Marking 56 years of the Fall Job Fair, the event will once again take place on Wednesday, Oct. 25 from 1-4 p.m. in the Northern Center Ballrooms.
“It is a great opportunity to talk to the employers to see what types of jobs are available right now,” said Grant Langdon, assistant director of career services.
This career fair will feature 84 employers from a wide range of industries, including companies like the Mayo Clinic, the U.S. Forest Service and Fastenal. Langdon emphasized that employers will be recruiting students from all majors.
“They are not looking for just the most obvious majors and not just looking for environmental science or criminal justice,” Langdon said. “They end up looking for accounting and law and political science and construction management majors.”
Not only are students of all majors encouraged to attend, but students of all ages are also highly encouraged to go to the job fair.
“Right from their first semester in college freshman year, students can go and talk to employers and figure out something they might be interested in in a couple of years and ask that employer what experiences they should be getting to make themselves a great candidate,” Langdon said.
For students to get the most out of this job fair, there are several things they should do to prepare for it.
“I would highly recommend that they look at the employers that are going to be there and plan who are the ones that you definitely want to talk to and know why you want to talk to them and then be able to communicate that to the employer,” Langdon said.
Once students have done this, there is an additional step they can take to further prepare for the event.
“If a student is at the point where they would be looking for a job, then having your resume printed out and ready to hand … to employers looks really good,” Langdon said.
Langdon noted that Career Services printed out student resumes on high-quality paper up until the day before the job fair.
Students will also have the opportunity to get professional headshots taken at the job fair, so Langdon recommends dressing up.
For many students, this career fair presents a lot of opportunities and being fully prepared can lead to great outcomes.
“We will often talk with students leading up to the career fair to prepare them, get their resumes set up and make sure they know exactly what to talk to employers about, and then we will see them at the fair talking with confidence to employers,” Langdon said. “And then afterwards they will email us and be like ‘I am getting the internship’ or ‘I got the job’. It happens so frequently.”
Langdon is excited to bring employers to Northern for students to showcase all they have been doing in their time in college.
“It is fun to see the combination of sometimes years of work and practice and experience, and they are [students] coming to show an employer ‘Hey, I have been doing a lot of awesome stuff’,” Langdon said.
