PNW organizes Career Fair

Mohammed Majid, Staff Writer|October 7, 2016

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A'Lisa Williams

Daniel Paschen, junior marketing major, visits a table at the career fair.

The PNW Career Center organized a one-day career fair for Fall 2016 on Sept. 30 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event was open to current students, alumni and other community members. Around 80 employers showed up at the event.

One of the major attractions at the event was ArcelorMittal. The company, which operates in more than 60 countries, caught the attention of many job seekers. Personnel from the U.S. Army also showed up at the event.

Aysheh Haytham Yusuf, strategic event coordinator for the Career Center, said the turnout of the job seekers was fairly good.

”Usually, Fall events are busy. I want the turnout to improve. Probably we can do more marketing for the future events,” Haytham Yusuf said.

As for the motivation behind the career fair, Natalie Connors, director of the Career Center, said they are tasked with getting PNW students positive career outcomes.

“This includes getting a part-time or full-time job, an internship or even graduate school admission. We expect more job seekers to show up at the event,” Connors said.

Connors advised the new graduates to follow up with the employers they met at the fair to secure a job.

“The event was successful overall. We might probably change the fair timings to the afternoon for the future sessions,” Connors said.

Mike Morley, lead engineer at ArcelorMittal who is also a Purdue University graduate, was present at the event.

“We are here because of PNW’s good record of educated and qualified students. We have been recruiting from PNW for a long time. We stopped for some time and are back after around three years,” Morley said.

Morley said that Purdue students meet their expectations. Since the students live close to the university, they are familiar with the area, which is advantageous to many other companies, too.

“They should know about the company. We look at their degree, GPA, graduation date and work experience. New graduates can show work ethics from their school projects, community service, etc. They should show their commitment to work. We look forward to coming back in spring 2017,” Morley said.