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Over 2000 college students, who will be entering the workforce soon, spent the afternoon presenting their qualities and assets to potential employers in Houghton.
Michigan Tech’s semi annual job fair puts students and employers in contact with each other, bringing hundreds of employers to campus from across the country.
“This is our spring Career Fair. It usually happens two weeks after Winter Carnival. We have 208 recruiting organizations here today, all looking for top talent. Right now we’re seeing a big trend now. It used to be that they recruited twice a year. They still come to campus twice a year but right now it’s a 365 day a year recruiting cycle. They just can’t fill their coffers with enough talent,” said MTU Director of Career Services Steve Patchin.
As students make their way from one recruiter to another, each representative provides a different opportunity. “One of the unique employers here is the Discovery Channel. They are here looking for a technician to help them on the Gold Mine project that they have. You might’ve seen it on TV, a lot of people are pretty excited about that one,” said Patchin.
Once named the Michigan Mining School, and renamed to Michigan’s College of Mines, before its current title, Michigan Tech is an obvious place to find a candidate with a geological background. The shows producers had applicants before even setting up their booth.
Patchin said, “We put the information out to the students and they said (the producers) that before they got off the plane, they had about 20 or 30 students who had already submitted their résumé. They’re very excited. They’ve claimed it was a successful Career Fair before it even started.”
It’s reported that the new hire would examine a mining region in the Yukon region of Alaska or Canada. Other job opportunities presented today included engineering and industrial positions.
“We’re continuously seeing a whole lot of strength in the manufacturing area and also civil engineering. There’s a lot of infrastructure going on. To give you an example- we’ve got Black and Veatch out here. They can’t take all of the projects that they’re winning bids for because they don’t have enough talent and that’s a trend that we’re seeing continuously,” Patchin said.
Each student entered the gym today with a stack of résumés and a personal portfolio and many spoke with representatives who are alumni of the university. It’s common for companies to send Tech alumni to Career Fair, as it gives the recruiter and job candidate a common conversation piece.
Patchin said, “We’re supplying the talent for the infrastructure. For manufacturing, everything is going toward robotics, somebody’s got to manage all of those robotics and set them up. With civil engineering, somebody’s got to design these roads or tunnels. Our students are basically the brains of making these things happen.”
