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The lines were long, the conference rooms filled to capacity and attendees buzzing with activity, all of it pointing to increased opportunities for both students and employers participating in the College of Business\u2019 annual career fair.<\/p>\n
For FIU students, the career fair is a first step in their transition into the working world while top-name companies get access to candidates with a broad range of degrees and experience levels.<\/p>\n
The third annual College of Business career fair drew 66 companies, among them BNY Mellon, City Furniture, Target, Mintz Physician Services, and Buckeye International. This year, 794 students participated in the March 24 event at FIU\u2019s Modesto Maidique Campus, a 154 percent increase over last year\u2019s fair.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the economy improves, recruiting is up,\u201d said John Nykolaiszn, director of the College of Business\u2019 Career Management Services (CMS). \u201cEmployers are turning to university career fairs because they need good candidates coming out of college.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many recruiters cited the caliber of FIU students and the strength of the university\u2019s business programs as strong selling points for potential interns as well as full-time employees. The word \u201cimpressive\u201d was heard more than once from executives speaking to students.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen so many more students and more student quality than previous years,\u201d said Cody Woods, lead executive recruiter at Target. \u201cStudents that are confident, know what they want to say, and aren\u2019t just rehearsing a speech.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woods and the Target team were seeking interns for the retailer\u2019s management training program, an entry into positions in store management and store-level guest experience. \u201cFIU is the top-producing school for Target in the Southeastern U.S.,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
![\"Record](\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/career-fair-02-590x360.jpg\")
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COB students make the most of one-on-one meetings with recruiters.<\/em><\/p>\n College of Business sophomore Simran Sakraney went to the career fair hoping to get an internship in the finance or technology sectors. She studied the companies at the event and met with recruiters from ADP, Northwestern Mutual, and Aon Hewitt, among others.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to get ahead of the game and enroll in an internship this summer,\u201d said Sakraney. \u201cI want to graduate and have a job that I don’t want to vacation from often.\u201d<\/p>\n The results from the career fair, she noted, have been extremely positive. Several recruiters offered in-person interviews and Sakraney is scheduling them before the semester ends. One observation stood out, many of the companies did not have internships available for this summer because the spots had been filled.<\/p>\n The recruiters at BNY Mellon, a first-time participant in the College of Business career fair, saw a steady stream of students, which often became a long line. They spoke about jobs as portfolio analysts and sales associates at one of its five offices in Florida.<\/p>\n As part of his efforts to secure a summer internship in investment banking, Luis Lara, a junior majoring in finance, visited BNY Mellon and Kempler & Co., a trading company specialized in supply and distribution of energy commodities.<\/p>\n Demand for internships and jobs grows.<\/em><\/p>\n The College of Business career fair debuted in 2014 and is held every year in the spring semester. The number of employers present has increased steadily from 33 the first year to 43 in 2015 and this year\u2019s 66. That\u2019s a 75 percent increase from last year.<\/p>\n A veteran of the College of Business career fair, City Furniture\u2019s Dannon Monroe, manager of college and university relations, was sure he would find talent for the company\u2019s 10-week internship program. Within two hours of the event\u2019s opening, he had identified three students with the right qualifications.<\/p>\n \u201cFIU students are hard-working and that fits right in with our philosophy, which is more about the person not just the GPA,\u201d said Monroe, who graduated FIU in 2005 with a bachelor degree in marketing and international business.<\/p>\n City Furniture\u2019s internship program focuses on sales and leadership components, leading up to full-time positions in sales, management and other departments. \u201c\u201cWe don\u2019t focus on the hard sale,\u201d said Monroe. \u201cIt\u2019s more about relationship-building and how we treat the customer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The lines were long, the conference rooms filled to capacity and attendees buzzing with activity, all of it pointing to increased opportunities for both students and employers participating in the College of Business\u2019 annual career fair. For FIU students, the career fair is a first step in their transition into the working world while top-name […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":26524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,10,13],"tags":[3389,313,459,4001],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26521"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36217,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26521\/revisions\/36217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}