Students, recruiters hope to find right fit at PSU Fall Career Days

More than 1,900 Penn State undergraduate students sported their best business professional attire and carried copies of newly polished resumes as they wandered through the Bryce Jordan Center, hoping to snag an employment opportunity.

Penn State’s Fall Career Days kicked off Tuesday with a focus on non-technical full-time positions.

It drew 240 recruiters, with a total of 526 confirmed companies expected to attend over the event’s three-day span.

With a steady unemployment rate of 4.9 percent, Career Fair coordinator Megan Foster said students would find success if they kept an open mind.

“(Recruiters) are ready to hire, so as long as our Penn Staters come ready they’re good to go,” Foster said.

Foster said even if students don’t land an offer, it’s still important to gain networking experience and professional advice.

An alumni recruiter for SCA, Donielle Jackson said she’s trying to bring more Penn State students into the company, which emphasizes global hygiene and forest products.

Currently, SCA has more than 100 openings in the United States for recent graduates and experienced professionals, she said.

“We definitely think it’s a great caliber of students (at Penn State),” Jackson said. “The curriculum is fantastic, and we think it produces great talent.”

Jocelyn Calma, a recruiter for Norfolk Southern, said the Class I railroad company typically has 200 new hires every year, many being recent college graduates.

At the fair, Calma said she was actively recruiting engineering, business and technology majors.

“Being a transportation company, the railroad depends a lot on the economy,” Calma said. “But, with the full-time positions, which is our management training program, we’re pretty steady over the year.”

Confronting today’s dynamic economic landscape, some recruiters said recent graduates might be better off than previous generations entering the labor force.

Carrie Whisel, a recruiter for Dick’s Sporting Goods, said it’s a good time to be in the retail industry, especially with the rise of new consumer behaviors and related challenges.

“From a university perspective, we hire about 100 students from the corporate and the store side,” Whisel said. “We recruit business majors — about 80 percent of our new hires are business.”

Aiming to get a full-time position in logistics operations, Patrick White, a senior from Salem, N.Y., studying management information systems, said he felt optimistic about his industry’s job prospects.

“My major — it’s very new, it’s up and coming,” White said. “A lot of people are looking to fill positions.”

But for, Bobby Cazonie, a “super senior” from the Schuylkill campus studying psychology, the event could have been better.

“Compared to someone that’s a business major or even a criminal justice major — they could be spread out in so many different (industries),” Cazonie said. “With psychology, we’re very valuable. But, it’s very tough — it seems limited in selection.”

Wednesday’s event, focusing on internship and co-op recruiting, is expected to attract the largest crowd of 6,500 students, Foster said.

Foster said Thursday, which is geared toward technical full-time recruiting, will bring in about 2,300 students.

Attendance rates for both students and recruiters remains consistent with data from Fall Career Days over the past two years.

This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 11:42 PM with the headline "Students, recruiters hope to find right fit at PSU Fall Career Days."