ProPath Program Provides Undergrads with Advance Access to Employers
11/02/2015
By Ed Brennen
More than 200 employers attended the Fall 2015 Career Fair at the Tsongas Center, which was great news for the 1,172 students and alumni who came in search of full-time jobs, co-ops and internships.
While the semi-annual Career Fairs are bigger and better than ever since moving from the Campus Recreation Center to the Tsongas Center last fall, there is one unintended consequence of this growth spurt: The event can seem slightly more overwhelming, particularly for underclassmen hoping to speak with employers for the first time.
That’s why ProPath, a career development program for undergraduates offered by the Career & Co-op Center, created a new early-access preview session this fall to help acclimate younger students to the growing event. Sixteen ProPath students from a variety of colleges and majors took advantage of the preview, getting a private audience with select employers one hour before the Tsongas Center doors opened to fellow job-seekers.
“Coming in early to map out where you want to go, it just makes it a lot less stressful,” says sophomore computer science major Alex Infantino, who was attending his first Career Fair.
Infantino, who was looking for a three-month co-op, visited the booths of Fidelity, Weston & Sampson Engineers and Anheuser-Busch InBev in a small group of eight students. “It’s nice that there’s a lot less people here, so no one is really fighting for attention,” he says.
Director of Career Services Martina Witts, who helped launch ProPath last year, was happy with the preview session’s debut.
“I was pleased with the students’ attentiveness, the questions they asked the employers and the variety of majors that participated,” says Witts, who led a group that included engineering, business and liberal arts majors.
More than 1,100 students belong to ProPath, which includes career-building activities like resume and cover-letter writing workshops and interview practice sessions. The program is designed to give students a clear path toward career development and prepare them for the job market by introducing them to experiential learning opportunities.
Witts envisions the Career Fair previews accommodating up to 30 students, broken up into three groups of 10. “I think keeping it to small groups of 10 for the actual tour is important so that students have a chance to interact with the employers,” she says.
Ian Wilson, who graduated from the Manning School of Business in 2012 with a degree in business administration, was one of five UMass Lowell alumni representing Fidelity at the Career Fair. He was impressed by the level of attention the ProPath students received.
“When I went to career fairs, I really didn’t know what I was looking for,” says Wilson, who works as a personal investor. “It’s good to see someone walking them through the process. You could see the students were definitely interested, rather than just bouncing in and out of the booth.”
More than 70 alumni returned to campus to man 202 booths at the Fall Career Fair, much to the delight of Greg Denon, assistant dean of Student Affairs for Career Development.
“It’s great to see so many alumni representing their employers,” Denon says. “This event is designed to build connections between students and employers, but it also helps build the connection between alumni and their university.”
Alum Chad Gambino, who graduated in 1996 with a degree in computer science, is now manager of strategic mapping and data services for Symbotic, a warehouse automation solutions company based in Wilmington. Standing next to one of his company’s robots on the Tsongas Center concourse, Gambino marveled at what the Career Fair has become.
“I don’t remember having career fairs when I was here,” says Gambino, who also spoke with students at a co-op seminar a week prior to the Career Fair. “Personally, I find it rewarding to give back to the university. I always tell students, try to use your resume to drive the conversation. Put interesting projects that you’re working on in your resume, because all too often resumes just have a list of (programming) languages and that doesn’t give us something to talk about.”
Roma Aurora, a sophomore business administration major, says her first Career Fair taught her that many companies embrace a corporate “jungle gym” philosophy as opposed to a corporate “ladder.”
“A lot of people I spoke to weren’t the intended major for their company,” Aurora says. “I didn’t know coming in that if a company posts that they are hiring chemical engineers, you could still find a fit for a different position.”
Sophomore computer science major Darrien Glasser, who attended both Career Fairs last year as a freshman, says he felt much more prepared this time around.
“It was overwhelming last year because I had done no preparation beforehand, so effectively my first Career Fair was my preparation for the second one,” he says. “I didn’t use the second one to interview, but I used it to talk to companies to get information about what I should do. Now I’m ready to go.”
For the Spring Career Fair, Witts says students may be asked to provide a “wish list” of employers they want to meet with, and the tours may expand from three employers to five.
“If there is higher demand, we will probably organize the groups by major, thereby having several unique employers for each group to visit,” she says.