Career Services hosts record setting Spring Job Fair

by Joe King

Thousands of students poured into the NIU Convocation Center last week … and not just for the John Mayer concert.

While the Grammy Award-winning rocker got most of the attention, the Convocation Center also played host to the annual Spring Job Fair, an event that drew a record 250 employers and nearly 1,000 students.

“It was a huge success,” said Cindy Henderson, acting director of NIU Career Services. “The 250 employers were the maximum that we could accommodate, and we had to turn several away.”

Henderson offers a simple explanation for the popularity of the job fair, which has been the largest on any campus in the state for many years.

“Employers tell us again and again that they come here because they are so pleased with the quality of NIU graduates. They like the discipline, time management skills and professional demeanor of the students they meet here. They also tell us that students leave NIU well prepared for real world careers.”

That enthusiasm for NIU graduates holds true for long-time fair participants such as Walgreens, which scheduled interviews with 65 of the students that its recruiters met.

It’s also true for newcomers. Finansure, a residential mortgage lender, approached Henderson at the fair to say that not only would it return but to schedule a meeting to establish an ongoing working relationship with her office.

While the Spring Job Fair is the biggest event of the year on the Career Services calendar, it is just one of many events hosted by the office, all designed to make students more aware of career opportunities and to help them land that first job.

For instance, just one week prior to the Spring Job Fair, Career Services hosted the Spring Internship Fair at the Convocation Center, attracting 95 employers and agencies and 750 students.

Fall versions of both the job and internship fairs drew numbers just slightly lower than their spring counterparts. The department also hosts a job fair specifically for education majors, which draws well.

Career Services staff believe it's never too early for students to begin preparing for the job hunt. They work with students as early as freshman year to make them aware of career testing and counseling services and host seminars on resume-writing and job-interviewing skills.

It's an important part of the NIU experience, Henderson said.

“We call it the Spring Job Fair, but we hold it in February to give our students a jump on everyone else who is going to be graduating and looking for a job in May,” she said. “When they leave NIU, we want them to have not only a diploma in hand, but also a job.”

2-27-06