All majors career fair brings on-the-spot interviews and prizes to MoWest

St. Joseph, Mo. (KQTV)-- The Career Development Center hosted its All Majors Career Fair at Missouri Western State University Wednesday.

Students in attendance will have an opportunity to interview on the spot for jobs and have professional headshots taken.  

The first 50 attendees will receive a prize and be entered into a gift card raffle, which will be announced every 30 minutes.  

Kristen Neeley, director of the Career Development Center, said MoWest hosts the event to help students connect directly with employers and explore internship, part-time, and full-time job opportunities.  

“It's open to anybody who would like to come, and we always say you can always start as a freshman, come as a senior, any age is fine since it's never too early,” Neeley said.  

This year’s fair featured over 70 employers representing a wide range of industries and majors. Some were large companies, while others were smaller organizations, giving students a variety of options to explore. 

Neeley said the only expectation for students who attended was to dress professionally and bring a printed copy of their resume. In giving the expectations, Neeley said the college works to make sure the attendees are prepared.

“We put on a couple of tabling events the week before so we could prep them for the fair and then I have been able to go to a couple of classrooms and talk with them to make sure they are ready,” Neeley added.  

Senior Jacob Murphy said he attended the career fair not only for the networking experience but also for the chance to speak with companies face-to-face. 

One of the biggest takeaways for Murphy was the importance of networking.  

“You know I came to college because I was passionate about construction and being able to actually apply the soft skills that I had learned throughout this coursework and talked to these companies and have valuable conversations with them,” Murphy said.  

Another senior, Preston Marsh, said his professors have consistently encouraged students to attend career fairs because of the opportunities they provide. 

Although Marsh already has a job offer lined up from a previous internship, he still wanted to attend to expand his network.  

“I already have a internship, so it's not like I need one, but setting up a network would be nice and then I also have teammates who are engineers that couldn’t go, so I wanted to talk for them as well,” Marsh said.  

Marsh said one of the most valuable parts of the experience was learning about companies he hadn’t heard of before. 

Junior Adam Sotelo, a computer science major, said he’s currently searching for a summer internship and saw the fair as a great opportunity to get started.  

“So kind of just learning about these companies that frankly I have never heard of before and making these connections, so hopefully something opens up, it could be internships or career opportunities in the future,” Sotelo said.  

Sotelo said he connected with a few companies in IT and software engineering that caught his attention. 

He also said pursuing a career in computer science doesn’t necessarily mean working for a traditional tech company, since there are opportunities in a variety of industries that could match his interests.