Student Affairs
Features

Student Affairs
Greek Newswire

Features archive

Fall Career Days provides numerous job search opportunities for students

By Andy Elder, Student Affairs Writer

If the end result of the college experience is for students to ultimately become gainfully employed, then Penn State students have a leg up in that pursuit.

Fall Career Days 2004, a 3-day event held at the Bryce Jordan Center, gave Penn Staters that edge.

Career Days is a networking and recruiting event for all Penn State students of all standings, in all majors at all campuses. It is jointly sponsored by Career Services and the 10 schools and colleges at Penn State University Park. Career Days provides recruiters with the opportunity to set up a booth in the Bryce Jordan Center with representatives and information from their organization.

“Students know that this event is the initial step in their job search efforts within corporate and government organizations,” said Chris MacGill, Director of Career Services. “It is essential that they take this opportunity to meet face to face with the employers before they submit their resume online through the various systems for two very important reasons:
1) The information they learn helps them tailor their resume to better connect with the employer and the position.
2) The personal contact leaves a lasting impression and the employers take note and are then looking for certain candidates’ resumes when they review them online.”

A host of students took advantage of this fall’s Career Days, which on the second day of the three-day event featured a new graduate student recruiting event. A total of 7,107 students had the opportunity to network with 396 different employers, up from 352 employers a year ago.

Of those more than 7,000 students, a significant portion took advantage of preparation workshops to get help with preparing a resume, interview skills and networking resources, all available on the Career Services website.

And, MacGill stressed, Career Services is hoping several factors intersect to help grow the already successful event.

“It is our hope that as the economy continues to grow (and we have seen our last two larger fairs have an increase in the number of employers registering), we hope that we will have a greater number of employers for our students to meet and discuss future opportunities,” MacGill said. “We also are always looking to the employer and student surveys each year to help us make improvements; it is often the little details that make the program go well."

[back to top]