On Tuesday, Sept. 28, UMass Boston’s Office of Career Services and Internships held its annual Business, Accounting and Finance Career Expo. The event was held in a virtual capacity, and roughly 350 students were in attendance.
The expo was held on Handshake between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. 84 employers participated in the event, including Boston’s Children’s Hospital, CVS Health, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Fidelity Investments, Liberty Mutual Insurance, TJX Companies, Vineyard Vines Headquarters, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and many more.
Students registered for different sessions prior to the event. They were able to select 30 minute information sessions with an employer, and 10 minute individual sessions with a recruiter. After selecting which sessions they were interested in, a composite schedule was generated for each student including all of their sessions with the different employers they selected.
Though the event is geared towards College of Management students, students from all majors were encouraged to attend the event. Deborah Federico, Associate Director for Career Education and chairperson for the expo, explained why.
“When the employers register, they indicate the majors that they’re hiring for and several of them said they would take any major,” said Federico. “And the reason for that is that [ . . . ] employers are often hiring for skill sets.”
Federico also confirmed that the reason why the expo was virtual was for COVID safety reasons. Per Federico, reports of technical issues were low at this expo.
“We’ve been doing virtual career fairs for a year now, so I think that they’ve [technical issues] gotten better,” said Federico. “Because we had support rooms during the fair, and we didn’t get that much traffic.”
Additionally, Federico spoke to the importance of attending this career fair and other fairs planned for the future.
“My plug for students is to attend these events as much as possible, as a way to network,” said Federico. “It’s a great opportunity to—especially virtually—meet with a lot of people, a lot of employers in a short amount of time [ . . .] from the comfort of their laptop.”
Federico also commented on the advantages of holding career expos online.
“It’s even easier virtually than it is in person,” said Federico.
When asked if future career fairs may also be held in a virtual capacity, even if the safety requirements regarding COVID are reduced, Federico explained that the Office of Career Services and Internships is not yet sure.
“We haven’t made a decision yet,” said Federico. “The employers seem to prefer virtual as well, so we’ll probably base our decision on what the employers are looking for as well in the spring.”
The Office of Career Services and Internships at UMass Boston is holding several other career fairs throughout this academic year, including one in November.
An Internship Fair will be held on Nov. 4, a STEM and healthcare fair will be held in February of 2022, and in March of 2022 a larger career expo, geared towards students of all majors, will be held as well.
“We used to call it our ‘big’ career expo, [ . . .] but now they’re all becoming big, we’re getting more employers,” said Federico of the career expo scheduled for March.
The Business, Accounting and Finance Career Expo is held every September.
For more information regarding career services at UMass Boston, visit: www.careers.umb.edu or email [email protected].