Black Career Fair grows in second year
The second fair offered more companies as well as added speed networking sessions.
By QUINTEN SEGHERS
The Black Student Assembly hosted USC’s second annual Black Career Fair in Tutor Campus Center on Thursday night, taking up TCC’s Grand Ballroom and Tommy’s Place.
This year, organizers ushered in several new changes, including a new official logo and new partnerships to support the fair. They also established the Black Career Fair Committee to plan the fair and ensure that it gets all the time, effort and energy it needs.
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Candace House, co-chair of the Black Career Fair Committee and a senior majoring in the business of cinematic arts, said they received feedback that the previous year’s fair had a heavy emphasis on the entertainment industry. In response, the committee sought representation for a more diverse range of industries from law and healthcare to architecture and insurance.
One major change to this year’s fair was that the speed networking occurred simultaneously with the regular tabling. In contrast to the traditional setup, speed networking is when recruiters sit down at a big table with several students for more “intimate” conversations, allowing students to get to know their potential employers on a deeper level. House said that the roundtable discussions allow for better conversations and reduce students’ nervousness.
“We wanted to differentiate ourselves from traditional career fairs,” House said. “The recruiters get to sit down with students and [students] get to actually ask, ‘OK, what was your first job like? Why did you leave it? Do you like it? What was it like being Black there? How did people receive you?’”
Some recruiters said attending the fair allowed them to reach out to the diverse talent that their companies are looking for. Adaeze Cadet, a design principal at HOK — an architecture and engineering firm — said this year’s career fair is one of the “best ones” she’s gone to.
“I think it’s important to have a focus on Black students within USC to provide a sense of community. [The fair allows] various firms to kind of target the diversity that everybody keeps talking about,” Cadet said. “If I were a student coming here, I’d feel like the firms that are signing up for this would have a place for me, so I’d be closer to getting to that universal sense of belonging.”
Andre Wilkes, a graduate student studying social entrepreneurship and a culture and business operations associate for the NFL, said many “professional” jobs in his industry are inaccessible for Black people, but not impossible for them to obtain.
“We recognize it’s challenging for Black people in the larger [sports] industry,” Wilkes said. “The relationship between the NFL and USC, I think, is a cherished relationship that we always have to pour into, but on the other side, as Black employees, because we recognize [what] this culture means to the NFL, we want to pay it back however we can.”
Ayomide Ajayi, the Black Career Fair Committee’s intern, said he hopes to continue growing the fair to support Black and brown students on campus. (Marcus Heatherly / Daily Trojan)
Several of the committee members said it was a challenge to get the career fair off the ground last year. Ire Omitowoju — the fair committee’s founder and co-chair and a senior majoring in arts, technology and the business of innovation — said this year is about ensuring the legacy of the fair continues. The committee collaborated with multiple campus organizations, including the Career Center, the Black Alumni Association and the Black Business Student Association. Instead of working within the BSA, the committee decided to recruit outside of the BSA — with a particular emphasis on underclassmen.
“[It] was daunting because this is a first-time event and, you know, there are a lot of people who are putting a lot of resources and time into us,” Omitowoju said. “We really, really wanted to make this happen and prove to everyone that we could actually do it.”
To ensure that the fair doesn’t stop, the committee decided to recruit Ayomide Ajayi, a sophomore majoring in industrial and systems engineering, as its intern. Ajayi said that last year, he started familiarizing himself with the role and the responsibilities of putting on the fair, from interacting with corporate relations to gaining business acumen. Now, he said he’s learning about acquiring vendors, coordinating finances and working with sponsors.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be on a board with some really intelligent people that are very efficient and get things done,” Ajayi said. “I see that we continue growing, getting more companies to come and support and recruit from the best Black and brown students at the University of Southern California.”
Marielle Caldwell, a junior majoring in communication, said that she was “thankful” for the opportunity.
“[The fair] is important because one, we get to all come together as a community and be here, and it also gives us an opportunity to see each other succeed,” Cladwell said. “[At] my last community college, there weren’t too many career fairs like this. So I feel like this has been a big change.”
