DALLAS, TX: Indo American Community Services (IACS) conducted its 6th Annual Diversity Career Expo in Dallas on Thursday, November 12 with a grand success.
IACS had earlier hosted Annual Diversity Career Expos this year in New York and Chicago with huge success and good participation.
Over 80 companies participated in all three cities combined and attracted around 2000 job seekers. Some of the fortune 500 companies that participated were ITW, Dover Corporation, Grainger, Walgreens, United Airlines, Nielsen, Capital One, AT&T, Exelon, USG and others. The event was attended by graduating students seeking internships, fresh graduates looking for entry level jobs and experienced professionals in pursuit of better career opportunities.
The participants were not only from the Indian American Community but also from Asian American, Hispanic, African American and other communities. The Career Expo was well received by over 400 job seekers
There were two major highlights. One was its popular resume review, career advice and counseling service provided by industry veterans with recruiting background.
Many participants lined up for this service, as job aspirants appreciated honest critique on the strengths and weaknesses of their resume and guidance to make it more attractive for recruiters. The second highlight was a professional photograph service. Participants who had their professional photos taken would be able to use them on networking sites like LinkedIn or even for electronic resumes.
Diversity Career Expo at Renaissance Dallas Richardson was inaugurated by Sai Bilanuka, VP US Income Tax Software Engineering, Thomson Reuters. In his inaugural speech, Sai commented that diversity is an essential part of business which brings in ideas from people with different backgrounds and exposure.
He said that by bringing in diversity, employees can gain a better understanding of different cultures and can build respect and appreciation, which in turn leads to workforce harmony and better productivity. Sai mentioned that with many corporations relocating or opening offices in Dallas area, Career Expo gives a unique opportunity for companies to find and hire talented people with diverse backgrounds.
Participating employers set up stalls manned by recruiting and hiring managers. Each stall had a display board that listed out open positions in the company. This information was very useful for job seekers to focus specifically on the employers whose positions matched their skills. Job seekers also had a unique opportunity to interact with hiring managers, seek their perspective on open positions, skill expectations, growth and educational opportunities.
The event provided the job seekers with an opportunity to network with colleagues as well to make new connections. Swati Verma, an MIS student from The University of Texas at Dallas who is graduating in December, commented that the Expo provided a great opportunity for her to talk with many hiring managers from ITW and said that the ‘resume critique’ service was also very useful for students like her, as she learnt what recruiting managers look for in potential hires.
Amit Kale, one of the experienced professionals who attended the event, commented that this was a great opportunity for prospective job seekers to meet with recruiting managers. The hiring companies can ‘put a name to the face’ so to speak, which is not possible when one applies for a job online.
Shweta Kurvey-Mishra, Director, Diversity & Inclusion at ITW commented that she and her team came looking to fill number of open positions in Engineering, Sales and Marketing departments and also mentioned that ITW has participated in number of professional development conferences that IACS has hosted.
Rama Venkatasubramanian, Development Manager at Texas Instruments and also one of the IACS Organizing Members, gave full credit to dedicated volunteers who contributed their time and effort to give something back to community.
Jagan Bukkaraju mentioned that IACS is pleased to see many of the employers participate every year as they view the event as a great opportunity to hire talented candidates from diverse backgrounds.
Sreenivas Katragadda, President IACS mentioned that IACS is supporting the South Asian community not only through these grand Diversity Career expos but also through many activities like Women’s Empowerment forums, Professional, Leadership, Business and Entrepreneurial Conferences.
The IACS also provides student internship opportunities both in public and private sectors apart from free job portal, mentoring and career counseling services.
SURENDRA ULLAL
