On November 15, the Administrative and Conference Center was overtaken by the Henry Ford Community College Career Expo.
The annual Career Expo event was designed by Chad Austin and the Job Placement office to provide students the opportunity to speak with recruiters from various companies within the Michigan area.
“The main purpose that we try and accomplish in the Job Placement office is we try and expose the students as much as possible to employers and to advancements in their career,” said Austin. “We’ve done job fairs in the past, but we wanted to do something a little bit bigger. So we tried to bring in more organizations, and when I say organizations I mean companies that are looking to hire our students and our alum, as well as colleges that we have an established 4-year transfer agreement with.”
Though HFCC originally offered only job fairs for the Nursing, Health Careers, and Criminal Justice programs, focus has shifted in recent years to an additional job fair for all students to participate in, with this year’s expo focusing more on careers rather than jobs. The result was the largest job fair the HFCC campus has seen to date.
“We had seventy employers represented at the Career Expo, but we easily could’ve had a hundred. We had a waiting list that was very deep with employers who wanted to attend, but we just didn’t have the space,” said Austin.
Despite these already impressive numbers, Austin made it clear that he and the Job Placement office won’t be stopping anytime soon.
“Moving forward, we’re going to try and find a better venue, because how great would it be to have over a hundred employers on campus looking to hire our students? That’s our goal,” he said.
The record-breaking attendance list wasn’t the only change this year. The Job Placement office instituted a dress code for the expo, emphasizing the desire for students to maintain a professional approach.
“We had to turn away some people because they were under-dressed,” said Austin. “But our line of thinking is that this is a professional opportunity, and you need to dress accordingly.”
The biggest addition was the Career Expo Ambassadors, which was comprised of HFCC student volunteers.
“In order to become an Expo Ambassador, a student had to promote this Expo in their classes through a presentation, or they had to volunteer to work the day of the event,” said Austin. “We had seven students who really took advantage of this, and they were a tremendous help.”
Austin encouraged that all Ambassadors use their first-hand experience as volunteers as a reference for their resumes.
This year’s Career Expo was the largest and most successful to date, and Austin has expressed his desire to raise the bar even higher. Next year, the Job Placement office will seek larger facilities in which to accommodate all future expos.
When asked about the success of the expo, Austin wished to give special credit to his staff. “I am incredibly proud of my staff and the work they did. All the promotions were created in-house, and all the employer contacts were created through our office. They did a wonderful job and they should be commended.”