Michigan Tech College of Business Newsblog

Category: Events

Fall 2014 Career Fair Largest in Michigan Tech History

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[youtube]http://youtu.be/GywICI9i7H4[/youtube]

Over 300 companies from across the country packed the Student Development Complex at Michigan Tech yesterday for the Career Fair. Students double and triple checked their resumes and were determined to leave a lasting impression for their prospective employers.

Career Services Director Steve Patchin explained how the state of the economy impacts the job market.

“Right now, there’s a shortage of talent out there, especially in the areas of STEM,” he said.  “We have the baby boomers that are going to be retiring.  They kind of held that off in 2008 when the market tanked and their retirement savings went down quite a bit.  That’s recovered since then.  So, now they’re retiring, the economy’s on the rebound and the companies need talent.”

Students lined up in front of booths and answered questions about career achievements and previous experience.  MTU students have a great reputation as evident by the over 90% job placement rate for those graduating from Tech, along with payscale.com ranking Michigan Tech graduates in the top ten amongst the highest salaries in the country.

“I call them “well prepared and job ready”,” John Dau from DTE Energy said.  “The university does an awesome job with the students to get them prepared, not only for internships and co–ops, but extremely well prepared for the working world once they come out of the university, ready to work full time.”

Amazon.com made its first appearance ever at the career fair, and are looking for specific skills that they are sure to find here today.

“We look a lot for algorithms, data structures, design patterns…so Amazon is all about big data and machine learning. And lots of large scale, high computational systems, with hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. So having software engineers and developers that are really strong in the fundamentals is core,” Garret Gaw from Amazon said.

What goes into preparing for attending a career fair?

“I generally prepare by highlighting my top companies and making sure that my resume is all up to date and talking about my strong points. Just coming in, relaxed and confident. It’s nothing more than a mere conversation and if you go in with a friendly smile and a good attitude, then good things happen,” senior mechanical engineering major Brent Cousino said.

It is a bit of a nerve-racking experience but many of them know just how invaluable this experience is.

“I think they help tremendously. I never would have even considered half of these companies. I hadn’t heard of half of these companies before today and now three of them that I’ve never even talked to or even considered working for, I have interviews with and I might work there in the future. And to me, it blows my mind,” senior computer engineering major Tanner Howell said.

At the end of the day, many of these students walked in with the hope of speaking to someone important and walked out with handful of great opportunities.

And it’s all thanks to Michigan Tech and its reputation as a great place to hire employees.

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“So you want to be a CFO…”

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On September 11th, Barbara Johnson-Rossi spoke with Accounting students about her field, and how they can aspire to be Chief Financial Officers. Johnson-Rossi worked for nearly 30 years within the healthcare industry as an Internal Auditor, Manager of Accounting, Director of Operations, and CFO. Now retired,  she maintains 8-10 hours/week of consultancy work helping with payer contracting and managing data around cost-of-care.

Barbara Johnson-Rossi, former CFO for Essentia Health, speaks to Michigan Tech's accounting students.
Barbara Johnson-Rossi, former CFO for Essentia Health, speaks to Michigan Tech’s accounting students.

Based on popular demand, Johnson-Rossi will be presenting once again, this time to the Kappa Sigma Iota (KSI) Accounting Club and members of the greater Tech community. Her discussion will cover the various career options available within the field of Accounting, including a deeper look at the jobs she has held. KSI Accounting Club welcomes any interested parties to join them in welcoming Barbara Johnson-Rossi back to campus this Wednesday, October 1st at 5:30 pm in Fisher Hall, Room 131.


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Alumna Starting Farmers’ Market

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FarmersMarketAmber Campbell ’96, the founder of G&A Garden Center in Houghton, is collaborating with area farmers to open a weekend Farmers’ Market at her garden center, 400 W. Sharon Ave. It will open this Friday, Aug. 8, and be open Fridays and Saturdays until harvest season is over.

Locally grown, natural and organic fruits and vegetables and eggs will be offered, as well as jams and baked goods. Campbell calls the Farmers’ Market “an effort to bridge farmers and consumers in a natural, sustainable way.” The goal of her garden center, which opened in 2012, is to provide the community with local, natural and organic foods and plants.

