Two gyms were filled Tuesday at the Purdue College of Agriculture Career Fair held on campus. They were filled with employers and prospective employees, students at Purdue. Many students were seeking internships while others were looking for their career after graduation.
“I ended up walking around trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life, like most of the students here,” explains Amie Osborn, VP, commercial and ag lender at First Farmers Bank & Trust, as she recalls her time at the Purdue Ag Career Fair as a student. She was waiting in line to visit another company.
“Turns out that I was standing right next to the First Farmers Bank & Trust booth. And at the time the gentleman there, his name was Craig Langley- he was a great guy, lender here- he shook my hand and we started talking. He said, ‘Well, are you interested in banking?’ And like the naive student that I was, I said ‘no’.”
But obviously, we know how that story ends.
“Amazingly, he saw right through the ‘no’ and saw an interest in both people and numbers, and that’s how we started to have that conversation. We ended up interviewing. And, obviously, I’m here with First Farmers still to this day, almost 10 years later… Looking back, that was an awesome experience that I had at the career fair.”
Osborn says the career fair is a time for students to figure out what internship or career they might want, “but also to find things that might not work for them. So, having those conversations, even if somebody like me comes up and says, ‘No’, it’s still being able to have the conversation and getting to know people. Although I may not be able to work with them as a coworker, I might be working with them in other roles in other capacities. Maybe as a client in the future, or maybe that’s another person at a law firm or other institution, maybe a CPA that I could work with in the future. So, it’s a great networking opportunity for both the students and people like me as employers.”
According to Purdue, of the 544 College of Ag graduates in May of 2024, 91% of those are employed or continuing their education. 62% are employed in Indiana.
