Tech & Entrepreneurship Fair 2021
A Virtual Career Fair During Boston College’s “Spring Break”
About
Spring Break, or meeting the amazing employees of 40+ startups and tech companies from around the country? I don’t know about you, but this year we seemed to get the best of both worlds! The Start@Shea Executive Board put on an incredible virtual fair this year, led by Nimsu Ng ’22, Felicia Chen ’21, Maggie Yan ’22, and Alex Poole ’23. The team set up a five day fair that had 40+ companies spanning from tech and software to food and beverage to retail and healthcare. Most notably, Boston College alumni and employees from Google and Amazon attended the fair all five days, coming with summer and post-grab job opportunities for Boston College students!
Although we missed being together in person to celebrate innovation and shared passions, the team did a great job of creating a seamless experience for both the attending companies and BC students! What was taken advantage of with this virtual experience was location and time. Not only was the fair able to span over five days giving more availability for companies AND more students able to attend with the Mid-Week Spring Break, but companies from all over the country were able to attend in the comfort of their own home office. With over 200 students in attendance over the entire week, this virtual career fair is one for the pandemic memories!
Format
How did this work? For one, the team kept everything organized for both the companies attending and students interested in a website made just for this Tech and Entrepreneurship Fair. Then, to organize the schedule, a Google Calendar was created with Information Sessions and the ability to sign up for individual Coffee Chats with the companies who offered! All meetings were on Zoom, hosted by other members of the Start@Shea team and spearheaded by the T&E Fair team. They were able to organize the Zooms in a way where the links were easy to access and transitioning from a big group into Coffee Chats was seamless. These Coffee Chats gave the ability for students interested in a company to have the opportunity to meet one on one with employees. The Coffee Chats were wildly popular, as at a regular in-person fair the ability for a student to get fifteen minutes of full attention from an employee is an anomaly and so helpful to be remembered and recognized when putting themselves in the application pool!
Feedback
All in all, the feedback that the T&E Fair Team got was nothing short of total appreciation and gratitude! Companies responded to the follow up that we “smashed it” and that the fair was a “delight to be a part of”. However, most importantly, the majority of the companies stated that they wanted to be a part of Start@Shea in the future. Attending Zoom with Entrepreneurs (if in-person in the near future, this event returns to being Lunch with Entrepreneurs), possible Case Competitions, and more events, almost all the companies said that they would love to work with the team going forward. This is incredibly exciting for the future of Start@Shea!
This Spring Break may not have been full of sun and relaxation, but the fun was not lacking in the Tech and Entrepreneurship fair! Companies came with collaborative spirits, great stories, and even gear. We hope you’re excited for next year!
Thanks for reading! We are Start@Shea, the student executive team of the Edmund H. Shea Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship at Boston College.
If you want to learn more about who we are, what we do, and our upcoming events, please feel free to visit our website. You can also subscribe to our newsletter here, and if you have any further questions or comments, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at startatshea@gmail.com!
