College career fair offers lots of opportunity
10/14/2008 1:41:42 PM
Forty-two employers, combined with more than 1,000 students, alumni and guests, makes for one successful career fair.
On Oct. 2, College of the North Atlantic (CNA), in partnership with the Memorial University Career and Graduate School Fair, held the third annual Career Fair at its Prince Philip Drive campus in St. John’s.
The Career Fair offers CNA alumni and students the opportunity to meet industry leaders from across Canada in an informal, inviting atmosphere, while offering potential employers the opportunity to meet with the college’s highly sought after students and graduates.
“The CNA Career Fair provides an excellent opportunity to search for permanent positions, part-time opportunities, and co-op placements,” says Mary Murphy, chair of the 2008 Career Fair Planning Committee.
“It is also a prime location to network with potential employers and research career options. The Career Fair is for our students to obtain information from employers on career opportunities, salary expectations, corporate cultures, job requirements, and industry trends.”
She says approximately 1,000 students attended the event from all disciplines including Academics, Applied Arts, Business, Engineering Technology, Health Sciences, Industrial Trades, and Information Technology.
“Students appeared to be actively networking with the exhibitors and judging by the huge number of resumes turned in to various exhibitors, their response was very positive.”
According to Murphy, the Career Fair has always been beneficial to both students and exhibitors which can be proven by the response to the event.
“It was a completely sold out event. We had 42 exhibitors with a wait list of 27 more. We were filled to capacity within a month from the initial announcement of the Career Fair.”
While the exhibitor evaluation forms have not been completed yet, Murphy is confident in the success of the event.
“We will be completing an electronic satisfaction survey over the next week or so but the Career Fair went extremely well. Members of the planning committee visited each and every exhibitor booth to get feedback and the exhibitors were extremely pleased, both with the volume of students who attended and how well prepared they were in terms of their focus, their networking skills, coming with resumes in hand, and overall appearance. They were also impressed with our customer service and the professionalism of our volunteers which included staff and students.”
Murphy says students will also complete a satisfaction survey that will be used to improve upon the Career Fair for 2009.
“Putting off a Career Fair takes a tremendous amount of effort and teamwork. We could not have put off such a successful event without the help and support of so many within the college,” says Murphy.
“From physical operations and food service staff; to campus administration, faculty, and staff; to the many volunteers needed to pull off the event, the students for attending; and lastly the dedicated Career Fair Planning Committee.”
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For more information contact:
Glenda McCarthy
Public Relations Assistant
College of the North Atlantic
(709) 643-6408
glenda.mccarthy@cna.nl.ca