By Craig Giangiulio
Correspondent
After it had been rescheduled due to weather, the College’s annual Spring Career & Internship Fair provided a variety of interested students a chance to meet with more than 50 employers in the Brower Student Center on March 11 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Students had the opportunity to meet with representatives from interested employers — many of whom were alumni of the College — to learn about job and internship opportunities open to them either for the summer or after graduation.
The fair featured a wide variety of employers, such as Target, Bank of America and Merck Pharmaceutical. Government agencies such as the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the New Jersey State police were also recruiting.
“The College did a great job putting this together,” said Matthew Krauss (’18), who attended as a representative for Cenlar FSB, a mortgage lender based in Ewing Township. “We’ve been talking to interested kids all morning. It’s great to be back on campus.”
The selection of employers from both the public and private sectors provided opportunities for students of all majors. State police networked with criminology majors, while larger companies such as Merck and Johnson & Johnson offered positions for people with a business and other backgrounds.
“We hire people from a bunch of different majors,” said Kyle Thomas, another representative of Cenlar FSB. “We take a lot of finance majors, but we also look at communications and political science people for our customer service department. There’s definitely a lot of great candidates here from all backgrounds.”
Matt Ranieri (’18), a representative for Merck, reflected on the fair’s turnout and was proud of the talent he noticed.
“We’re looking at different people for different departments,” he said. “There’s a lot of talent here and Merck has really liked the TCNJ interns we’ve had so far. We’ve talked to a lot of good candidates today. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some future Merck employees here.”
Students were eager to see the extent of the College’s alumni network.
“I was surprised at how many (alumni) I ran into that I knew,” said Freddie Eyer, a senior health and exercise science major. “I’d see someone and be like, ‘oh wow, you work here?’”
Eyer also felt that having a chance to meet with various organizations was a good starting point for future employment.
“The whole thing was really cool,” Eyer said. “There were a lot of companies there. I don’t have a job lined up for post-grad, but I got some leads today and I’m really excited about it.”
In addition to the networking opportunities for older students, the career fair offered valuable information for freshmen and sophomores about what companies look for in an employee and what candidates can do to boost their chances of landing a job.
“Merck doesn’t have any programs for freshmen, but we’ve been answering a lot of questions about what we’re looking for,” Ranieri said. “It’s important to think about that stuff ahead of applying for jobs.”
