An exciting opportunity for students is fast approaching. Seven years ago the UR Career Center joined the Career and Internship Connections, a consortium which aims to connect students at top universities across the nation with lucrative employers.
“The Career and Internship Connections are a series of five off-campus recruiting events that combine pre-screened interviews with traditional career fairs,” Director of the Career Center Burt Nadler said.
The events take place in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C. and now San Francisco. The move to the West Coast is an effort to include people interested in working in California and the Pacific Northwest. The Career and Internship Connections boast an extraordinary range of career and internship opportunities. Last year over 200 companies were present to meet with students and set up interviews. Over 2,000 took place last year, and this year that number is expected to be surpassed.
Students at all of the top schools seek to work with prestigious companies around the nation. UR students are no exception to this rule, and thus the events represent a great opportunity students.
The firms represented are highly selective and, at the same time, excited for the chance to meet with some of the nations top students.
“Firms within law, government, communications, finance, technology sectors, education and human services seek candidates for positions and internships related to research, analysis, public relations, promotions, advertising, special education, teaching, information technology, engineering and much, much more,” Nadler said.
UR students make a great showing at the events. They are competing for positions with fifteen tops schools such as Cornell University, University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame, Boston College and Johns Hopkins University.
“Annually, Rochester candidates garner about 25 percent of all interviews because they are well prepared, and their rsums reflect the Rochester Curriculum, previous internships and co-curricular leadership extremely well,” Nadler said.
Many students get interviews in advance by submitting their resumes, but others show up for the open forum career fairs in the morning and are able to set up interviews for the afternoon.
The events aim toward seniors seeking to find high quality positions and undergraduate students in search of internships. Even freshmen and sophomores have made an impressive showing at the fairs, learning to conduct internship searches and gaining networking skills.
Not only are the events extremely beneficial to students, but they are also rather unique. “While off-campus consortium interview days have been around for decades, ours are the only ones that combine both pre-screened interviews and career fairs,” Nadler said. “As of last year, our numbers of employers surpassed another consortium that has been in existence for about 20 years.”
The staff at the Career Center are truly dedicated to the students, putting in long hours to help students along their career paths. The staff spends countless hours organizing events like this, along with many other tasks dedicated to helping students.
UR can be expected to do very well again this year at the Career and Internship Connections.
“Our men and women prove to themselves and, yes, others, that when compared to students at other ranked institutions, we are ‘meliora,'” Nadler said.
To submit a resume or ask any questions about the events, you can visit the Career Center web site, www.rochester.edu/careercenter, or just set up an appointment with one of the counselors at x 52366.
Myers is a member of the class of 2009.
