Career services and Nicholls nursing department help students network with job fair

On Jan. 4, Nicholls State University’s department of nursing partnered with career services to host a job fair for students.

The job fair is held every spring semester for students who are majoring in nursing. They have the opportunity to meet with hospital representatives and ask questions. The purpose of the job fair is to allow students to network and feel secure in their career choice.

“The event provides affirmation to the students that they are in high demand and highly sought.  It also provides a sense of accomplishment in that they will be offered employment and that a lifelong career is right in front of them. They see that we believe in them as well,” Rebecca Lyons, department head of the nursing program, said.

13 vendors met with students to recruit them. Students from the nursing program are required to attend the job fair, so they are able to learn about career opportunities early on and see that there is a demand for nurses once they graduate.

“It just gave us the opportunity to meet with a lot of reps from a lot of different hospitals and kind of get an idea of who had what needs, what their starting salaries were and to give everybody more of an idea of just how many hospitals we have the opportunity to work in,” nursing senior Ryan McDill said.

435 students attended the job fair, and the goal is that they took away more information on the kind of career they will have, as well as networked and made connections that will help them in the future.

“The purpose is for them to network with employers and to hopefully learn about part-time jobs and clinical experience that they can get outside of their normal course work, and then to get seniors jobs when they graduate,” Kristie Tauzin, director of career services, said.

Following the job fair, senior nursing students were invited to a luncheon where they were able to meet with the representatives of hospitals on a more personal level and ask specific questions.