Last Tuesday, students filed into Newcomb Hall for the first annual Startup Career Fair, where they had the opportunity to connect with newly-formed businesses and non-profit organizations.
First-year College student Ashwanth Samuel was drawn to the fair to look for future internships. This semester he is enrolled in “Startup: An Introduction to Entrepreneurship,” taught by Profs. David Touve and Bevin Etienne, whom he credits for sparking his interest in the idea of working with up-and-coming businesses.
“I think the whole vibe kind of going on with startups is very innovative and unique,” Samuel said. “It’s also pretty young. A lot of these people here are right out of U.Va. and just a few years out of college. I think that’s a really cool prospect, working with someone who may be five or six years older than you.”
At the fair, music played while students and employers discussed career opportunities over dumplings and Campus Cookies. The relaxed environment of the event was modeled after the career fairs held by a company called Uncubed, which was co-founded by University alumnus Tarek Pertew, who graduated in 2004.
According to the company’s website, Uncubed was created to provide “a fast-growing community with the digital skills, insight and experiences needed to succeed at modern work.” The company aims to make networking easier by connecting people looking to get involved in startups with the companies themselves.
After attending an Uncubed career fair, David Lapinski, director of employer relations at the Career Center, was impressed by the relaxed and modern environment of the fair.
“It appreciates and respects the culture of the organizations that are doing the recruiting… having the music and the food and having students be able to come in jeans,” Lapinski said. “It really kind of changes the vibe and that’s something we were really going for with this. It made us think we should change all of our career fairs.”
The Startup Career Fair featured businesses open to recruiting students with a variety of majors and skills.
“Startups kind of look for people [who] are adaptable and [who] have a lot of different skills that can come into an opportunity and wear different hats and play different roles,” Director of Engineering Career Development Julia Lapan said. “I think what they’re really looking for is more of a general skillset as opposed to certain knowledge because they know that they can train people and teach them to do whatever job it is they need to do.”
Because these businesses are looking for students who are adaptable, career services representatives from several different departments joined forces to put on this event. Reginald Leonard, assistant director for Career Services at the Data Science Institute, said looking at smaller, startup businesses might be refreshing for students who are used to hearing from large corporations which typically dominate career fairs.
“A lot of students kind of shy away from career centers and career fairs because they kind of feel like it’s this buttoned up approach to their career,” Leonard said. “And so this career fair is kind of us showing... we understand that there are a variety of types of work and opportunities out there for you.”
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