Hokie ClubVirginia Tech Student-Athlete Development held its annual Career Jumpstart event on Monday, Oct. 2 at the Beamer-Lawson Indoor Practice Facility, sponsored by Federated Insurance.
The event is open exclusively to juniors through graduating Virginia Tech student-athletes and provides them with opportunities to enhance their career development skills. The main goal is to connect student-athletes with professionals in a variety of industries in order to strengthen their networking skills and jumpstart their post-graduate opportunities
"I know a lot of times our student-athletes don't have the opportunity because of athletics or academics to take advantage of the on-campus career fairs," senior director for student-athlete career development within the Lombardi Student-Athlete Development Center at Virginia Tech Sarah Lage said. "That's why we have Career Jumpstart, so that they have that opportunity to get in front of employers and learn how to translate their skills as a student-athlete into the world of work."
Held each year since 2009, Career Jumpstart additionally provides an opportunity for student-athletes to connect with VT Name, Image and Likeness partners in regards to NIL opportunities, an addition to the event from years' past.
On top of that, it also provides student-athletes with the opportunity to receive a professional headshot, which can be utilized to enhance their online professional profile.
"I think one of the main reasons I came [to Tech] was partially because of events they put on like this," junior member of the lacrosse team Katie McCarthy said. "The experience this is giving me right now, it's kind of giving the upper hand to all of us on how to talk to employers, and get your name out there and be confident in spaces like this. … It shows how much [Tech] wants us to grow not only as athletes, but as people as well."
The career fair style-event hosted 32 different professionals that were available to present to the student-athletes. Those in attendance were able to wander around and speak at each respective table, allowing them to focus their attention on what caught their eye.
One of the professionals that attended the event was director of digital marketing strategies Shawn Stevenson, a first-year member of the Tech athletics staff, who most recently worked with the Cleveland Browns.
"Being a part of Career Jumpstart is a really good opportunity," Stevenson said. "You get to see what the student-athletes want to do in terms of life after school or life after sports. And understanding the benefit that it gave me coming out of college to have some experience to set me up for success.
"It feels really good to have an opportunity to potentially give that to someone else, and help them explore the different avenues that they could have after college."
For football student-athlete Josh Gholston, the event serves as a major boost before heading into the professional world, and allows for time to be allocated toward attacking a greater cause that otherwise might not occur with the time commitments of student-athletes.
"A lot of athletes don't necessarily get the time to go outside of sports to find internships and to find jobs," Gholston said. "Then once they're done playing, they kind of feel stuck in a way. So I feel like Virginia Tech putting this on for us gives us the opportunity to not feel left out when we're done playing our sport.
"It's very advanced for them to allow us this opportunity. I think it puts Virginia Tech towards the top not only for athletics, but what they can do outside of it."
Virginia Tech Student-Athlete Development hosts a multitude of different events to prepare student-athletes for the real world per year. These events are designed to help each and every student-athlete for what's to come in their post-graduate careers, with Career Jumpstart serving as just one of the many events put together to assist.
"It's never too early to start thinking about your life after graduation at Virginia Tech," Lage said. "Let's get them on track. Let's start doing it.
"Whether they're planning to go pro or not, you never know who you're going to meet. It's always great to begin to build that network, and we'll do anything we can to help."
Gallery: (10-19-2023) GEN: 2023 Career Jumpstart