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MSU Students Turn Out in Force For Area Job Fair
Christopher Fay likes Lansing.
That’s not to say the 22-year-old wouldn’t leave the area for Chicago or another big “hip” city when he graduates from Michigan State University in December.
But on Wednesday, he was focused on getting a job and staying in Michigan’s capital city.
“I’ve really grown to like Lansing,” said Fay, a business general management major and Saginaw native who was among hundreds of students at a campus job fair for Lansing area companies.
“I just like the culture and the people.”
Organizers of the “Earn, Learn and Intern” job fair hope their work to connect college students to area jobs and internships will help boost the region by keeping young, bright professionals from leaving after they graduate.
In the first three hours of the fair, 1,100 job seekers attended, according to John Hill, director of Career Services for Alumni at MSU.
He expected upward of 1,400 by the end of the day.
“This is off the charts,” he said.
Young professionals
There are about 21,000 young professional households in the Lansing region, or about 10.2 percent of all households, according to a recent study by Michigan Future Inc., an Ann Arbor-based think tank.
That’s a far cry from the Madison, Wis., region, a similarly sized state capital with a Big Ten university in the University of Wisconsin.
In the Madison area, 36,399 young professional households account for about 14.8 percent of all households.
That matters because studies increasingly show the most successful regions of the country have the
highest number of young, highly educated people.
Important first step
Lansing area economic development officials hope the job fair is a first step to help grow that population.
“Ultimately, at the end of the day, we’ll see how many students get placed in an internship,” said Matt Dugener, president and chief executive officer of Lansing Economic Area Partnership Inc., or LEAP.
“Creating familiarity between the two (students and companies) is the first step to get that to happen.”
Finding their way
Job fair organizers included a map of where each of the 106 employers that participated are located in relation to campus.
Some MSU students might not otherwise know how close Okemos or downtown Lansing is to campus, said Paul Jaques, MSU’s internship developer.
“We’re showing them what’s available here,” he said.
Auto-Owners Insurance Group recruiter Heidi Dowling said her Delta Township-based company regularly has about 25 internship positions.
New opportunities
“An intern is a great way for us to figure out if the person is a good match for our company,” she said.
Two Men and a Truck International Inc. also regularly hires interns from MSU, spokeswoman Katie Rexrode said.
It was interns who came up with the moving company’s “Truckie’s Treasure Chest,” a moving kit to help young children.
“We work them hard,” Rexrode said of the interns. “But we treat them as part of the team.”
Nyasha Mutumwa, an MSU sophomore, also hopes landing an internship could help her settle on a major.
So far, she’s undecided.
“I want to make sure I’m confident about my choice.”