Career Expo Offers Students Early Access to Region's Leading Employers

A record number of St. John’s students, recent graduates and recruiters participated in the University’s Career Expo and Academic Internship Fair at the Queens, NY, campus on October 3.

Held in the Taffner Field House, the event drew 2,032 students, a 76 percent increase over similar events last year. They met representatives from 155 prospective employers—including corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations—a 23 percent increase. Fifteen organizations, including Bloomberg L.P., JetBlue Airways and the Central Park Conservancy, took part for the first time.

View the photo gallery from the Career Expo and Academic Internship Fair

“The impressive turnout reflects even greater outreach to students and the decision to fuse the Academic Internship Fair, which was sponsored by the College of Professional Studies, with the job fair traditionally hosted by University Career Services,” said Denise Hopkins, Executive Director of University Career Services. “We merged them to better serve employers that have more than one kind of position to fill and to expand offerings for students, whose work requirements depend on their year of study and area of discipline.”

Undecided major Samantha Fabien ’17C was pleased to discover that, in addition to internships, many employers offer students the opportunity to “shadow” an employee for a day. “Participating in a few shadowing days will help me decide on a major,” she said.

Kimberly Lapierre ’17Pharm.D. met with recruiters from Winthrop-University Hospital, NYU Langone Medical Center and Duane Reade.  “I was able to talk to representatives from hospitals and pharmacy companies, the two sectors I am considering working in as a clinical pharmacist,” she said.

“Our goal,” said Hopkins, “is to give all interested students the chance to meet with a broad range of employers as they navigate a rapidly changing work environment.  We also recognize that given the challenges of our current economic environment, our students need frequent and early exposure to a range of industries and employment options.”

Lakia Holmes ’15CPS, a sport management major who hopes to secure a media relations position with an athletic team after graduation, found the event well worth her time.“One of the recruiters I talked to actually gave me an appointment to meet with her company two weeks from now,” she said.

Several students commented on the Expo’s streamlined organization. “The recruiters were arranged alphabetically, which made it easy to find all the firms I wanted to talk to,” said Jian Xun Zheng ’14TCB, an accounting major, who submitted résumés to  several companies and obtained  information not available on corporate websites. “Meeting recruiters in person is a very effective way to get to know more about the company’s workplace environment,” he said.

Recruiters were equally pleased with the event. “With the two fairs now combined, we are able to interview a broader cross-section of students at different stages in their development,” said Lee Manning, Senior Recruiter at The Coca-Cola Company. “This enhances the pipeline relationship we have with the St. John’s community.”

Dawn Thompson, a campus recruiter with Ernst & Young’s New York office, has taken part in St. John’s job and academic internship fairs for the past 10 years. “We are continually impressed by the number of student interns we’ve hired through these fairs who have gone on to become full-time employees,” she said. “The diversity of St. John’s student body is a good fit with our company’s global mindset.”

Manning added, “Many of the St. John’s graduates we’ve hired for entry-level positions have risen to become executives with Coca-Cola. St. John’s is a premier school in the New York marketplace and an ideal recruiting ground for hiring employees who want to work in the city.”