Students seek employment at university career fair

Hundreds of hopeful students met with potential employers at the University of Oklahoma’s annual Spring Career Fair. Attracting over 1,100 participants, the fair gave students the opportunity to stand out to employers from the teeming crowd of candidates. This year, 97 organizations attended, an unusually high number according to the event’s co-sponsor OU Career Services.

This career fair comes at an imperative time. The United States Department of Labor reports that unemployment among Millenials rose in January 2013 to 13.1 percent, the highest the statistic has been since the summer of 2012.

Energy corporations such as Lyondell Basell attended
PHOTO: Catherine Combes

OU Career Services Director Bette Scott claims students cannot afford to be too specific in the current job market.

“Your first job is just your first job,” Scott states. “It’s not where you’ll end up when you’re retired. You take that [first job] and the activities you are a part of and go on to the next job”.

Though Career Services provides many helpful tools and information, the process of finding employment remains daunting for graduates.

“Students wait too long to start their job search,” notes Scott. “They should’ve spent their whole senior year learning about the job process. It’s scary, and they don’t know what they want to do. So they put it off.”

Senior general management major Isabel Nierwinski is an example. She did not begin her job search until the spring semester and came to Wednesday’s fair hoping to connect with her future employer.

“The biggest challenge is getting over the fear and intimidation of talking to all these people,” claims Nierwinski. “Once you do, though, it’s not such a big deal.”

General management continues to be a growing field. Nierwinski remains optimistic about finding her first job and is not worried about the possibility of looking to other fields for employment.

“[General management] is what I’ve been going to school for for the past four years,” she asserts. “If I had to [look into other career fields], I would, but I want to try to find something that matches my interests and what I stand for.”

Not everyone, however, is as fortunate. OU Career Services encourages all students, no matter what year or major, to come by their offices on the third floor of the Oklahoma Memorial Union for help in preparing for life after graduation. Students can also find helpful tools and information at their website www.ou.edu/career.