Daniel Bayer
  Staff Writer

GREENSBORO – The 16th Annual NC Master’s & PhD Career Fair will be held Thursday at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill from 12 to 4 p.m., with dozens of employers on hand to answer questions from advanced degree and postdoc students who are no more than two years from graduation.

The career fair is sponsored by UNCG, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, NC State, Duke University and Wake Forest University.

“We feel that we can get more employers there as a group than any school could individually, which is why we do it that way,” said NCG Career Services Center Assistant Director for Recruiter Management Katie Geise.

Employers at the fair will include the Alcami Corporation, BB&T Bank, Johnson & Johnson, RTI International and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“It’s a pretty wide industry load, but it’s heavy in government contractors, research, computer science, some public health, so a lot of the graduate degrees that we offer here,” Geise said, “especially our nanoscience students over at the joint school, so it’s great for them. It’s really good for any of our research students, or people who are wanting to do qualitative or quantitative research. There’s going to be a lot of that.”

Some employers will offer information sessions for potential employees throughout the day, beginning at 12:30 p.m. Those offering information sessions include Sandia National Laboratories, Georgia Tech Research Institute, CNA and Wells Fargo. Each session will last 30 minutes.

“That’s a really good way to learn about some industries,” said Geise.

Geise suggested that students check out the employer list online before they go to see if any employers seem like a good fit.

“I would always encourage students to check out the employer list before they go, because I would hate for a student to travel all the way to Chapel Hill and invest all this time and find that they didn’t have what they were looking for,” said Geise.

Those wishing to attend should register through Spartan Careers (available on the UNCG website), says Geise, but students can attend even if they didn’t register.

“We do ask that people register through Spartan Careers just so we have a headcount, but  don’t let that be a deterrent,” says Geise. “Just because you didn’t register doesn’t mean that you can’t come. We’ll have a computer in a kiosk so when students get there we can swipe them in and print out a name tag and everything.”

Attendees should dress appropriately, research the employers that will be there and bring multiple copies of their resume. For a list employers at the fair and other information, go to https://sites.google.com/site/ncmastersphdfair/