Alfred University News

University hosts Spring Career Fair

Sixty-three prospective employers, ranging from engineering firms like LaBella to cultural centers like the Chautauqua Institution, visited Alfred University Thursday for the 2022 Spring Career Fair.


Sixty-three prospective employers, ranging from engineering firms like LaBella to cultural centers like the Chautauqua Institution, visited Alfred University Thursday for the 2022 Spring Career Fair. More than 200 students stopped by the Joyce-Walton Center, where the employers had set up booths, to test the waters of future employment.

The meet-and-greets provided some students with their first conversation with a potential employer. Other students arrived with resumes ready for distribution, old hands with professionally formal parleys.

“The more you talk to people, the more comfortable you get,” said Valerie Daciw, Assistant director, Employer Relations and events, at Alfred University’s Career Development Center. “The more students come to these events, the better they get.”

Amanda Cates, Director of Personnel at Ironwood Heavy Highway, an engineering firm in Henrietta, NY, said some old rules still apply to the process of finding a job. Students looking for their first job, she said, should familiarize themselves with the details of the company before applying for a job. Don’t apply from the job post on Indeed.com, she said; use the posting on Indeed.com to navigate to the company’s website and apply from there.

“It shows you were willing to put in a little extra time,” Cates said.

This week’s Career Fair was the second in the 2021-22 academic year. Alfred University hosts a Career Fair for engineering students in the fall. The spring Fair, while attended by numerous engineering firms, included employment possibilities beyond engineering fields.

Along with the Chautauqua Institution – which had opportunities for Communications, Music and Music Education majors ­– other non-engineering employers included The Children’s Home of Wyoming Conference, Enterprise Holdings, MacKenzie-Childs, and Walgreens. Sponsors for this week’s Career Fair included: Corning Inc, PCC Airfoils LLC, Washington Mills, The Collegiate, O-I Glass, Saint-Gobain, and NSG Group.