Santa Rosa Junior College’s Fall Job and Internship Fair drew high attendance and enthusiasm from students and employers Oct. 29 at Bertolini Student Center.
SRJC Career Hub organizers aimed to connect students with potential employers and give students an opportunity to build networking experience, according to the event’s website.
A group of 30 Sonoma County organizations attended the event, including the Sacramento County Probation Department, Cotati Rohnert Park Unified School District and Innovative Behavior Resources.
“We have had over 500 students and alumni coming through,” SRJC job developer and event organizer Ann Mansfield said. “The biggest difference I see in this fall fair is probably our employer recruitment and engagement. It’s very reflective of the times and where we are in terms of employment.”
Innovative Behavior Resources, an applied behavior analysis company, works with children on the autism spectrum. Company representatives offered job and internship opportunities to child development, sociology and psychology students.
“Our main focus is on decreasing challenging behaviors. A lot of our clients have tantrum behaviors or aggressive or self-injurious behaviors, so we teach them more appropriate replacement behaviors to those,” IBR representative Savannah Kalil said. “It’s been really nice interacting with everybody. I think it’s been providing a lot of opportunities to really interact with more people here.”
Representatives of Elevo Learning, a San Diego-based physical education company, attended the event for the first time. They offered field coach and mentor positions to students.
“We focus on social-emotional learning for students and use physical activity to connect with students and use that as our curriculum,” Elevo Learning representative Will Newsome said. “We are now expanding to visual arts and performing arts, as well as providing curriculum and training for our employees as field coaches.”
“Turnout has been amazing,” he added. “Engagement has been high. Everyone has had amazing energy and positivity to just learn more about our organization and at least have a listening ear to learn more about what we provide.”
