Career Fair brings services hundreds of students and community members
By Amrit Gill, employment specialist, Career Services, May 17, 2018
With hundreds of student and community members in attendence, the 2018 Green River College Career Fair was a great success.
The Fair featured over 30 employers, from well-known tech industries to local startups, representing diverse industries in the Greater-Seattle area. A little under 400 students and community members checked in to the event, and 75+ got their professional headshots taken.
For the months leading up to the event, many questions were raised about the efficacy of career fairs. Who do we serve in these cases? Was it only the students looking for jobs right now? For a college that sends off most of its students to 4-year institutions, would most even be looking for jobs right now? There had to be a dissection of the purpose of these opportunities, in order to create the most advantageous situations for our students.
The first step taken was to ensure inclusivity. Just because a student isn't currently looking for a job, doesn't mean that a career fair is useless to them. It's important to be able to ask questions to all kinds of employers. Thus, the hiring managers that attended were explicitly told to be open for questions about professionalism, leadership, and values. All Career Fair attendees received a slip that had handy information, such as the companies at the event and sample questions to ask, such as:
- What qualities do you look for in a potential employee?
- What common resume mistakes do you see?
- Can you share 1-2 tips job seeking tips for college students?
These questions are just as important for international students that can learn about American work cultures. It's already overwhelming to study in another country, so having these conversations with many recruiters in one central location, such as a Career Fair, can be of great value – and also saves a lot of time for an individual seeking them. The second step was to have takeaways from the event. The conversations were one of them, then we added free GRC journals and fidget spinners, and the professional headshots. Lastly, data is the only way to be aware of our efforts, so surveys were given to both attendees and employers, marketing data was gathered, and addressed by the Career Services team. As the next Career Fair rolls along, it will be built upon the feedback of this Fair, and continually optimized and the gaps analyzed.
The Career Fair was in fact resurrected after over two years of absence from Green River's campus, but it was brought back to life thanks to the students volunteers, multiple departments and instructors that aided in every way. From offering their hours, promoting the event to students, creating workshops, linking employers to the Fair, allowing Career Services to do classroom presentations, and so much more.
A sincere thanks to Creative Services/College Relations that facilitated all of our requests and did a wonderful job of marketing. Thank you to everyone for your assistance and feedback - it was truly a team effort.
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