COVID Initiatives from the Business Career Center
Dear PennACE Members,
The Business Career Center at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State has made many adjustments due to COVID-19 and the virtual environment we are all now encompassed in. Below are a few ‘new’ initiatives that have been created to help support students.
To be more accessible to students, weekly drop-in hours are held on Zoom to allow the chance to speak to a career coach and ask a quick question. Scheduled career counseling appointments are also still being held.
A new webpage now lives on the Business Career Center site dedicated to working virtually. Resources found on the page include virtual internship opportunities, a listing of remote job boards, and virtual microinternship experiences. This page can be accessed anytime at: careerconnections.smeal.psu.edu/resources/working-virtually/.
In partnership with Smeal alum, the Business Career Center created the opportunity for students to submit their resume for a virtual microinternship. The remote project-based positions available range from business development, data analytics (Excel, Tableau), social media management/analytics, benchmarking/research, database management, and more. As the students submit their resume, they are shared with interested alum that have projects that match the students career goals.
Additionally, an Alumni Chats event was held with Smeal alum where students were matched based on their career interests and had the opportunity to chat via zoom about their career goals with an alum who could give valuable insight.
On the employer front, the companies recruiting Smeal students are finding new innovative ways to meet with students. For example, Altria recently hosted their annual case competition completely virtually. They were able to organize teams into zoom rooms for practice and presentations which also including judges to give feedback. The case competition was incredibly successful with student participation.
As these times are ‘new territory’ for all of us, we wanted to share a few of our new initiatives and ideas as we all are thinking of new innovative ways to support students. If there are any questions regarding some of the ideas mentioned here, please reach out to us at smealcareers@smeal.psu.edu and we’d be happy to share more!
The Business Career Center Team