College students are lining up at 4:30 a.m. and sprinting for a shot at a job

• College students are lining up at 4:30 a.m. for career fairs, racing to recruiters' booths.
• "Thank god I'm employed," one TikToker captioned a video of the mad dash.
• Job seekers told Business Insider these fairs are necessary in a tough job market — and that some landed offers.

After waiting and waiting, Isabella Wong finally made it to the booth. Then the recruiter pointed to a QR code.

Wong is a 20-year-old biochemistry student at Simmons University. Looking for new opportunities, she attended the Society of Women Engineers' conference in Boston, which promised a three-day career fair along with panels and networking.

The conference has since gone viral for its massive crowds. "Thank god I'm employed," one TikToker captioned the mad dash to enter the fair, which ended Saturday.

Wong skipped out on that initial rush, but she did stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other prospective engineers, fighting for face time with hirers. "I think it's very indicative of people being determined to get their foot in the door," she said.

Let's face it: It's a tough job market out there, especially for new college graduates. 42.5% of recent graduates are underemployed, according to the Federal Reserve.

For many young job seekers, career fairs are a way to become more than a faceless résumé in an Indeed portal. Hence the swarms of engineers gathering for the rope drop.

"These students are going to get jobs wherever they can," said Jennifer Scott, SWE's chief growth officer. "We try to keep them from using their elbows and crawling over each other."

Career fairs are packed to the brim

Scott knows the fair is packed. She estimated that around 14,000 people attended, about 40% of whom are college students.

They've always been eager, and the conference has been bigger before. Scott said that it once had over 20,000 attendees, which she called "too many." Still, she's noticed a change in attitudes in recent years.

There are fewer jobs available in the market, and some companies have shut down early-career hiring, Scott said. There are also fewer fairs, she said, as some recruiters stop visiting college campuses. The Grace Hopper Celebration, another women-focused engineering conference, was canceled this year.

Isabel Amaya felt lucky she didn't need to "fight it out" at this year's Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers conference. The 21-year-old informatics student at the University of Washington already had a return offer. She was there more for networking.

She saw the desperation. Some of her friends had given up looking for early-career roles, switching industries or looking for internships instead. Others had delayed their graduation to stay eligible for those intern programs, she said.

Wong saw a similar trend. Most of the people she spoke to were looking for internships; entry-level jobs seemed out of reach.

"The current job market is looking for more experience than what we have as college students," she said.

The strategy might benefit you

There's a reason the crowds line up.

Amaya got her internship-turned-offer at last year's SHPE conference. This year, her friends got offers from spots like Bank of America and Bloomberg, she said.

Allan Morales was less successful. He's a sophomore studying chemical engineering at the University of Michigan; most of the recruiters he spoke to were only seeking out juniors.

But Morales knew someone who got an offer at the conference from Micron, one of tech's buzziest companies. The candidate had competing offers and interviews before the conference, Morales lamented: "He was stacked."

Job fairs like these are built for hiring. Some companies solicit and review résumés in advance. Many interview candidates in private booths on-site.

Jocelyne Suerte does her homework. The 21-year-old mechanical engineering student at the University of Houston figures out which companies are interviewing on-site, then chooses to only approach their booths.

Suerte went to both the SHPE and SWE conferences. At SHPE, attendees lined up at 4:30 a.m. to rush the booths, she said. At SWE, Suerte struggled to access the map with shoddy WiFi, roaming around the halls and hoping to find the companies she'd picked out.

It worked. Suerte said she got offers from both conferences, and is still weighing which one she wants to take.