GALLOWAY, N.J. — On October 30, the Career Education and Development hosted its annual Not So Spooky Networking Bootcamp in the Fannie Lou Hamer Event Room on Stockton’s Atlantic City campus.

This year’s bootcamp was sponsored by Enterprise Mobility, a car rental company that provides internship opportunities to Stockton students.

The event opened with Dayna DeFiore, assistant director of Career Education and Development, introducing the event to the students in attendance.

Angelo Rifici, a branch manager for Enterprise and Stockon ‘19 alumnus, also gave opening remarks, speaking about his experiences landing entry-level positions after graduating college. He remarked on how he was not sure what he was going to do, bouncing between bartending jobs at the casinos in Atlantic City, before landing a position at Enterprise.

“If you leave this room learning one thing from one person,” Rifici said, “you have learned something from everyone in this room.”

The bootcamp had four stations for participants to rotate around based on a number on their overview sheet. The first station, hosted by student success and internship coordinator for the Arts and Humanities Department, Ryan Long, focused on how to introduce yourself to new people professionally. Long emphasized the importance of maintaining eye contact, keeping your introduction short, and knowing how to drive the conversation with a potential employer.

The second station was hosted by Maria Storaci, a ‘23 Stockton graduate who works as the advertising coordinator for Oceans Casino and Resort. Her station focused on Handshake and LinkedIn, helping students learn about how to make the most of their accounts for searching employers.

The third station was hosted by Alyssa Grover, a ‘22 Stockton graduate who works as a digital communications manager at Visit Atlantic City. Students at this station learned about the FORD (family, occupation, recreation, dreams) method of inserting oneself into a professional conversation, with students testing this method in partners, with the assistance of Grover.

The final station was hosted by Enterprise, with Rifici and Talibah Mackey, a talent acquisition specialist for Enterprise. The station focused on the STAR (situation/task, action, result) method for interviews, with Rifici asking students mock interview questions to help them come up with better responses for future interviews.

The bootcamp ended with students being entered into a raffle to win several career education and development merchandise, and a closing statement from DeFiore.