Nearly 100 companies filled the Henry A. Butova Gymnasium on Thursday March 27 in the early afternoon. The Career Fair ran from 1:30 to 4 p.m. and was bustling the entire time. It was active with people from AIC and beyond.

The Cooperating Colleges of Greater Springfield Consortium’s Career Fair was very successful in every aspect, from setting up the gym, to getting the word out that this was happening. The sponsoring colleges were AIC, Elms College, Springfield College, Western New England University, Bay Path College, Holyoke Community College, Springfield Technical Community College, and Westfield State University.

The toughest part of any event can be promotion and advertisement, but the sponsoring colleges delivered a knockout of a career fair, which was crowded from beginning to end.

Participants agreed that the event was a success, full of potential contacts and information about jobs that may be available.

Jennifer Lubee from the Village for Families and Children, Inc. stated, “These kind of events really helps us, we get our name out there and it shows anyone looking for a job that we are willing to give them a fair opportunity.”

Career fairs are great for both companies and the people on the hunt for jobs. The companies get a huge boost in notoriety that they are looking around for new employees. The people get a lot of help as well because they get to see every aspect of what they could do with the rest of their lives. Having that option to talk to different companies can give people the idea that they like a company better than another.

Bart Danison, a representative from the Department of Veteran Affairs, stated, “We have met a number of people today that we are very interested in and that showed great interest in us.”

When a company goes to a career fair they are probably looking to hire more for the younger generation. A few different companies stated if they do hire someone who is from an older generation, they don’t usually stay at the job as long as someone who is looking for a long-term solution to what seems like an everlasting hunt in today’s world.

Bart Danison also said, “We usually hire a mixed group of people, but it seems as though the younger people stay longer than the older people.”

This is not always the case though; sometimes when companies hire someone from a career fair they get someone who will stay with them for a really long time. It does not happen often but make no mistake it does happen.

Jennifer Lubee also said, “We have met numerous people today that showed great interest in us today.” She went on to say, “The turnout of people we hire here regardless of age usually stay with us for a while.”

None of the booths at the career fair were ever empty. There were always people swarming them like a bee collecting honey. The amount of people that ended up showing up was very unexpected as most people were thinking that is was just going to be a dry wash of just students here and there, but that just was not the case at all.

A tough thing that the career fair workers had to overcome was getting people to submit the evaluation at the end of the event. It is always the hardest part to get people to do the survey and sometimes it is not always accurate. Most people really don’t like taking surveys for whatever reason; it just doesn’t seem to be the thing that people are honestly interested in doing. However, the career fair workers really rose to the occasion and got almost everyone who walked out the gym doors to fill out the thirty-second survey.

Overall the career fair hosted by AIC was a huge success and a lot of people found something they were truly interested in.

The same goes for the companies who were involved. The real spearhead for this venture was Debbie Krevalin from AIC’s Career Services. Without her, none of this would have been as successful as it was.

Debbie Krevalin from AIC’S Career Services stated, “I was thrilled with the turnout and what I learned from the other career advisors was that it was probably the best fair to date.” Debbie continued, “Because I have only been here a short while I really didn’t have anything to compare this fair to. But we got exactly what we expected attendance wise and from what I heard it was the biggest career fair turnout than any previous fair.”

If you did not attend the career fair don’t worry too much because there is new life in the career services and it is only looking up as it moves forward.