Deborah Souverain/Assistant News Director
With the nation’s unemployment rate hovering at 10 percent and a job market providing bleak opportunities for recent graduates, FIU’s Career Fair is becoming an increasingly essential resource for graduating students.
In efforts to better the prospects of landing a job relative to a student’s area of study, the Career Services office on the Biscayne Bay Campus is hosting its annual Career Fair on Oct. 5th, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Over two-dozen companies from around Miami have registered for the five-hour event, ranging in areas from hospitality, education and health.
“We looked at the various majors offered [at BBC], and we looked at employers that would correlate to the majors we offer, said the Associate Director of BBC Career Services, Harold Clayton.
In hopes of preparing students for the event, Career Services is holding a series of workshops during their Mega Career Week, which began on Se. 28th.
The workshops includes resume writing, interviewing skills and a “How To Prepare For Career Fair” session, where students will be taught the do’s and don’ts of attending a job fair.
“Many students come to career fairs and ask ‘what do I do?’ ‘What do I wear?’ so we ask them to come in to the workshops,” said Clayton.
Career Services also plans to hold mock interviews on September 29th lead by a recruiter to give students an opportunity to get real-life feedback from an employer.
For many, this career fair couldn’t have come at a better time. Giovanni Maselli a journalism major who is graduating this fall and currently holds an internship with CBS4 News, hopes to walk away from the job fair with at least one potential interview.
“Its nerve-recking graduating into this weird situation. I’m hoping things start getting better before I graduate,” said Maselli.
The government recently reported no job growth during the month of august, and Florida alone has an unemployment rate of 10.7 percent, higher than the national rate, a fact that scares Maselli.
“I am very worried about what is going to happen after I graduate. You used to be able to graduate and have some sort of job guarantee but now, the market is in the process of changing, leading to an awkward moment for us graduates since we don’t know what we are graduating to,” said Maselli. “It’s pretty frightening.”
According to a report in the New York Times, not only have employment rates for recent graduates plummeted in the last two years but starting salaries have also taken a hit.
Students graduating from a four-year universities entering the job field in 2009 and 2010 received a median starting salary of $27,000, down from $30,000 for those who entered the workforce two years prior, according to a study released by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
The work force is beginning to resemble what some might refer to as a battlefield where only the strong survive, and landing an interview can often be a great feat in itself; however, for Clayton, it’s as simple as just being prepared.
“We want students to come prepared, the first impression is a lasting impression.”
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