“We’re just dying for people!” enthused Gennum Corporation’s Hoda Kamel at the Careers Day 2000 event held Monday and Tuesday in Grant Hall.
Recruiters were eager to attract potential employees in the 21st year of the event organized by Career Services and AIESEC.
A mood of excitement permeated the hall as over 80 corporate and government teams, emboldened by the booming economy, jockeyed to catch the attention of the milling students.
“[In order to replace the] demographic bulge moving towards retirement,” explained federal government representative Maggie Molsberry, “We’ll be hiring by the thousands… We hire a lot of Queen’s people, a lot.” With international heavy-hitters such as Nortel, Bombardier, and Cisco Systems all present, Queen’s students from all years had a lot to look over. While unsure at first, Patrick Glinski, Comm ’04, described the event as useful in the end.
“While I didn’t really know what to expect from the sign outside, once inside I found the session quite informative.” Information packets were complemented by trinkets such as key chains, yo-yo’s, calculators, and the ubiquitous mugs as the companies tried, using somewhat informal means, to attract attention in their directions.
Frederick Prentice, Sci ’01, explained the subtleties of the company’s strategies.
“Ah! The great joys of gauging the companies based on how energetic they are with their 45-second spiel! Then you just wait for the open house… If they serve pizza and pop they have a young corporate personality.” Bombardier’s Jennifer McKinney described the types of students her corporation is most interested in.
“We’re looking mostly for students in engineering, commerce, computer science and information technology,” she said, reflecting a general trend observed at the event.
While of these faculties had reason to be pleased, some Arts and Science students found this very frustrating.
“I’m not having much luck, because the majority of companies are just here to hire commerce and engineering students,” said Melissa Horner, ArtSci ’01. “It’s sort of disheartening… So it looks like I’m just going to have to stick to higher education.” Sam Kim, ArtSci ’99, added that he “appreciated the companies [who] just put ‘commerce [or] engineering required’ right up on [their boards]. Saves me the trouble as an ArtSci.” However, as Procter & Gamble’s Kevin Harshaw explained, not all companies had so tight a focus.
“We’re looking for softer skills such as leadership, problem solving and initiative that have been demonstrated through work experience, extra-curricular activities, and academics. We’re open to all faculties.”
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].