WHS Hosts First Ever Career Fair For Students

Julia Hughes and Scotty Giannini

On May 23, 2019 Wethersfield high school held a career fair for the student body. Mr. Danaher the career counselor here at WHS, threw this whole thing together.

There were endless career booths from Travelers to the United States Army, to local jobs like D'esopo Funeral Home or the Wethersfield Police Department. Mr. Danaher was the main organizer of the career fair.

We talked to Mr. Danaher on organizing the fair, he said “ I reached out with Phone calls and emails to about 85 different companies and just explained what we are doing, trying to connect students with businesses outside so they can explore their careers, how they are going to come through, how we are trying to get students to engage. So from that point got about 41 different businesses they were paid to come in. It took a lot of work, it took over the course of 3 months.”

The main focus of the fair, in Mr. Danaher’s perspective was mainly exposure, “My main focus for the students, is really exposure, to really see different careers. We have funeral directors, we have health and wellness, we have business, we have trades. My goal in this is I think a lot of times you think oh, ‘I can only do this’, but hopefully you’ll go and talk to a lot of different people and see the different opportunities.”

Mr. Danaher also remarked on what he hoped students would take away and what booths he would check out if he were a student now.

“I hope they just get a chance to introduce themselves and get comfortable with meeting adults because that’s a big thing when you go for an interview or when you go out and you network. The first impression, that first 60 seconds when you shake hands and you smile is very important, that’s when they make or break your interview, they basically determine that.” He told us, “More in terms of either travelers because they have multiple opportunities it’s a bigger company and they have so many different things there, but I love being creative too so like getting on the marketing side I’d try to get a graphic designer, that’s what I’d really love to do even though I can’t draw but I can use a computer so those would be the ones I’d look at.”

We also had the opportunity to talk to students about their takeaways from the career fair. Junior, Dylan Kallicharan said, “Wethersfields career fair today has been quite eye opening. Walking around and seeing the businesses come together to provide young adolescents like us with the opportunity to get a grasp on what we want to do with our lives, it’s enamering, it’s enjoyable. It’s quite the privilege to be here today.”

While Dylan was more professionally interested in the fair, Junior Zane Tinker was a little bit more casually honest saying, “I came to the career fair to learn about potential futures I could take in my life, and there was also a squishy airplane that I wanted that I saw”

Overall the Career Fair that took place on May 23rd was a success and could not have been possible without the help of Mr. Danaher, teacher John Martin even mentioned talk about plans for another one next year with rumors that it will be held in Gym B.

Pictured above, WHS Junior Zane Tinker with his squishy airplane.