DePauw students spent their Valentine's Day lunch hour looking for jobs they could fall in love with at the 14th Annual Career, Job and Internship Fair yesterday.
Over thirty employers, including Angie's List, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and Indianapolis Motor Speedway set up booths in the Union Building lobby and ballroom in hopes of finding the next round of passionate new employees.
"We're looking for that outgoing person with a lot of enthusiasm that we think will be a good fit," said Nikki Secrest, talent acquisition specialist for Enterprise Holdings. Enterprise Holdings is the company that handles Enterprise Rent-a-Car, as well as Alamo and National car rental groups.
Career fairs provide students with a place to meet several employers, pass out their resumes and begin the networking process. Often, employers will contact students they meet at career fairs in hiring.
"[Career fairs] are probably my best resource for recruitment," Jessica Willoughby said, a campus recruiter from Northwestern Mutual who looks solely for potential interns. "I will reach out to the ones I think will make a good fit, to have that initial conversation and an initial interview."
DePauw's Civic, Global and Professional Opportunities office has seen a lot of success from its career fairs.
"I was just talking to a student who met one of our employers at a career fair in the fall and has a potential opportunity on the table," Erin Mahoney, assistant director of professional opportunities said. "The Indiana State Museum tries to have a DePauw student intern with them every year, and they use the career fair as that avenue."
DePauw alumni will often use career fairs to connect with current students and to find potential new hires.
"When Senator Lugar was in office, Amy Huffman who is an alum, would regularly come back and take students from either our fall fair or our spring fair," Mahoney said.
DePauw's career fairs usually reach about 10 percent of the campus, and students from all classes will attend.
"[DePauw] is fairly unique," Mahoney said. "A lot of my colleagues at other schools cannot get their students to job fairs. I think our students understand that they can come here and meet a lot of people. For them, it's probably a time management thing."
"I think that I have definitely found some good options," Hendrickson said. "I think that it's something you have to make time for. Your future is probably more important than anything else you're doing at 11 a.m on a Thursday."