YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – David Stipanovich is looking for an internship in financial management, and he came dressed to impress Wednesday at Meet the Employers Day, hosted by Youngstown State University’s Williamson College of Business Administration.
“I am currently studying financial management on the track of finance, hoping to get into an analyst position to try to move forward and become a financial manager,” the junior from Austintown said.
He’s enrolled in the college’s business professionalism class where he crafted an elevator pitch, refined his resume and was urged to dress professionally. That prepared him for the event more than he was last year when he wasn’t in the class, he said.
About a half-hour into the event, Stipanovich said it was going well. YSU and businesses within the community work well together, he explained.
“I love talking to the people here,” Stipanovich said. “The companies are very nice. They’re very helpful. They’ll give you everything.”
PNC Bank has been attending the twice yearly Meet the Employers events at YSU for years, said Ted Schmidt, PNC regional president.
“This is a great opportunity to meet the students that are looking for career opportunities at PNC,” he said.
PNC has a summer internship program as well as a development program for students upon their graduation.
“So this is the kind of first informal interview that we get to see the students and get to interact with them,” Schmidt said.
He said the bank receives many resumes at the gathering. A team narrows those down, and candidates are selected for interviews as part of the bank’s hiring process.
Schmidt, his wife and three of their children are YSU alumni, and he said he and the bank share a great relationship with YSU. He said, jokingly, that he should have a parking spot.
“I think it’s just a great organization to stay engaged, not only personally, but for PNC and the community as a whole,” Schmidt said.
PNC is one of 51 companies that attended the event Wednesday, said Christina O’Connell, executive director of WCBA’s Center for Career Management. It usually draws between 300 and 350 students.
“This is a great way for students to be connected to the business community and for the businesses to come in that are around the community of Northeast Ohio – some of them have locations across the United States,” she said.
Students can connect with the business professionals on internships, full-time jobs and to network.
“So when they are closer to graduation and there’s a full-time job there, they hopefully have that connection,” O’Connell said. “And then for internships, they’re able to get career-related experience before they graduate and have something on their resume.”
Howmet Aerospace in Niles and Clark Dietrich, which has operations in the Valley, were among employers at the event scouting available talent.
Scott Mickholtzick, an operations manager at Howmet, said the company was participating as a way to bring in new talent, particularly from the Valley. He’s a Valley native and has worked at Howmet for nearly 30 years.
The company is hoping to fill operations and engineering positions while Howmet sites in other areas also have openings in finance.
“We’ve had good interest so far this morning …,” Mickholtzick said. “We’ve already spoken to a number of folks. I think we’re one for one. For every one of the offerings, we’ve had people walking up and showing some interest in those positions.”
Jason Palette is a demand manager at Clark Dietrich and works with its sales training team.
“We have a strong manufacturing presence in the Warren- Youngstown area, and we found that YSU is a good place to source talent from for our upcoming management or operations program,” he said.
The company has been attending for years, and Palette said it’s been successful in finding quality employees.
“I would say we probably have, in current management positions right now, nine or 10 YSU alumni,” he said.
Palette boiled down the characteristics of a good candidate to three attributes: humility, drive and intelligence, or what he termed street smarts. That means being able to read a room, make adjustments, work well with others and be engaging.
He said many of the students come dressed for the event and have researched the companies so they know which ones to seek out. Palette likes it when a student approaches and initiates a conversation rather than the student waiting to answer questions.
Allison Schrock, a junior from Canfield who’s studying human resource management, doesn’t use an elevator pitch when she approaches a business. She works in retail and is used to talking to people all day.
“And so for me, it’s more about being versatile,” she said, “so talking to somebody and just trying to make an impression by just being yourself.”
She looks for a conversation starter, such as a shared love with one employer of a particular Red Bull flavor.
“I think that makes more of an impression than anything,” she said.
Schrock has attended Meet the Employer events before but said she put more time and effort into preparing for Wednesday’s event. And she learns more about potential employers at such events than she can from researching on her own.
Courtney Helle of Canton is a sophomore majoring in business administration, with an interest in marketing. She was asking company representatives about the opportunities they have available and telling them about herself and planned to reflect on what she gathered.
Stipanovich, the Austintown junior, had talked to three companies within about a half-hour of arriving, and his interests direct which ones he’s interested in.
“There’s two or three here that I’m really looking to kind of prioritize,” he said. “But, like I said, [I’m keeping my] options open because you don’t want to have your heart broken later.”
Pictured at top: David Stipanovich of Austintown, a Youngstown State University junior, attended Wednesday’s Meet the Employers Day looking for an internship in financial management.