Over 150 Francis Marion University students or graduates met with potential employers when the Office of Career Development hosted a career fair Nov. 2 with mostly local businesses represented.

There were 43 employers including businesses, school districts and universities that attended the career fair.

Current students and alumni attended the fair which began at 12:30 p.m. and lasted for two hours.

Dollie Newhouse, Director of Career Development, said that the fair gave students the chance to hone their interview skills and meet with employers in a comfortable manner.

“It gives our students an opportunity to really polish their professional skills,” Newhouse said. “We try to give students every opportunity to meet with potential employers, and an efficient way to do that is to bring them to campus. This gives them an opportunity to do that before they are sitting across from someone in an interview situation and they have a job on the line.”

Newhouse, who has worked with 12 previous career fairs at FMU, said that the department normally sees a majority of student attendees come from the graduating senior class.

This year, Newhouse said that there was also a recognizable turnout from first semester freshmen.

“We typically see probably 60 percent of the students who attend are graduating seniors,” New-house said. “This time we had a number of freshmen who were here, and that’s really refreshing.”

Krystal Souther, an applied psychology graduate student at FMU and peer counselor for the Office of Career Development, said that she was pleased with the turnout. She also said that some students received good news from employers during the event.

“I feel like it went very well,” Souther said. “It was a really good turnout. I did hear a lot of the teaching students had really great responses as far as working with the schools and getting their résumés out there.”

Souther said that these types of events allow employment-seeking students to be less nervous about interviewing with businesses.

“Career fairs are really great opportunities to get that experience of talking with another professional in that interview format,” Souther said. “A lot of times students are really concerned about interviews and very nervous about them. This gives a less formal interview style so that it’s not as much pressure on them.”

There will be another career fair held in the spring semester that Newhouse said will most likely be scheduled for late-March or early-April.