Every Wednesday, the Career Services office in the Student Services Center fills up with students in search of career advice and information.
The Career Cafe is a workshop focused on helping students prepare for their future careers and to help them find a job that can help support them while they are in college. It is held every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Student Services Center in room 230.
“The goal of Career Cafe is to get students that job because there is life after college,” Alexis Brown, the events coordinator for the career services department, said. “And sometimes people don’t think about it.”
According to Brown, it can be hard for students to see past what is due at midnight tonight versus what will happen after graduation. Brown believes that Career Cafe is a tool that will help college students be successful after graduation out in the real world.
The Career Services department often invites employers to talk about positions in their company that they are looking to fill. The employers will also inform students about internships offered through the company and help students with resume and interview skills that they can use after graduation.
“Attendance of the career cafe varies on topic,” Greg Nielsen, associate director of the career services department, said. “But we have had some times of 80 to 90 people come in and out.”
According to Nielsen, there are typically four presentations given every half-hour. Nielsen says this is done so that people can drop in between classes and hear the information.
The most recent Career Cafe presentation was given by Brown. The presentation focused on a simple walkthrough of CareerConnect, WSU Career Service’s job searching website, and jobs.weber.edu, which is the website where all the different jobs at WSU are listed alongside the requirements to fulfill.
While jobs.weber.edu has listings for various positions, such as hourly and faculty jobs that are available at WSU, CareerConnect shows a listing for both on-campus and off-campus jobs.
In addition to being able to search for jobs on and off campus, CareerConnect also offers a calendar with various career fair dates and a place to sign up for interviews.
“The information they give me would take a lot longer to find on my own,” Ann Valverde, a health promotions major, said. “Instead of hunting for it, they lay it out for me, and with the handouts, I can look it up on my own.”
In a five year period from January 2010 to January of 2015, CareerConnect had 27,298 jobs posted with 21,269 employers that logged into the website.
Chukwuebuka Odu, a computer science major, commented on how he was happy to attend the event. Odu shared how the event helped him feel enlightened on better using CareerConnect and jobs.weber.edu more efficiently.
