technewsiit.com

OPINION 2
CAMPUS 3-6
AErE 8-9
SLIPSTICK 10
SPORTS 11
Student newspaper of Illinois Institute of Technology since 1928

CMC prepares students for annual Career Fair

Ryan Kamphuis

EDITORVINVCHIEF

 

After months of work on the part of the
Career Management Center, the Spring 2013 Car
reer Fair is now upon us. Taking place this coming
Thursday, February 21 st from 10:30 AM to 4:00 PM
in Hermann Hall, this semesters career fair will be
bringing together 159 companies that will be offerr
ing over 3400 jobs, 55% of which are available to in
ternational students and alumni. Shirlean Williams,
the Director of Employer Relations for the CMC,
says that work on the upcoming career fair began as
soon as last falls career fair was over with, “hundreds
of calls made daily to local, national, and interna
tional companies that may hire students for all of the
majors represented at IIT."

While the work that went into organizing
the career fair and the career fair itself this semester
aren’t very different than the huge career fairs that
have been organized every semester over the past
year, the leadrup to this semester’s career fair was
very different than it has been in the past. Shortly
after last semester’s career fair, members of the stur
dent body came forward expressing concerns over
unfair and nonrconsistent standards being enforced
regarding the dress code, especially towards women.
Students talked about how the expectations of how
women were dressed was judged differently by ev7
ery checkrin attendant, and that women were turned
away from the fair for wearing flats instead of high
heels. Others also mentioned that the CMC provided
a rack of ties formen to use if they did not have a tie,
but that no clothes were provided to women if their
dress did notmeet the CMCs standards. In response
to this, the CMC and the Ofiice of Student Affairs
planned several events to take place before the career
fair in order to, “fix this issue and change the current
feelings toward our department and the career fair,"
said Williams.

The first of these events was a Profesr
sion Day on February 12th, where faculty and staff
dressed in professional attire and wore ‘Ask Me
About My Outfit’ stickers. The idea was to provide
students with models who could share their differing
ideas ofwhat professional attire was.

Another prercareer fair event was the
Dress to Impress Fashion show on February 13th.
Students modeled different professional outfits on
an impromptu catwalk set up in the MTCC Ballr
room. After the fashion show, representatives from
Men’s Wearhouse and Ann Taylor were on hand to
provide fashion advice and 50% offand 20% off cour
pons, respectively. Both stores will still extend these
discounts to students who show their student ID in
store.

In case a student forges an important
part of their outfit, Student Affairs will now be of
fering a clothes closet for all studenm, both male and
female, for the first time. If a student needs to replace
a part of their outfit in order to get into the career
fair, there will now be items available for more than
just the men.

Steps also are being taken to help show
students how to make themselves look professional
while they are dressing professional. Students from
the Paul Mitchell School transformed the MTCC
Welcome Center into abarber shop and gave out free
haircum to students on February 15th. On the day of
the career fair, representatives from Mary Kay will be
hosting free makerup sessions for women.

Lom of effort is being made to ensure that
the resources exist to help all students prepare for
the career fair. At the end of the day, however, the
career fair isn’t just about how you look and dress.
Williams suggests that all students research which
companies they are interested in and are attending
the career fair. “If you truly want to impress a comr
pany," says Williams, “you should be able to not only
ask questions about their organization, but provide
passionate and insightful answers about why you are
interested in working for them."

If you have any questions about the car
reer fair or your career fair prep, walkrins are mken
at the CMC in Hermann Hall from 12:30 PM to 2:30
PM and 3:30 PM to 4:45 PM Monday through Frir
day.

 

Photos by Chandranshn Singh