Social & Behavioral Sciences Career Fair full of opportunities

Joshua Schuetz
Staff Writer

Graduation is on the horizon, and for many students, the job hunt is beginning. It is a scary and exciting time, full of opportunity and missed sleep.

Job hunting is tough; leads can be hard to come by, a job-seeker might have no idea what kind of career interests them or what companies are hiring. For inexperienced job-seekers, (a category which most college students fall into) it’s even harder.

That’s why the Career Development Center, along with the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, sponsored a career and internship fair Tuesday. It began at 9:30 a.m., and lasted till 1 p.m. in the afternoon.

“Many of the employers here came specifically because they’re targeting social and behavioral science majors,” said Matt Carlson, an Assistant Director at the Career Development Center, who specializes in helping students in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. “We have 91 tables with employers at them. We have almost two hundred recruiters here,” Mr. Carlson said.

The employers came from a diverse set of fields. Insurance companies, law-enforcement agencies, county and municipal governments, and nonprofits were all present.

Among these employers were Ameriprise Financial, the City of Minneapolis Police Department, Progressive Insurance, and the Habitat for Humanity.

“This is a great way to get all of these employers in one room. You can talk to a lot of people and get a lot of work done in a very short period of time,” Carlson said.

One of the most important goals of any college career fair is to help students build and nourish relationships with employers that will translate into professional success. “The target here is to connect and network, but the end result of that is interviews and opportunities for internships and jobs,” Carlson stated.

This wasn’t the last career fair either. There will be a future career fair for students from diverse backgrounds. 

For aspiring students, defining success is an important first step to achieving it. “The most important thing is to know who you are, why you’re doing this, and where you want to go. You need to start with what success would look like for you,” Carlson said. “Everybody has a different plan, everybody has a different goal, and so if you know who you are and what you want, that’s half the battle of getting to where you want to get to.”

Feature photo from Reporter Archives.