Even though the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Career Fair had a record number of employers attend, not all students found what they were looking for at the McKimmon Center Monday. 

After two previous weather cancellations, Woody Catoe, CHASS associate director for the Career Development Center said he was pleased the fair happened at all.

“We were very fortunate that they actually had a space over here that we could even do it,” Catoe said. “It’s the latest we’ve ever done a fair.”

The Eastern North Carolina Career Alliance, a consortium of eight participating universities, sponsored the fair, which Catoe said helped attract the 78 employers because it pooled students from surrounding colleges and provided attendees with a “bigger advantage.”

“I was thinking it was going to be pretty big, and what I saw was that it was pretty small, it wasn’t that diverse and most of it was related to healthcare and business,” said Sachin Gaikwad, a student at Methodist University studying computer science. “I mean, I did find something, but there weren’t too many. At a certain level it was good, but at other points, I think it could’ve been better.”

Meredith Vertrees, a sophomore in communication media, also said she noticed a lack of variety at the fair.

“It was cellphones, finance, and no-name graduate schools,” Vertrees said.

Michelle Gardner, a senior in public policy, said although she enjoyed the “face-to-face interaction” with employers and learned things she couldn’t find on employers’ websites, she said she was disappointed to see so many corporate and sales representatives at the fair because she wanted to find a job in government.

“I thought it was kind of strange also that there were a lot of I.T. jobs here for a CHASS fair,” Gardner said.

According to Catoe, colleges within the consortium include business within their liberal-arts programs, causing finance, corporate and sales employers to flock to the fair.

“This is a common complaint, because you have such a large variety within CHASS itself,” Catoe said. “The other side of that, though, is this really is a nice advantage for CHASS students, as well. What I tell students typically is, even though a company may be a financial-services company, they may very well likely need people in marketing, or public relations, or communication.”

Those looking for opportunities with businesses such as Lemuel Nicholls, a student at Methodist University majoring in computer information technology with a concentration in business administration, did give a more positive reviews.

“To a certain extent, I did find it helpful,” Nicholls said. “I decided on whether to go to the workforce or go back to school, so it’s given me a lot of options in both aspects and given me a lot to think about.”

Calais Johnson, a senior in environmental sustainability at Meredith College, said she took advantage of the fair’s networking opportunities.

“My goal after I graduate is to work for a corporation and help them reduce their impact on the environment, so I was kind of talking to a little bit of everybody,” Johnson said. “I think this has been a great experience. I’ve been to career fairs here before, and I think the organization of this one has been way better and way more fluid than fairs I’ve been to in the past.” 

Melvin Hidalgo, a senior in computer information technology at Methodist University, also said he talked to many employers, but while he said some were “thorough” others lacked knowledge of their own companies.

“There was this one company that was about software development, but the two guys who were representing the company didn’t know anything about the IT side of the company and about the software development,” Hidalgo said. “They were more finance and sales, which was really disappointing because the profile of the company made it look really interesting, especially in my field since I’m a software developer.”

Overall, Catoe said attendees should not judge the career fair by whether they found the job they were looking for, because finding that first job requires a combination of factors, such as the resume, networking, job searching and talking to people about your “career story.”

“All of that comes into play and the career fair is just one more component of that larger package,” Catoe said. “If they come just expecting it to deliver the absolute job, they’ll probably come away disappointed.”