Megan Keil, a recruiter for Peace Corps, and a Merrimack alumni, represented one of 16 companies who participated in Merrimack’s Public Service Networking & Recruiting Event on Feb. 19.
She recently finished her master’s degree with Merrimack online, and she’s participated in on-campus career fairs for a couple years. For students or undergraduates, Megan believes career fairs are a very valuable resource.
“I always tell people, take advantage of career fairs or visiting the career services office,” she said. “It’s something that you’re paying for. It’s part of your tuition, and they’re there to help you. [Sometimes] I [want] to shake everyone and be like, use these services that are available to you.”
Peace Corps is a federal government agency that sends trained individuals to live and work internationally for 27 months; three months of training in the country of service and two years of service in a community within that country. They are always looking for volunteers as they have six volunteer serving sections and 64 countries in partnership. Their largest volunteer section is in education, but Peace Corps has a place for everyone.
“It’s hard to choose [which] fair to go to, because no matter what you’re studying, there’s probably a spot for you,” she said. “Minimum qualifications [are] we’re looking for someone that…either has a bachelor’s degree in pretty much anything, or if someone never went to college, they could qualify if they have five years of full-time paid work experience.”
This semester, Merrimack has changed its career fair structure. Instead of having one large all-major career fair, they are having smaller, major-specific ones. Megan has experienced both and says that the smaller fairs have many benefits.
“These are nice because you could have more one-on-one conversations with people,” she said. “There’s more time to really stop and talk to someone and go into more detail than at a bigger fair. But I do enjoy any of the fairs here.”
While this career fair is specifically about public service, many of the companies accept a wide variety of majors and are dedicated to finding students who are willing to learn.
Jeffery Kyi, an assistant chief probation officer at the Trial Court of Massachusetts, elaborated on the different opportunities the Trial Court provides.
“We go anywhere between IT, HR, payroll, the actual probation department, we look for…everything under the umbrella,” he said. “Whether [your major] is communication, IT, criminal justice, we have something for everything. We [look for someone] that wants to learn, wants to further their career and wants to move up and do better. I think that’s what the Trial Court stands for, and hopefully we can provide that to the students.”
From the student perspective, this smaller event fair was a more comfortable setting for networking. Shirin Chehna ’26, a psychology major, liked the smaller crowd and didn’t feel overwhelmed.
“[It’s] definitely a lot more comfortable to approach [the companies], and [be] able to learn about them and focus on them [more], as opposed to a bunch of different people being around you,” she said. “Different options can be…overwhelming. So having limited options is nice for selecting stuff like [this].”
Jalyssa Coley ’26, a neuroscience major, was well prepared for the event as she worked on improving her resume and had questions ready to go.
“[I was] making sure that I have a clear idea of what I’m looking for,” she said. “And [made] sure I have prepared questions for everyone that’s here as well.”
With three other recruiting events in engineering, computer science, sport management & hospitality under their belt this semester, the O’Brien Center looks forward to two more fairs. The Health Professions & Graduate School Fair will be held on March 5 and Meet the Accounting Firms on April 22. All information can be found on career.merrimack.edu or using your Handshake account.
