Ohio State students meet with potential employers during the 2024 Spring Career Fair. Credit: Courtesy of Arts and Sciences Career Success
Career-ready Buckeyes can soon flock to the Ohio Union in snappy business wear with crisply printed resumes in hand for the 20th annual Spring Career Fair.
Open to current students and recent graduates alike, the fair will take place Jan. 21 from 1-5 p.m. in the Union’s Archie M. Griffin Grand Ballroom and Performance Hall. The College of Arts and Sciences is managing the event, but a wide range of disciplines will be represented, from business analysis to laboratory research to graphic design to diplomacy.
Aaron Klein, assistant director of industry connections in Arts and Sciences Career Success, said he expects around 200 employers to be present at the event. This number has grown twofold since the first fair in 2006, at which around 100 employers were present, said Scott Kustis, director of industry connections for Arts and Sciences Career Success.
The Spring Career Fair was established 20 years ago to bridge the gap employers saw in the typical college recruitment methods, as smaller networking events were not bringing in a wide enough range of talent and skills, Kustis said.
“Especially if it’s a major corporation or a large federal agency, they’re not only recruiting for one small discipline,” Kustis said. “They really are recruiting for needs across an organization that might include everything from communications to data to human resources to marketing, and they want to be able to capture all the students in one place at one time, and that just didn’t exist for whatever reason at that time.”
After a dip in employer interest due to the Great Recession in 2008, registration began to pick up around 2012, when around 150 employers attended the event, Kustis said. This number has only grown over the past 13 years.
The value of career fairs has solidified in recent years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kustis said. Though many employers thought virtual fairs could be the way of the present and future, students pushed back.
“What we have found is that the students really love having an in-person opportunity,” Kustis said. “So, obviously, people can apply to things online. A lot of employers in later years have tried to do things virtually, but I think it was really that synergy of that missing piece of being able to have that face-to-face moment when you get to introduce yourself; it’s part of the beginning of a networking process between you, and the recruiters and that particular company’s recruiting strategy.”
Klein said the process of applying to jobs online can feel “emotionless” for students and recruiters.
“You’re not able to gauge interactions or gauge feedback,” Klein said. “You can’t really showcase who you are as a student and all of your accolades outside of your resume, right? And that’s what we tell students: ‘Yes, it’s a resume, but it’s also having those networking skills, and it’s also knowing how to talk to recruiters.’”
The upcoming fair is a valuable chance for students from all areas of study to find what they are looking for in an employer, Kustis said.
“There’s a wealth of opportunities for all students, regardless of what college, or major or background that they might be coming from,” Kustis said. “And so, you know, certain students from certain majors or certain areas of the university will find pockets of what they’re looking for, but it’s going to be representative of just a larger variety of opportunities across the board.”
Notably, Klein said around 1,200 students are expected to attend the fair throughout the day.
“I think one of the nice things about this fair is that it’s within the first couple weeks of the spring semester,” Klein said. “So for students, it’s already top of mind, and they can start the semester strong by going to this event and really finding these opportunities.”
Employers register to attend the fair through Handshake — Ohio State’s job and internship position-posting system — which allows students to research the companies or organizations they are interested in prior to attending the fair, Kustis said.
“It might be to a student’s advantage to look over the roster of organizations that are registered ahead of time and start to come up with a plan and a strategy of who they’re going to target and learn a little bit more about,” Kustis said. “Maybe [there are] some organizations that are unfamiliar to them, and they can do a little bit of preparatory research in terms of who they might want to visit at the fair.”
Besides conducting background research, students can go one step further in their preparation by printing multiple copies of their resumes and dressing in business-professional attire, said Scott Keyes, events senior coordinator for Arts and Sciences Career Success.
“What I try to tell students — just over the course of years when I work with young people — [is to] come as if you wanted somebody to hire you right on the spot,” Keyes said.
Arts and Sciences Career Success also operates a Career Studio in room 100 of Denney Hall, which functions as a drop-in space for students seeking career advice, resume and cover letter editing or general help with job or internship searching, according to the studio’s webpage.
Jake Sigafoos, marketing manager for Arts and Sciences Career Success, said the studio can help students feel more confident about their professional materials and networking skills prior to the fair.
“Our peer career coaches can walk you through anything, from resume cleanup and prep [to] LinkedIn profile cleanup,” Sigafoos said. “They can help you with some practice questions; they can at least get you feeling a little bit more comfortable with your situation before you actually go into the event.”
Students can indicate interest in attending the Spring Career Fair on the Handshake website, though preregistration is not required.
For current students, a valid BuckID is required to enter the fair, according to the Handshake website.
