Events

Kicking Off Fall College Recruiting Season: Ohio State, Texas A&M, and Virginia Tech Career Fairs

September 6, 2019

We kicked off the fall college recruiting season the first week of September by attending careers fairs at Ohio State, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech. We attend these fairs to recruit for our Career Orientation and Development (COD) program, our summer internship program and even to hire candidates directly into open positions.

By attending over 20 different careers fairs at more than 10 schools across the country, we recruit the best minds and future leaders for our company. We heavily target seven schools (Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, University of Arizona, University of Kentucky, NC State, Purdue, and The Ohio State) based on the strengths of their business and engineering programs, but we also attend career fairs at a variety of other schools including WVU, University of Florida, Shepherd University, Radford University and the University of Virginia.

Over 15 years ago, we created our COD program to help recruit the cream of the crop among soon-to-be college graduates. These students join our company and explore a variety of our locations and job roles before making a final decision on their career. At the end of the program, these recent graduates can list their top three locations and positions of interest and we do our best to match them with their preferences in alignment with business needs.

"I knew that American Woodmark was the right company for me because of the COD program."

The COD program lasts roughly four months and includes hands-on experiences where participants learn our company from the inside-out, including a deep dive into our culture and our processes. Each participant is also given a coach to meet with throughout the program to help them transition from college to working a full-time job.

The program begins with two weeks at our corporate office in Winchester, Va. split between a week of corporate orientation and a week learning basic skills necessary to be successful in the program and at American Woodmark. The following ten or so weeks are made up of visiting different locations across the country where a typical week includes learning the basics about the location for one day, three days of hands-on learning and a final day spent doing a report out of what was learned. During the last few weeks of the program, participants are sent to job shadow the positions that they are most interested in to really get a feel for where they could end up.

Leeza Wolsey, a recent graduate of the COD program said, “I knew that American Woodmark was the right company for me because of the COD program. Knowing that they were willing to put time and resources into showing me every aspect of the business and getting me set up to succeed in my career was what really sealed the deal. Now that I have finished the program and have a final placement, I can bring with me so much knowledge and appreciation from every part of the company, ranging from assembling our cabinets to all the support we give our customers once our cabinets have found their homes.”

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