Fresno State Career Services is hosting two job fairs at the Satellite Student Union this week to give students the opportunity to meet with prospective employers.
The Business & Liberal Arts Job Fair will be held Tuesday, meanwhile the Ag, Engineering & Science Job Fair will be held Wednesday. Both fairs will run between 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.
The fairs will each host 56 employers with the attending companies mostly looking for full-time employees or interns.
“It’s important to come to these events, whether you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior, because there is so much you can get out of attending a job fair,” said Stephen Davis, employer services, events & recruiting specialist.
“A lot of times nowadays, you apply for positions online and you just become a number in the system, where with a job fair, you are actually in a sense going to a screening process.”
Attending job fairs also helps students develop their interpersonal and communication skills and learn how to approach employers. For the younger students, Davis said, it’s about preparing for their senior years when they are ready to graduate, or their junior years when they’re looking for internships.
“You’re finding information out about the companies, what they do, if you’re interested, and it’s a great way to get those internships,” she said. “One of the reasons [employers] don’t hire is because the students don’t have any internship experience.”
Job fairs give students the opportunity to talk to multiple employers all in one location, something that students should be taking advantage of, Davis said.
“Where else are you going to get that kind of opportunity?” she said.
Students are recommended to come to the job fairs and treat it like a job interview. Davis said be dressed to impress and prepared. With the possible opportunity of employers offering interviews on the spot, Davis recommended students to bring at least 20 to 25 resumes for the day and to have a “30 second elevator speech.”
“An elevator speech is your 30 second speech that you’re going to give to an employer to let them know about yourself,” Davis said. “You can also use that time to ask questions.”
The fairs will feature big name companies such as PepsiCo, Walgreens and Kohl’s, as well as smaller companies that students might not have heard about. Davis said the small companies are the ones the majority of students end up at.
“The majority of the companies do have locally based offices,” Davis said. “There will be a lot of Central Valley organizations here at this event. As well as out-of-state and in the southern region, Los Angeles and Ventura, and up north in the bay.”
