“Level Up,” a free career readiness event, will take place on Tuesday from 12:30-3:30 p.m. at the University Business Center at Fresno State. 

The event is hosted by the Craig School of Business (CSB) and primarily organized by Stacy Bragaw, a member of the business school’s Dean’s office. 

“It is designed to help students get better prepared to enter the workforce,” Bragaw said. “It allows students to come to this event in their time frame that works for them.”

The website says that students will be offered resume guidance, quick mentoring, mock interviews, expert advice for various career paths and professional headshots. 

Bragaw said she mentioned the concept of creating an event like “Level Up” when she and the rest of the team heard feedback from community members that students, graduated or not, were not ready or prepared as they should be for the workforce. 

Community members also approached the college wanting to donate funds for further student opportunities for career readiness. 

“With that, we kind of reviewed what was already available on campus and what we could do that’s more specific to the business industry,” Bragaw said. 

The CSB brings in career experts from the valley to contribute their expertise to the event. These community members will be the ones guiding the students through the mock interviews, providing them with the headshots and also participating in a career panel. 

“We also do a career panel with a few community members as well as recent alumni that can come in and speak to the students about the process, how they got hired, the tips and tricks,” Bragaw said. 

In the school’s last “Level Up” event, their career panel included one member who was newly retired, one who was currently in the midst of the workforce and one who was a recent alum, new to the job market. 

As for the community members who will be attending and participating in the event, Bragaw said that they reached out to a wide variety of professionals from different industries within the business community. 

The CSB encapsulates six different departments: Accountancy, economics, finance and business law, information systems and decision sciences, management and marketing and logistics. 

“The thing about business is that you can get hired in a lot of different industries with a business degree so we try to get a wide sloth of community members to come in that have experience … then the kids kind of get to choose,” Bragaw said. 

This being said, she said there were possibilities of professionals from financial planning companies, banking industries or car dealerships being present, just to name a few. 

This is now the second time that the CSB is hosting the “Level Up” event. The inaugural launch was in the Fall 2025 and according to Bragaw, due to the high demand among students, there are plans to continue providing this event for students. 

“We were hoping maybe we’d get about 25 students that could come because it’s a new event and sometimes it’s hard to get students to come to things,” Bragaw said. “We ended up with over 150 students, so then we were like ‘OK, students really need this. They want this.’”

The CSB hopes to bring “Level Up” to students twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring, according to Bragaw. She said that they intend on continuing to build on the event as time goes on and further down the line, potentially bringing in business community supporters from the Bay Area or Los Angeles, to widen the range. 

As for this year, something different they are including that was not present last year is industry tabling. Three businesses were picked to table at the event and offer deeper intel into what working for those workforces is like. 

Two of these businesses are an accounting firm and a financial planning company. The school is also adding a table for postgraduate programs in an effort to guide students who are interested in that path. 

As the CSB continues to host the “Level Up” events every year, they will continuously open the door to feedback from students and community members, growing the event and offering students as much guidance for their business career paths as possible before they graduate, according to Bragaw.