Eleventh and 12th grader students enrolled in career and technical education programs in Syracuse city schools had the opportunity to meet with businesses to see what careers and job opportunities exist after graduation. The district hosted its inaugural career fair with at least 70 participating businesses. Director of Career and Technical Education, Bruno Primerano said the career skills that students learn will benefit them well beyond the workplace.
“Really we don’t just wanna develop a workforce, we want to develop future leaders and by exposing them to different kinds of opportunities there may be someone in one pathway that it really has a propensity towards something completely different but they have those transferable skills that’ll help them to be successful,” Bruno said.
Businesses came to the career fair looking for potential new hires or interns. Katie Brown represents Fulton of Pulaski which manufactures heating boilers. She said it’s worthwhile for the company to participate.
“Getting us exposed out into the community to these students is important because there’s a lot of different job opportunities out there that they may not be exposed to unless they were to come to these events,” Katie said
Another participating business was Chimera Integrations of Cicero. The company designs and installs commercial security systems. Ryan O’Donnell was really impressed with the students he met.
“I have a stack of resumes right here, I have business cards that the students have made themselves. It’s very impressive. Obviously, at this age there’s not a lot of experience. We look for a nice mix of… do they have the interest in what it is and the preparation and the skills and the potential skillset and I see a lot of that here. This is a really good group and it’s very cool to be in front of everybody here,” Ryan said.
Student Mathias Flansburgh is studying electrical technologies and said the career fair already has him thinking about his future even more.
“There’s just a lot of great companies here, and it kind of just gets the gears going, thinking ‘what is my life going to be after college, after high school,” Mathias said.
Some students who attended are already on track to complete college level courses leading to an associate degree. The career fair was held at OCC’s SRC Arena.
