By Rick Vacek
GCU News Bureau
All it took was one look up the Promenade at Grand Canyon University on Thursday to see how much of an impact the Career IMPACT Center is having.
Tables for approximately 200 businesses lined the walkway for the job fair that highlights the annual Career Week at GCU. It was GCU’s biggest job fair ever — the line stretched all the way from the front of campus to the Student Union for two hours as students got a chance to meet industry professionals and set up job interviews.
IMPACT stands for Inspire, Motivate, Prepare, Apply, Connect and Transform, and the Center’s executive director, Jacqueline Smith, said there’s a simple reason why the confluence of those ideals drove up the number of visiting companies from 150 the year before: “As companies get to know us, they want to be on campus to meet our students.”
The employers came from as far away as Tucson. Smith said that David Schneider of the Tucson Police Department called it “the best job fair out of all the college job fairs we’ve been to.”
Jennifer Garcia, talent acquisition manager for Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, brought with her three 2016 GCU alumni who have gone to work for the company — Matthew Craft, Michele McDonald and Noah Schwab — and a current student, Spencer Elliott, who is a management intern.
“GCU is really friendly and easy to work with,” Garcia said. “I really enjoyed it.”
There are two other reasons why the job fair was so well-attended: It’s free, and the Career IMPACT Center is seeing the fruits of its “Companies on Campus” program, which brings employers into the Student Union every Tuesday and Wednesday.
Having them right in front of the students facilitates connections, even if students didn’t know about the event. “Students say, ‘Oh my gosh,’ we have all these opportunities,” Smith said.
And the impact didn’t stop with the job fair. There also were private interview rooms provided to the companies and their prospects, both during the fair and afterward. Those rooms will be available into next week.
A Vanguard representative even met with members of GCU’s Economics and Finance Club on Wednesday.
GCU is a big employer, too, of course, and Career Week will conclude Wednesday with “GCU Wants to Hire You.” From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Career IMPACT Center in Saguaro Hall, hiring managers and Human Resources staffers will be available to meet with students. No RSVP is required.
Contact Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or [email protected].
