Broaden opportunities to connect international students with potential recruiters
Penn Statehas recently received an honor for commitment to diversity in access for minorities. Smeal is also recognized for its efforts in recruiting, retaining, educating, and graduating a diverse pool of students. We, as international students, are very glad to see such commitment to inclusion.
In the admissions pamphlet for international students, it was said in the first page that according to a Wall Street Journal survey, corporate recruiters ranked Penn State first among 1000 colleges for its ability to help students prepare for the job market. However, that might not be so true for international students. As representatives of 10% of the population of Smeal, we believe that when Smeal recruits more international students, it should broaden the opportunities to connect international students to potential recruiters as well.
The following two scenarios happen often:
We prepare well and walk into a career fair, passionately talk to representatives of companies for 20 minutes, only to find out in the end that they don’t accept international students.
We finally get an interview, but then are informed by the company that the interview has been cancelled because they have found out that we are international students.
We think that holding an international student career fair is necessary, not only to provide international students with opportunities to connect with companies who are willing to hire them, but also to help companies find students who are willing to work globally. At such a career fair, companies could also connect with non-international students (American citizens) who are willing to work overseas.
Also, Smeal should help to identify the companies who explicitly don’t hire international students so that we won’t waste time and energy to research and prepare for them.
With the creation of such a career fair, international students in Smeal could benefit by receiving more career opportunities. Smeal would, in doing so, heed its commitment to diversity, and would be able to attract a greater number of talented international students.
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