Bright balloons and sunshine welcome students and guests to the Career Fair at American River College on Thursday, April 25. The fair, the first to be held in the Community Rooms in the new Student Center, featured 26 employers looking to hire and give students a convenient place to research jobs and opportunities before summer.

Many career fields were represented in one room, ranging from retail companies such as Macy’s to Ikea, multiple preschool and after school programs, and numerous health care providers.

Kolleen Ostgaard, Career Center Supervisor, was thrilled at the attendance of this fair. “There’s so much energy in this room,” she said, opening her arms out to show the bustling room filled with eager applicants and colored banners hanging from tables lining the perimeter.

Ostgaard likes to have a mix of employers at their yearly career fairs to match the wide variety of programs ARC has to major in. Although this event was catered to students, this fair was also open to the general public.

Many of the guests who attended the fair dressed to impress in suits and business attire, with résumé ready. Students stood out in the crowd with their backpacks and casual clothes, some even seemed to come straight from tennis practice with rackets in hand.

Pavel Kanavalchuk, an ARC student majoring in design technology and engineering, came to the fair looking for jobs, mentioning, “Engineering, design, blueprints, models, and surveying,” as some of his interests. Although many of those were not in attendance, Kanavalchuk came to the fair because, “My teacher said it would be a good place for those looking for work.”

Most of the employers’ displays featured what positions they were hiring for, what majors it would apply to (marketing, IT, Human Resources, Health Care, etc.) and specifying part-time or full-time.