USC’s inaugural Black Career Fair took place last night in the heart of campus. Entirely student-driven, this event was a triumph for those involved in its planning.
The planning process offered junior Candace House the chance to mix her passions for marketing and building community. House is the co-executive director of the Black Student Assembly, so she took a lead on recruiting top companies.
CANDACE HOUSE: We really just started cold calling people on LinkedIn, finding who was a USC alumni, reaching out to them, just sending them messages through the free version on LinkedIn.
Other marketing efforts were just as creative. Marketing lead Kameron Villafana used multiple platforms to reach as many people as possible.
KAMERON VILLAFANA: I posted a lot of TikToks, a lot of Instagram, and I sent out, I think, every email... for the Black Career Fair.
His counterpart, BSA’s programming intern Radiya Ajibade, gave a more revealing insight into Villafana’s marketing tactics.
RADIYA AJIBADE: Our marketing person for TikTok, Kam. He was so good at everything he did and... just watching him do cartwheels and stuff, just to make sure that we were spreading the word that was just so fun to be part of.
This joint marketing effort did its job. Turnout among students and companies was impressive, said House.
HOUSE: We had Disney, we had Paramount, we had NFL, McKinsey, Deloitte. Getting these companies to come is one of my biggest accomplishments and the amount of students that we had to come. We had over 550 students registered, which is more than any of our special events that BSA has ever put on.
But, the lead-up to the fair was not without its difficulties.
HOUSE: We didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know all the roles that we needed for our board for setup and clean up.
At the end of the day, House and her team’s thriftiness paid off. Ajibade said that students could ask recruiters intimate questions, which normally isn’t possible at traditional career fairs.
AJIBADE: The biggest thing that we wanted to ensure was that all the students could have at least some type of one on one time to actually make connections with professionals that look like them.
So, House and her team filled a gap in previous university programming, showing how USC students care for and uplift their community.
For Annenberg Media, this is Matt Chen.