UCSB students and potential employers alike dressed to impress at Wednesday’s Career Fair. The event, which occurs every quarter, continues today with a second day specifically for science and engineering majors. The fair is in Corwin Pavilion from 11 – 2, with
early admission at 10 a.m. for those with a pass from Career Services. Will Tran/Daily Nexus.
Career Services held the first day of its Fall Career Fair yesterday at Corwin Pavilion, with a second day open only to science, technology and engineering students, open today.
The fair, which happens every quarter, features a slew of national companies such as Yelp, Target, Microsoft, SolarCity and Oracle, along with local companies such as Raytheon and AppFolio. Although the event is free for all students, alumni are welcome with a nominal fee paid two days in advance.
According to Career Services counselor Molly Steen, the fair usually attracts a turnout of about 600 to 800 students.
“It’s a good number of students that come through and take advantage of this,” Steen said.
Annie Phung, a fourth-year communication major and member of business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi, one of the fair sponsors, said her organization has been busy trying to promote the event by passing out flyers, posters and making announcements. She said the fair is a good opportunity not only to come into contact with potential employers, but to gain employment-seeking skills.
“You just come and talk to people,” Phung said. “It is also good practice for them to look professional; to communicate on a casual, yet professional level with employers face-to-face.”
Carolina Feria, a fourth-year sociology and Spanish double major and member of Teach for America, said she is excited be on the other side of job hunt, helping students get career experience.
“There is so much potential in all these students, and the fact that I was on the other side last year and I’m helping them now is so amazing,” Feria said. “You can tell the difference between somebody who takes the initiative to bring a resume, somebody who takes the initiative to have everything clean and somebody who takes the initiative to really stand out is really great.”
Alumna Kristie Reynolds, who represented Macy’s, said there are certain steps students can do to improve their chances of landing a job.
“Be prepared,” Reynolds said. “Definitely look up all the companies that are going to be at the career fair that you’re interested in. I think you need to know what positions that they have available … and know what you want to go into and be prepared with the experience that you have and how to sell yourself at the career fair.”
Electrical engineering major Daren Jing said he focused on writing a good resume to get an internship for electrical or computer engineering. He said the career fair makes the job search easily accessible for all students.
“This [is] good because I can talk to those people, those employees and learn more about their company,” Jing said. “I don’t need to go online and search [for] each company. It takes a lot of time, but here, I can talk to each [person] and hand out my resume.”
Reynolds said students will learn about the career options they’ll have during and after college.
“I hope that they’ll get good experience in learning how to network and find out what’s out there for them and how UCSB can really help them develop their careers after college,” she said.
A version of this story appeared on page 14 of Thursday, October 23, 2014’s print edition of the Daily Nexus.
