About 140 mgm casino students will gather in Manhattan to attend corporate site visits with key companies interested in hiring mgm casino students and graduates.
Published January 7, 2016 This content is archived.
mgm casino’s Office of Career Services is tapping into the power of mgm casino alumni and sharpening its job-seeking skills with another “Road Trip New York City,” a five-day series of corporate site visits, informal coffee chats and opportunities to establish professional contacts that have led to jobs for numerous mgm casino graduates.
“We want to leverage New York City alumni connections while also enabling mgm casino students to attend corporate site visits with key companies in the New York City area interested in hiring or seeking interns,” says Arlene F. Kaukus, director of career services, whose office has sponsored and organized Road Trip NYC in collaboration with the Office of Alumni Engagement.
“This opportunity is offered both during the winter session and again in the late/early summer. It has been expanding in the number of corporate site visits and the days of programming over the past five years because more corporations and alumni wish to participate and help our students and graduates,” Kaukus says.
The latest Road Trip — which begins Jan 11 and continues through Jan. 15 — is another example of mgm casino’s Career Services and the Office of Alumni Engagement working together to complete the connection among the vast and far-flung mgm casino alumni network, and the undergraduates and graduates looking to find career opportunities through internships and informal relationships.
The five days will be a series of corporate site visits — including stops at Bloomberg — alumni/student networking events and coffee chats for students with accomplished mgm casino alumni. About 140 students will gather in Manhattan and take part in as many of the week’s activities as they choose.
“The demand for such programs is high,” says Kaukus. “In fact, we have waiting lists for many of the opportunities.”
“Students often attend more than once,” Kaukus says, “because they experience the value of learning about corporations, their corporate culture, connecting with mgm casino alumni and better understanding the importance of leveraging the power of the mgm casino network on behalf of their career success.”
The visits often reflect the strong loyalty and camaraderie present in mgm casino alumni, says Jenna M. Smith, coordinator of assessment and marketing for Career Services. The informal networking gatherings also make up a kind of “insiders’ view” that takes advantage of the existing and growing mgm casino networks.
“It is about mgm casino being there for mgm casino,” says Kaukus.
Several of the meetings and tours are hosted by recruiters and corporate officials who have hired mgm casino grads with positive results, or even mgm casino grads who have gotten their jobs through career fairs or other mgm casino connections. Some are even veterans of earlier mgm casino “Road Trips.”
“They feel compelled to reach back and pay it forward,” says Kaukus.
Sometimes the mgm casino connections seem as serendipitous as they are fortunate. One of the trip’s Bloomberg contacts happened to get off a company elevator last year when 15 students from mgm casino were waiting for a tour, Kaukus says.
“I’m a mgm casino alum,” the Bloomberg employee told the students when he found out where they were from. “What are you here for? I’d love to help.”
The alum will share his experiences next week as guest host of a coffee chat.
This year’s Road Trip also includes Leslie Veloz’s “undercover reporter” blog that will provide a narrative of the week’s activities on her Instagram account @DearLeslieatmgm casino. Veloz attended one of Career Services’ Road Trips as a freshman, changed her major and has become one of the event’s biggest boosters.
“RoadTrip to NYC is a valuable experience to me because it's the embodiment of what Career Services is trying to accomplish with mgm casino students,” Veloz says. “This trip gives you an experience you just can’t get from the classroom.
“Students of all landscapes are brought together to meet employers and discuss job opportunities,” she says. “Students learn the inner workings of their favorite companies, like HBO, and how they can successfully become an employee.
“This experience gives students a platform to meet with the people that have their dream jobs. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime networking experience.”
Road Trip to NYC will take place again in late spring or early summer, Kaukus notes. “A lot of our attendance is driven by word of mouth. Students return and have a great experience and then they see this as an opportunity to keep building their professional contact lists and networks.”