More than 100 employers and about 800 students came together Feb. 18 at the all-majors winter career fair hosted by OSU’s Career Development Center at the CH2M HILL Alumni Center.
Afterward, the College of Business and the Department of Athletics held a reception in the Reser Stadium loge that gave COB students and Beaver athletes a chance to connect with prospective employers in a less formal, more conversational setting.
Strong consensus among recruiters and job seekers alike indicated that both events were valuable as well as enjoyable.
“I love going to these things,” recent marketing graduate Chris Pham said at the career fair. “It’s a great chance to network.”
“It’s excellent,” agreed freshman pre-business student Sean Fox, who had talked with roughly a dozen companies. “I’m trying to position myself so that two or three years from now I can put together a resume that looks like I have five or six years of experience.”
A few hours later in the loge level of the football stadium’s northeast grandstand, College of Business students had a second opportunity to market themselves.
“More informal conversations, more personal,” is how Matt Adams, a junior studying finance and business information systems, described the after-hours reception. Among other things, Adams used the event as a chance to talk with a representative from Fisher Investments for a fifth time.
“Anytime students get to interact with professionals, it’s great,” said Sukhpreet Singh, a senior double-majoring in business information systems and accounting. “I’m trying to get a lot of companies interested in me and weigh which is the best fit for me. You can’t know what’s the best fit if you only look at one or two.”
Slade Crooks, general manager of Foodguys, called the after-hours reception “a great event.”
“You get to talk to students in a more casual setting and get insight into who they really are,” he said. “I’m looking for people interested in sales, so I watch how they interact, who the wallflowers are, who are the aggressive ones who put themselves out there.”
Juili Tonape, an MBA student in the marketing track, was trying to do just that. She admitted, though, “it’s not really natural for me. It’s a little overwhelming.”
In all, the reception featured more than 100 students and representatives from roughly 80 businesses.
