Senior Summit Conference offers valuable insight for post college

For a chance to practice post-college skills like networking, resume writing and career strategizing, the Office of Career Development is hosting its second annual Senior Summit Career Readiness Conference on Saturday, Feb. 1, from 1-5 p.m. in the Young Building.

“Senior Summit is a great opportunity for graduating students to prepare for the transition from college to career and life after Salve,” said Caitlin Bailey, assistant director of career development at Salve Regina. “It’s a great event for seniors to attend who are looking to learn how to put their best foot forward post-graduation.”

During the conference, seniors will have opportunities to listen to a variety of speakers on topics that pertain to topics like networking, financial literacy, graduate school and others. There will be a keynote speaker and breakout sessions. Building upon the success of last year’s initial conference, which had about 50 seniors in attendance, this year’s summit will include even more improvements, according to Bailey.

“We’ve tried to expand on it from last year,” she said. “We want to make sure this event is interesting and accessible to all majors, so we’ve adjusted our topics and tried to include alumni presenters with a variety of majors and backgrounds.”

For this year, Senior Summit has added a networking etiquette presentation and will wrap up the event with a networking reception with hors d’oeuvres. During this time, students can practice networking with past alumni, who will be able to give valuable feedback on students’ elevator pitches.

“This should be a really fun way for students to practice their newly learned skills,” Bailey described. “This year we’ve hired a photographer to take headshots for student’s LinkedIn profiles, Portfolium profiles or other professional branding needs.”

The keynote speaker for the Senior Summit Career Readiness Conference is Chad Kritzas ’98, who is the branch director and lead listing specialist of HomeSmart Professionals Real Estate in Newport. Kritzas has deep roots in the Newport community, long-standing relationships with clients and an enormous network of colleagues, and he will be giving solid advice to seniors on how to build a pathway to success from college student to business owner and everything in between.

Other speakers in the summit’s breakout sessions will include speakers like Michael Wisnewski, director of the Office of Career Development at Salve Regina; Charlie Kelly, executive director at Rhode Island Student Loan Authority; and Annie Tobin Fickel ’03, ‘06 (M), talent management lead at Textron, Inc.

Seniors can RSVP here through Handshake and are asked to bring a resume and start preparing an elevator pitch before the event. Contact the Office of Career Development at career@salve.edu or (401) 341-2913 for any questions.