Demand for Engineers Returns to YSU Job Fair
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The job market is so bright for college graduates this spring that liberal arts majors stand a better chance than usual of finding employment suited to their strengths, especially in sales.
Students majoring in engineering and accounting are in demand, said representatives and human resources professionals for manufacturing concerns Wednesday at the spring job fair at Youngstown State University.
Ninety-one organizations from government entities (Peace Corps, the armed forces, the federal minimum security penitentiary in Elkton, Ohio State Highway Patrol) to health-care concerns (Gateways to Better Living, Humility of Mary Health Partners) to accounting and financial services (Home Savings and Loan Co., First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Hill Barth & king LLC, Schroedel, Scullin & Bestic CPAs) to transportation (JB Hunt Transport, FedExCustom Critical) to nursing and retirement homes manned tables to discuss internships as well as employment after graduation.
Before the fair ended at 3 p.m. yesterday, the YSU director of career services, Jennifer Johnson expected 400 students to walk through the Kilcawley Student Union. One hundred fifty had “pre-registered,” she reported, and she was encouraged by the filled aisles that were navigable but you had to walk carefully.
Butech Bliss in Salem has openings for engineers both to work on the floors of its plants in Salem as well as its sales department, say Josh Hostetter, an estimator there, and Brandon Strahin, a mechanical engineer.
Hostetter earned his baccalaureate in business administration at YSU in 2012 while Strahin earned his in mechanical engineering the year before. Roughly a quarter of the Butech Bliss workforce studied at YSU, Strahin said. “Twenty-three [YSU engineering] alumni work in our engineering department,” he related.
“Engineering is the heart of our company,” Strahin stated, and the company’s relationship with the university has benefited both. Hostetter and Strahin were present to inform juniors in engineering of the internships Butech Bliss has in its manufacturing and engineering departments as well as recruit seniors close to graduation.
The chief engineer of AjaxTOCCO Magnathermic Corp., Warren, Jeff Deeter, is also a YSU alumnus. The electrical engineering program at the university prepared him well, he said, and he returns to his alma mater because “We’ve found YSU to be the best fit for our company.” Seventy to 75% of the AjaxTOCCO workforce went to YSU, he said.
“YSU produces ‘blue-collar engineers,’ ” Deeter said. “They’re practical and they arrive ready to hit the floor.”
The number of women in engineering is slowly increasing, Deeter reports. “We just hired a woman, a mechanical engineer,” he relates, which raises the number of female engineers there to five.
The president of Custom Valve and its director of human resources and accounts payable, Mark Valvano and Rachael Manuel respectively, were looking for two full-time engineers and an intern.
“We love YSU,” said Valvano, who earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering and MBA there. Manuel, who earned her B.S. in accounting at YSU in 2010 (she also played basketball on the women’s varsity team), listed the qualities Custom Valve seeks: “motivated, articulate, hardworking, and an ability and willingness to learn.”
As its name only hints, Custom Valve “is a heavy industrial servicer,” Valvano said. Its 35 employees in New Castle, Pa., repair and replace the valves in heavy machinery and equipment in power generators, steel and paper mills and chemical plants, The valves its produced range in length from 112 inches to one-half inch.
This was the first year that KTH Parts Industries from St. Paris had a table at the job fair. St. Paris is about an hour’s drive north of Dayton.
Ed Sefton, projects planning coordinator, and Ashley Nott, on the KTH human resources staff, were recruiting both engineers and student interns for the summer. Aware that Youngstown is at least a four-hour drive from St. Paris, Nott described the efforts KTH makes to help students make the most of their internships.
KTH is a supplier to Honda, its plant in Marysville as well as in Honda plants in Alabama and Canada. “We manufacture the steel frames and component parts,” Nott said.
College students accepted as KTH interns are helped in finding housing they can afford, Nott said, as well as some of their transportation expenses.
KTH seeks students who are “academically prepared,” she said. “GPA is important but there’s no hard and fast standard.” KTH is looking for interns who exhibit maturity and confidence, have good communication skills and a willingness to learn.
Opportunities for liberal arts majors are improved, says Christina Hardy, who has responsibility in the YSU Career Services office for working with these students. An improving economy is only one reason why.
Internships are expanding for liberal arts students, she said. For example, no longer should a major in political science be assumed to be undergraduate preparation for law school. Legislatures and agencies in state capitals want students as interns to conduct needed research and the hope that some pursue careers as bureaucrats.
In addition, the ability to communicate and learning critical-thinking skills – often helped by an outgoing personality – prove invaluable in sales and marketing, she said. “Employers are looking for such people,” she says, “and then they train them to do the job.”
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our twice-monthly print edition and to our free daily email headlines.