By: Maria McGinnis, CALS Career Services
I often get asked, “Is career services open during the summer?” Without a doubt – the answer is a resounding YES! In fact, the summer is when we prepare and recruit for important upcoming events like the UW Fall Career and Internship Fair coming up on September 20.
Newly Weds Foods (NWF) located in Chicago, Illinois is a long-time fixture at CALS events including career fairs. I had the chance to ask Tom Kubica, Senior Director of Research and Development, a few questions about why he uses career services at UW and other schools as a means to recruit talent.
There are many ways employers can interact with a campus. Some will attend career events sponsored by career services, while others might work directly with faculty or staff. There are also employers who have connections to a student organization and might never even physically come to campus. Regardless of their chosen method, we try our best to make sure employers connect with great students who will have an impact. NWF hires mostly Food Sciences majors from UW for internships and full time positions – below Mr. Kubica provides an employer’s perspective of career services.
Describe your interactions with career services – at UW and beyond.
We have a mixed bag across the schools that we deal with on a regular basis. They range from lower profile programs to extremely visible, active and helpful. More of the latter. To be fair, it is our responsibility to build relationships with key people at the schools where we look to recruit. There are a few schools that we have just begun to work with on a more frequent basis and we have had representatives from career services introduce themselves and offer assistance. Time will tell how this changes, improves or stays the same. In one of these instances, we have just hired a student that we had met and interviewed on campus. Hiring a student from a new school is generally the best way to start a relationship with that school.
Do you see a difference in students who have worked with career services versus those who have not?
That is a tough question. There does seem to be some degree of difference in how students approach us or do follow up that is consistent with the activity level of a school’s career services unit.
Describe your recruiting experience on campuses where you have a strong relationship with the career services unit versus no relationship…or little relationship.
On campuses with very active career services, such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we see a very active approach in having students directed to come meet with us during career fairs or our Job Shadow day during Winter break. There is also communication through out the year via e-mail. This is very helpful.
We have similar relations with a few others. With Chicago being Research and Development headquarters, there are more of us to work with some of the local schools as compared to our other satellite labs that are not similarly staffed and do not have the opportunities to devote the time as much as we would always like. Having an awareness of limited staff time for recruitment allows us to plan and do a better job with the time we have.
From your perspective, do career services offices further your recruiting objectives at NWF?
Easy – YES!!
Speaking of recruiting talented students – Check out the accomplishments of UW-Madison, CALS Food Science Students at the IFT Product Development Competition!
Blogger’s Note – If you are an employer looking to engage with UW-Madison, CALS students, contact Maria McGinnis at mmcginnis@cals.wisc.edu or 608-262-3460. Students wishing to make an appointment with a career advisor should log into their BuckyNet account or email career@cals.wisc.edu
