then start working into the day to day and start by shadowing on projects as you start moving into taking on work on your own. The typical summer internship is about three months and then at the end of the summer we do our annual Intern Retreat. We pick a location, and invite all interns to that location. At the retreat it allows our interns to talk about the projects they were on for the summer, what they learned and how that ties into what they have learned in school. It also allows for networking with peers across multiple states and we find a lot of our intern stay in touch after the summer!
6. What does the future look like for job opportunity in your company?
KLJ has been growing fast the last couple of years and we are going to continue to grow. The company has been around for 85 years, and we now have 27 physical locations in eight states. We are currently about a 600 person firm and we expect to continue to grow in our current locations and possible add more!
7. Do you hire people without business or technical degrees? Such as in the social sciences? Do they have a hard time in the working environment?
We do hire those backgrounds as we are a full organization with all the other business needs, like accounting, human resources, finance, marketing and communications and IT. They do not have a hard time working in our environment, and we actually have an entire organization chart called Shared Services where these roles sit within the company and work across all business lines.
8. What would your advice be for a new grad or college upperclassman who is going to be looking for a job soon?
Do your research. You have access to SO much information, so just take a minute and understand the company you are applying to. Look up and see if you connect with their core values and mission. Companies want you to understand what it is going to be like working there, so look at the website, socials, get connections on LinkedIn. This is going to get you a better understand of the company, and then you can focus on the position.