Students and alumni network at fall career expo

Richmond students seeking employment and internship opportunities flocked to the Robins Center to learn about employers and the professional recruitment process at the Fall Spider Career Expo last Tuesday, organized by the Office of Alumni and Career Services.

Sandy Turnage, associate director of employer relationships at Career Services, said this year’s expo brought in a wider range of companies in different fields than past “corporate” expos.

“We’ve [changed] not just the name, but also the outreach to the employers to hopefully bring more organizations to campus, and then also help students of a variety of majors and backgrounds connect to those opportunities,” Turnage said.

Since it costs money to send employees to recruiting events, firms only attend recruiting events if they believe it will be worth their time.

“Every recruiter is looking for the return on their investment,” Turnage said. “They’re looking at travel costs, and they’re looking at productivity, and all of those things have a value within the organization, and the best way to show a return is on our hiring numbers.”

Mike Vivirito, Richmond College '15, attended the event to learn more about companies he was interested in applying to and finding new opportunities.

“I just wanted to gain exposure with a lot of different firms, some of them I wasn’t quite familiar with beforehand, and some of them I was,” Vivirito said. “The last place I went was FBR Bank, and the individual that was speaking for the company was incredibly engaging … I never probably would’ve known about them, maybe I would’ve dropped a resumé on SpiderConnect, but I realistically wouldn’t have thought about it in as serious of a way as I am now.”

Kirsten Petrocelli, project manager at Career Services, said even freshmen and sophomores benefited from attending networking events.

“It’s just another opportunity for a student to get out there and tell their story, and the more times they tell it, the better they’ll get at it,” Petrocelli said.

Ben Howard, RC ’14, discovered ICF International, where he now works as a junior business analyst, through last year’s fall career expo, and returned to campus to represent ICF at the expo last week.

“I wanted to get involved in the recruiting process because I thought it would be an interesting way to reach out to former connections,” Howard said. "I know that when I was going through the whole [job search] process, it was always great to see alumni.”

Turnage said organizations found value in using Richmond alumni to recruit on campus.

“The number one [recruiting] strategy is to get their alumni involved,” Turnage said. “We have such a tight-knit community here at Richmond, and so student-to-student networking or alumni-to-student networking is a powerful connection.”

For students on the hunt for employment, Howard shared some advice.

“I think it’s really easy for people to kind of get all worked up and inside their head that they have to be this image of what they think somebody with a job is like,” Howard said. “It’s really a two-way street. You’re trying to make sure that the company’s a good fit for you too.”

Contact Collegian reporter Jesse Siebentritt at jesse.siebentritt@richmond.edu