More than doubling the amount of employers from previous years, Chaminade’s Job Fair on Wednesday, Sept. 17, offered more than 25 vendors. To accommodate this growth, for the first time in years, Chaminade moved its annual event from the beautiful outdoors by Henry Hall to inside the Ching Conference Center.
“I preferred it in the Ching Conference Center because it had AC, so I wasn’t sweating,” said senior John Fukumoto. “Especially because I wanted to look more professional so I was wearing more heavier clothes.”
Angela McGough, director of Career Services at Chaminade, was happy with the event.
“I like it much better up here,” she said. “And the recruiters did because it wasn’t so hot.”
The location was nicer for students not only because of the AC but also for the environment. In Henry Hall, there is a lot of traffic from students getting lunch or just passing through. With the Job Fair at the Conference Center it was more personal and offered a professional atmosphere, with fewer distractions and noise.
Junior Kayleen Terayama, a Business major, liked the privacy of this event.
“Putting it in Ching was a little bit better because in Henry Hall people might see you so it would change which booth you’d visit,” she said.
Chaminade’s National Honor Society, Delta Epsilon Iota, did an excellent job running the event. It kept the employers comfortable as well as the students, providing them with free snacks. Career Services was also able to monitor the number of people attending.
McGough said that Delta Epsilon Iota handed out more than 150 surveys to students coming into the fair.
Offered every fall, Career Services organizes this fair for anyone interested in finding part-time work. It tries to invite employers that are hiring to give students an easier opportunity to find a job. Most of the companies were accepting applications and even doing onsite interviews.
McGough said 21 of the 28 employers at the Job Fair have hired Chaminade students in the past. One employer reported having hired 6 students from the last career event it attended. While much of the feedback from the employers was positive, McGough reported that many of them wished students brought a résumé with them.
In the future, McGough plans to use the entire space in Ching Conference Center to host around 35 companies.
“I think that definitely was the right group of people to bring, and I feel like it was definitely a success,” McGough said.