Career Carnival prepares students

The Career Carnival is a different, and less publicized, event on the UW-River Falls campus. Unlike its Career Fair counterpart, the Career Carnival is a more relaxed event that aims to educate students as well as provide a fun, carnival type atmosphere.

The Career Fair brings in over 100 employers sent to recruit students for potential jobs and internships, whereas at this event, employers came to help students enhance their interviewing skills, one of the event coordinators, McKenna Schumacher, said.

“The event took place on Nov. 1, in the University Center Ballroom.  166 students signed up to participate in the mock interviews, Director of Career Services Carmen Croonquist said.

Schumacher was one of the student interns that was in charge of putting the event together.

“In the past, this event was the Walk-Thru Workshop. This year we gave it a makeover and turned it into the Career Carnival to make the event more interactive,” Schumacher said.

The Career Carnival is an annual event at UWRF and consists of mock interviews with employers where students have the opportunity to sit down with actual employers and go through the interview process to gain valuable experience.

In addition to the mock interviews that the event provides, career services attended the event to provide resume critiques as well as to run the different carnival events, which included various career information and activities. There were also concessions provided for the students.

“We were fortunate to receive sponsorship from UPS and Block and Bridle to provide the popcorn, snow cones and cotton candy,” Schumacher said.

The event was designed to give students a learning opportunity with an aspect of fun with the carnival games that incorporated a career component to them.

The general target audience that career services aimed at for this event was first and second year students to get them to start thinking about the career and interview process, although all were welcome.

“It is important students understand that career services is a comprehensive office that helps students with their entire career planning needs and is not just an office that assists graduating seniors,” Schumacher said.

There will be another career-related event in the spring that will have similar activities, but tweaked to appeal to the needs of graduating students to prepare them for real world situations and interviews.

“The mock interviews provide great practice for students to get some experience with the interviewing process and situational based questions,” Croonquist said.

An overall goal of the event was to provide students with a way to get an early start on gathering career information and resources, Schumacher said.

Student Erin Orgeman was one of the students who participated in the events at the carnival.

“I thought it was really beneficial because I haven’t had an interview since I applied for jobs in high school so I didn’t really know what to expect,” Orgeman said.