Raj Soin College of Business hosts a four-day career-building event for students

The Back to Business Lunch featured talks from by local executives, department chairs and representatives of student academic clubs.

How to develop career awareness, build portfolios, find internships and transition to the working world highlighted a four-day event at the Wright State University Raj Soin College of Business.

The Back to Business Lunch, organized by the college’s Center for Career Management, featured talks from Sept. 13-16 by executives from private industry and other organizations as well as department chairs and representatives of student academic clubs.

The event encouraged freshmen to focus on career awareness, sophomores to begin building portfolios and elevator speech pitches, juniors to find internships and make themselves marketable, and seniors to start transitioning from students to professionals.

“I arranged the week’s events to bring awareness to each class about the broad range of services and support available to students,” said organizer Joyce Winters, director of the Center for Career Management.

A total of 110 students registered over the four days.

Speakers included Jonah Sandler, founder and chief entertainment officer of the Scene75 Entertainment Center; Dan Bitler of Robert Jones Insurance; Jake Osborne of Enterprise Holdings; Karli Lightner, corporate recruiter for The Reynolds and Reynolds Co.; Willy Hanlon of Northwestern Mutual; Bing Bingham, alumni relationship specialist with the Wright State Alumni Association; and Katie Kerry of Clothes That Work.

Sandler said the sophomores he presented to were attentive and appreciative.

“Today students learned some real-world examples of the power of networking and tuned into their ambitions and passions en route to finding a career of personal meaning,” he said. “This event is entirely geared to helping students on their trajectory.”

The Raj Soin College of Business Center for Career Management, sponsored by Speedway and Emerson Climate Technologies, equips students with career development skills and provides opportunities for employers to fulfill recruiting needs. The center provides space for students to meet with prospective employers and provides advanced video conference technology, a large conference room and professional interview spaces.