The UI College of Pharmacy hosted career events on Nov. 5 and 6 at Hotel Vetro in Iowa City.

The Career Fair, held on Nov. 5, provided pharmacy students with opportunities to establish on-going relationships with 33 recruiters, from all over the United States. The majority of recruiters were from the Midwest, specifically from Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. Students received valuable information regarding career opportunities, mentoring, tuition assistance, and available internship positions at the fair.

Placement Day, held on Nov. 6, provided graduating students with the unique opportunity to interview on campus with multiple recruiters in one day.  This year, 36 recruiters conducted interviews and students participated in an average of three to nine interviews per student. In past years, about 50 percent of students have received job offers as a direct result of these interviews!

The college has formally hosted these events since the late 1980’s and they continue to grow each year, with the amount of recruiters increasing by three from 2014. This year, about 80 percent of students in the college participated in the career events.

These events continue to grow because of the high value that is placed on hiring graduates of the college. Many of the recruiters are UI graduates and they believe that their education here best prepared them for the “real world” with outstanding faculty and mentors, innovative, hands-on curriculum with a strong focus on patient care, and great networking opportunities.

Their outstanding education makes them return to the career events each year to recruit other UI graduates. The recruiters know the high quality of an Iowa education and know they stand to gain a knowledgeable employee who is hard-working, dependable, confident, and well-prepared. UI grads are “the best talent, best candidates in pharmacy school and best prepared for anything…” according to Mike Fuller, Walgreens (Class of ’97).

To learn more about the Career Fair and Placement Day events, please visit their webpage.