UNH Grads Return to Network With Students at Career and Internship Fair

Casey Byrne ’23 and Gracie Hoadley ’24 weren’t just manning the JPMorgan Chase table during the company’s first appearance at the UNH Career and Internship Fair on Feb. 25. They were largely responsible for it being there in the first place.

Byrne and Hoadley are both UNH grads who experienced the fair, run by UNH Career and Professional Success (CaPS), as students and felt like their company was missing out on a golden opportunity by not recruiting at the twice-annual event.

“I reached out to the recruiting team and said, ‘I’m a UNH alumni and we’ve never been to the UNH fair, and I think there’s so much talent there that’s being underrepresented,’” says Byrne. “I’m so happy they made it possible for Gracie and me to come here. It’s so helpful for us to be able to meet these students face-to-face, so when they do apply, we can say, ‘I remember meeting that person and I liked them.’ It’s so beneficial for us as we try to pull in talent that we want to hire.”

Byrne and Hoadley have now been on both sides of the table and know how an opportunity at such an event can open significant doors as students look to transition not just to jobs but careers. Hoadley landed an internship at a local firm after her sophomore year at UNH and scored another, at JPMorgan Chase, after her junior year. That second internship led directly to her securing a job, and she’s now a year-and-a-half into her tenure with the company.

“It’s definitely very rewarding to come back,” Hoadley says. “I think it’s great to see everyone who was in my position (when I was a student), and for them to see a company and alumni like us being represented, so they know they can make it.”

Byrne and Hoadley were hardly the only UNH grads represented at the fair. In fact, that strong UNH pipeline is a significant focus of the event. The fair – held in the fall and the spring – typically hosts more than 200 employers, split across industries. About 40% of those employer participants are UNH graduates.

Another key focus of the fair is strengthening New Hampshire’s workforce. More than 70% of participating employers have a Granite State presence. This aligns with a strategic objective of CaPS and the broader goals of the One UNH: Roadmap to 2030 strategic plan.

Having so many UNH graduates available to speak to current students is a great way to create connection for both sides as conversations begin, and such significant representation emphasizes the event’s role in fostering alumni engagement and supporting state, regional, and national employers, says Krysta Gingue, assistant director of employer relations in CaPS.

Some of the alumni present at the fair have had the opportunity to grow not only from students to employers, but also to mentors. Tony Castagnaro ’12, ’14G was present to represent Lonza Portsmouth, which has built an enduring partnership with UNH. Last year Lonza Portsmouth and UNH launched the Lonza Scholars Program, a collaboration designed to enhance educational and career opportunities in the life sciences industry for certain UNH students.

The first cohort of students entered the program with Lonza last year.

“That partnership with UNH is really important,” Castagnaro, who joined Lonza directly after graduating from UNH and has been with the company since 2014, says. “One of the ways we’re strengthening it is by identifying key talent through the Lonza Scholars program, giving students the opportunity to learn more about what Lonza does while they’re still studying. The goal is that, by the time they reach their junior and senior years, they are well prepared for internship programs as well as real-world, transferable experience as they transition into industry.”

Another of UNH’s strongest employer connections, Fidelity, was represented at the fair by Kayla Coppola ’21, who has been with the company for two-and-a-half years. She says she attended the career fair multiple times while at UNH and believes strongly in the power of networking and getting involved in as many different things as possible while exploring career opportunities.

“It’s honestly been great to be back here. I can relate to the students, especially the seniors, because I was where they are just a couple of years ago,” Coppola says. “It’s great getting to help them out with things like resume prep or internships and just generally how to prepare themselves.”

Representation at the fair spans a wide range of industries and includes companies of all sizes, including independently owned local operations like Tidewater Engineering & Surveying, founded by Ryan McCarthy ’05 and headquartered in Eliot, Maine.

The company has five full-time employees, including fellow UNH graduate Nicole Sanborn ’20, who accompanied McCarthy to the career fair. Because of its size, retaining talent is critical for Tidewater, and the UNH event offers the firm the chance to bring students on as interns early in their college careers to foster potentially lasting relationships.

“That’s the ideal, to land an intern, have them for one summer, maybe two summers, and then have them go full-time,” says McCarthy. “This is our primary job fair that we go to, because we’re so local. We look at it as a long-term investment. We’ve been coming for three years, and we’re meeting the same students and making those connections – they know our name, we know their name, and that’s how you develop those relationships, whether they pan out to a job after graduation or later in their career.”

Adds Sanborn, who landed her first job after UNH because she attended the career fair as a student: “We’re looking for people that want to grow with us, that want to stick around. That’s always the intention coming here, to find someone maybe from their sophomore year and be able to build a relationship that continues as they move into their careers.”

Amphenol, a global technology company, was represented at the fair by UNH grads Matthew Dowling ’22 and Patrick Close ’22, ’24G. Dowling says UNH prepared him for the workforce, crediting the university with going beyond the technical aspects of education. “They teach you how to tackle a problem, how to think about it,” he says.

He graduated in 2022, when lingering COVID challenges made the job-hunting process tricky – “the hiring strangeness was real,” he quips – and he is thankful for the chance to help guide students through their own upcoming professional searches.

“If I can help at all with trying to get this next generation of engineers, this next generation of businesspeople, into the workforce, that’s important to me,” Dowling says. “If I can help ease someone’s pain on that front, help get them in the door, that’s huge.”

Amphenol is international but has a New Hampshire location, and for Close, a major benefit of attending the fair is the chance to keep young talent in the Granite State.

“I grew up in the state, went to school in New Hampshire, and I still work in New Hampshire,” says Close. “I love the state, I love the people here, and I would love for students to be able to stick around.”

For Gabrielle Masseur ’21, representing a CaPS key employer partner in Alku – a specialized staffing firm with locations that include a training center in Durham – the opportunity to talk to such a wide variety of students, across all areas of study, is one of the biggest benefits of attending such an event.

“We don’t hire based on major, so we’re talking to all students – all walks of life, all different degrees,” she says. “It’s super rewarding (to recruit students). It’s the best part of my job. Just knowing that I was able to help a UNH student as an alumna is just so special.”

That sentiment was fairly universal among the UNH graduates back on campus for the event, including those who pushed to represent their company for the first – but likely not the last – time.

“I’m really happy we were here,” Byrne says of JPMorgan Chase. “And we are definitely going to be coming back.”