Monday, February 23, 2009

Report from the Career Fair

The Spring Career Fair was held last week, and for those junior and senior job hunters that may have missed it, your roving reporter made the hike to Stamp and talked with a number of students and employers about finding a job in health. Here's a hint: they're hiring.

The employers listed in the article are linked, so click on them for information about what they do. See below for the article:

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Stephanie Nguyen is worried. A senior Kinesiology major in the School of Public Health, Nguyen is concerned that she won’t be able to find a job in the health care sector when she graduates in May.

To improve her odds, Nguyen polished up her resume and attended the Spring Career Fair, held over three days last week in the Stamp Student Union. While other sectors of the economy may be suffering, the fair delivered a welcome message to health students like Nguyen: health care is hiring.

“I think the healthcare industry is certainly one of the safest places to be,” said Jessica Krawchyk, a corporate recruiter for Maxim Healthcare, a medical staffing company. Krawchyk says that their company has increased its revenue over the last year and has not had to lay off any workers, and sees that across her industry, companies are in a stable financial position.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Krawchyk’s feelings of security are not uncommon. Seven of the 20 fastest growing occupations in the U.S. are in health care, said a recent report from the BLS, which also stated that the industry will create 3 million new jobs in the next decade, more than any other industry.

Krawchyk was recruiting for full-time staff positions at the career fair, as was Rebekah Macfie, a representative from a health-aimed non-profit, the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. While other non-profits are struggling to stay afloat, Macfie said that her organization is actually getting bigger.

“We are trying to expand our organization despite the economic conditions,” Macfie said.

Macfie said that students looking to work in the health care sector should have hands on experience in internships and work outside classes. But, she stressed that they should also take “a diversity of classes” that included sociology, public health policy, and psychology, adding that “I’d rather have an English major who can communicate with people than a Public Health major who can’t.”

Many recruiters echoed this need for well-rounded students, including Krishawn Demby, an HR specialist representing the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While Demby looks to see if students where students had internships when reviewing a candidate, she also consults social networking sites like Facebook and Linkedin.

“I think that’s become a big part” of the recruiting and hiring process, Demby said, who advised that students remove “Drinking photos—anything that would make an employer question you” from their Facebook pages before beginning the job search.

Stephanie Nguyen has her Facebook profile set to private, she said, so that only her friends can see her pictures and wall postings. Students are now much more aware of potential employers using social networking sites to review applicants, Nguyen said, but they often do not think through what they put up on their sites.

“I know a lot of my friends have those pictures up,” Nguyen said, “then they forget people will see them.”

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