Networking at the Griff Fair

I attended the Griff Fair on Thursday, March 15^th. The Griff Fair is a job fair put on by the Griff Center highlighting numerous Buffalo and world-wide companies who look to hire Canisius students. The event was held in Science Hall Commons and was set up by each company having a table with representatives. Some tables had email sign up sheets for job openings or newsletters, some had give-aways like pop-sockets or cheese-sticks (dairy company), and some had job descriptions printed out for students to take. There was no specific path that students had to take, it was more so visit-whatever-table-you-wanted, type of thing. The event was free and only open to Canisius students and we signed in for attendance reasons. The fair attracted mostly business students meaning accounting, finance, management, and marketing. There were no tables for any type of medical professions so I did not see any science students there. I also saw a good amount of communication studies students there. For the most part, the employers I saw and talked to were non-profit organizations. I was looking for jobs in marketing and events but most of the job openings were in management and human resources. I found it helpful to attend the Griff Fair because it was good practice when it comes to talking in a professional matter with potential employers, practicing dressing professionally, practicing a handshake, eye contact, and remembering someone’s name, learning more about different fields I can go into after I graduate, and getting my name out there. Overall there were some things I liked and I didn’t like about the fair. One thing I did not like about the fair was that most of the employers were looking for students to just fill admin jobs. Also, I think it would have been helpful if tables had a sign that said “Looking for psych, sociology, human services majors” as opposed to us having to spend our time and the employer’s time just to realize we are not even close to the major they are looking for. One thing I liked about the fair was how great of a turnout it had, you could really tell employers and students were happy to be there. Another thing I liked was the Griff Center told students what to bring and expect before hand. For example, they emailed us to bring resumes, cover letters, how to dress, how to act, etc. I would have liked to have gotten to know the employers better like a traditional networking event but I did find it helpful to use it as a practice-run.