More than 900 students met more than 370 recruiters at the BankUnited Center this past Friday at the Career Expo and Graduate School Fair hosted by Toppel Career Center. Each semester, the event connects UM students and alumni with local and national employers and graduate schools.
Employers from a variety of industries attended the event, recruiting students of all majors for full-time and part-time jobs and internships in many areas including business, healthcare, government, science and technology. This included successful and well-known companies such as Visa Inc., H&M, Geico and Dannon.
Many students were offered follow-up interviews on the spot, including sophomore Sophie Schumer, who was offered an interview this coming week for a position as account manager with Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and Financial Services.
A representative from Target, Igor Luque, said that recruiting at college levels “takes priority for [them],” and that the company spends a lot of time recruiting at universities for positions in executive team leadership and store management. He added that he personally knows UM alumni who work for Target.
One UM alum, Omri Saadi, was recruiting this year after getting a full-time position through last spring’s Career Expo. Saadi, who now works for Lennar Corporation after graduating in spring 2015, met a supervisor at the last career fair. He followed up with two rounds of interviews and is now a full-time employee.
“I am starting in an 18-month rotational program, which is basically a full-time training period, and will then move up the ranks with time,” Saadi said.
All attendees wore professional business attire and brought multiple copies of their resume. Everyone was provided with a map of the fair floor plan that showed the locations of each organization. The tables were grouped in sections of general employers, graduate programs and science, technology, engineering and math programs. All of the recruiters were accessible, and some would approach students themselves.
Toppel provided tote bags so that students could collect the informational pamphlets and souvenirs that the companies gave out.
The event was months in the making, and the specific date was set in April. The career center sent out lists of participating companies and organizations to alumni and students via email, giving attendees plenty of time to conduct research and prepare.
Toppel is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary, commemorating two decades of helping students seek and pursue jobs and internships. The center provides career advising, resume critiques and company information sessions.