Senior Kayli Kumanchik credits her internship success to Ag Sciences Career Day. “If it wasn’t for the opportunities I got there, I never would have had the chance to do my internship.”
A Pittsburgh native, Kumanchik is majoring in agribusiness management with a concentration in ag business. At Land O’Lakes, she worked with the members relations team to analyze their sampling and testing processes for quality and various milk components. “There are over 1,100 milk producers in the eastern Land O' Lakes region, and my job was to find opportunities to improve the turnaround time for accurate test results,” she explained.
Working at Land O’Lakes was full of new experiences for Kumanchik. While much of her work was research-based, she did not spend her whole summer in an office. Other opportunities included visiting a bustling 1,200-cow dairy farm for a week, traveling to meet members across the east coast and visiting labs and plants where various Land O’Lakes products are made. These experiences have given Kumanchik some perspective on her future career goals. She is not sure what she is going to do yet, but the internship helped her realize that she likes working with analytical data and has an interest in marketing.
Although she found the idea of attending a large career day a bit intimidating at first, Kumanchik fully utilized her experience. With nearly 300 exhibitors and organization representatives present at the career day, some of which provide on-the-spot first-level interviews for internships and jobs, it is vital for students who attend to have a plan. “Unless have an idea of what you’re looking for, you can feel a bit lost. So when I decided to attend Ag Sciences Career Day, I did my research on the attendees,” Kumanchik said.
This research included a number of things. First, she looked at the different positions that were available and then researched the companies themselves to see which would be a good fit for her. After speaking with a handful of companies at the career fair, Land O’Lakes was the first to respond to Kumanchik with the offer of an interview, followed by the internship.
Kumanchik has a few other tips for first-time attendees of the career fair: “Definitely have a prepared resume. Make sure it looks professional - even just having it printed on good paper makes a difference.” She also highly recommends visiting the Bank of America Career Services or workshops on campus to obtain assistance with resume writing.
Her final piece of advice? “It’s easy to be intimated by the number of people who attend the career fair on top of having to talk to potential employers. I’ve found that being confident about what you can bring to the table definitely helps you get the best opportunities.”
Kumanchik said that she was lucky to end up with a company that was invested in helping their interns learn about different aspects of the business by giving them so many unique opportunities. “Land O’Lakes has a great community of people with great values and a strong work ethic. It was nothing short of a privilege to work for them.”
This year’s Ag Science Career Day will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 10, in the Bryce Jordan Center on the University Park campus of Penn State.