Participating in the Farmers’ Market will be Niemela’s Market Garden of Pelkie; Wintergreen Farm of Ontonagon; Pike River Produce of Chassell; and Teresa’s Jam and Home Bakery of Chassell. 

Hours will be 1-6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.

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FinanceU Is Most Exceptional!

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At the 20th Annual Student Leadership Awards on Friday, April 18, FinanceU received the honor of Exceptional Program of the Year.  FinanceU, an event in financial literacy put on by the Office of Financial Aid and the School of Business and Economics’ Finance Club on November 20, owes some of its success to its partnership with Michigan Tech’s Office of Financial Aid and Wells Fargo Bank.

The Finance Club and the Office of Financial Aid have partnered to produce the successful FinanceU events in order to help students make informed financial decisions.  FinanceU’s mission is to foster a greater sense of financial literacy among all students, regardless of major.  Topics discussed at this year’s event included financial aid opportunities, how to manage one’s personal finances, starting and continuously funding a substantial retirement plan, and provided students with online tools to help manage all of these aspects.  Financial Aid Advisor, Cindy Cowell, and Wells Fargo Store Manager, Ellie Freeman, were on hand to answer questions from audience members, but the main focus of the event was for students to present information to other students, since research shows that individuals are better able to understand a message when it is delivered by a peer.

This second consecutive FinanceU event held at its roots the same message as last year’s activity; Michigan Tech students were given the knowledge and power needed to enable them to begin making sound financial decisions before even graduating from college.  Similar to the previous year’s event, a survey was administered to participants, asking them to rate their knowledge of budgeting.  This year’s FinanceU event was so successful that the number of participants doubled, with over 200 students completing the surveys.

Brett Ludwig, 2013/2014 President of the Finance Club was extremely proud of FinanceU’s accomplishments.  “With this year being the second time FinanceU has put on the event,” Ludwig remarked, “we were hoping that it would be bigger and better than last year.  Mission accomplished.  With Donzel Dixson [Finance Club member] on the bullhorn outside, the flow of students coming to the booth as well as Finance Club members going throughout the library to ask people questions were astounding.  We’re excited to host more events in the future.”  Ludwig will be graduating in a few weeks, but will leave the Finance Club in the capable hands of Heath Johnson, 2014/2015 President.

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Marketing Student Shines at 2014 UPISRC

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MTU and NMU combine for the 2014 UPISRC to showcase undergraduate student research.

The 2014 Upper Peninsula Interdisciplinary Student Research Conference (UPISRC) was organized to showcase and publicize the research being done by local students in human and behavioral sciences. This event was developed to organize a conference involving student research in: psychology, human factors, education, human effectiveness, human-centered design, social science, kinesiology, and other related fields. This year 30 students submitted abstracts, and many of the authors presented on their research at the conference for the first time. Presenters came from several departments across both MTU and NMU.

Each student gave an oral presentation for fifteen minutes in addition to a poster presentation on their research topic. The School of Business and Economics had one student participate in the UPISRC. Haley Florinki is a senior Marketing major and she presented on Assessing the Effect of a Salesperson’s Customer Service Duration Up-selling and Cross-Selling.

The abstract for her research is presented below:

The purpose of this research project is to empirically test how a salesperson’s time spent with the customers impact on their purchasing decision. More specifically this project focuses on the duration of a salesperson’s customer service and its effects on up-selling and cross-selling. Up-selling takes place when a salesperson attempts to sell a similar but better quality product than the first product exposed to a customer. Cross-selling happens when complimentary products adding to the main product that customer initially looks for creates extra customer value. Regarding the research method, this project used observation research to capture important independent variables (Time spent with customers, and product display method) and dependent variables (Whether or not the sale was made, and sales results – up selling & cross-selling). Responses from shoppers in a large local mall were recorded into the IBM-SPSS software. The questionnaire was designed for the associate to be able to interact with a customer and complete the questionnaire afterwards. The expected outcome was that the amount of time spent with a customer would increase the likelihood of up-selling and/or cross-selling. The results from the Chi-square test greatly supported the evidence that the time spent with the salesperson had a positive impact on sales. I specifically found that while a salesperson’s short time spent with customer (less than 30 sec) increased the likelihood of up-selling, her long time spent with customers (more than 90 sec) promoted that of cross-selling.

This event was sponsored by the MTU Human Factors Student Chapter and the MTU Department of Psychology.

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