Hundreds of students attended the Career Fair Wednesday, hoping to speak with professional employers about their possible future careers.
The fair was held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday on the third floor of the Curris Center.
Ross Meloan, director of Career Services, said 86 companies attended the event along with approximately 700 students.
“The Career Services office here at Murray State has been able to act as a liaison between the employment world and the student body,” Meloan said.
Career Services puts on the event each year to give students the opportunity to speak with company representatives about possible internships and to also gain exposure to post-college careers.
“It’s important to let people know that when they attend Murray State University, there is a life after this that they are shooting for,” he said. “And that we can we can offer that exposure through a career fair. So it is extremely important for them to participate, learn, interface and interact with the employers to get that feeling.”
Several employers hosted booths at the Career Fair and they said they were very pleased to see so many interested students. Greg Leath, financial representative for Modern Woodmen of America, said he had about 20 students give him resumes and talked about being interested in a future job.
“From the resumes we collected today, we will email them a career profile to learn about each individual person,” Leath said. “The emails help us determine who is actually interested in a potential job with us.”
Many students who attended the Career Fair were Occupational Safety Health Administration students looking to secure a career.
Beth Cartwright, human resource coordinator for Gerdau, a leading company in the production of long steel, said they were looking for two full-time positions to fill.
“We come here specifically because of OSHA students that Murray State has,” Cartwright said. “We received a bunch of resumes and had pretty good traffic at our booth all day.”
James Hayes, senior OSHA major from Island, Ky., said he attended the Career Fair to network, meet new people and introduce himself to nation-wide companies.
“I have attended the Career Fair each year for the last three years,” Hayes said. “This is by far the best Career Fair I have been to since I have been a student at Murray State.”
Jon Eads, senior Social Work major from Somerset, Ky., said based on the conversations he had with some of the organizations at the event, he thinks he certainly bettered his chances of getting a job in the future.
“Both of the organizations I spoke with were very excited to see me,” Eads said. “I think this is because social service organizations are usually not overtly present at the Career Fairs, because not many students in their field attend the event. I also think coming in prepared made me to be a better candidate and gave a good impression to the organizations.”
Written by Alex Berg, Staff writer.