Well-Suited for Success

Minnesota State Mankato’s Career Development Center is intent on helping students look sharp this fall

By Joe Tougas ’86

Two small rooms at MSU’s Career Development Center that are ordinarily used for mock job interviews look, for the moment, like the storeroom of a haberdashery. In each of these rooms, suit coats and blouses hang on portable clothes racks and boxes contain pants, shirts and other items.

This growing collection is leading up to a September pop-up shop called Stomper’s Closet, in which students will be able to browse through and choose from professional attire that’s been donated by area businesses and their employees.

Right now, the CDC is in the process of accepting, sorting and inventorying the clothes that have been collected by businesses around the area, including Nidec and Taylor Corporation.

The goal is to help students look sharp for job interviews or for making the rounds at job fairs, where first impressions are lingering impressions. And by providing the clothes at no charge, it removes what could be a financial barrier for many students.

“We’re trying to create equity and access for our students,” said CDC Director Katie Jolicoeur. Students can choose what they want to wear at campus career fairs, she said. But in some cases, being able to afford what they’d like to wear can be tricky.

”For the students who want to dress up, I’m not going to ask them to give up a week’s worth of groceries to go and buy an outfit to come in. So this is a way to provide that for them.”

The Stomper’s Closet model comes from Jolicoeur’s experience at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she worked in career services prior to joining MSU. At Lincoln, a workplace-attire clothing drive that started for business students expanded to be inclusive of all students. 

“It grew to the point that now the entire campus has access to one free outfit every semester,” she said about the Lincoln program.

Jolicoeur said she’s prepared to make a case for a permanent “career closet,” that would allow students to obtain a new suit every semester. Doing so early in their college career could result in a decent wardrobe by the time they graduate.

“Realistically if you start when you’re a [first-year student], by the time you’re doing an internship you probably have enough outfits to get through two weeks or a week’s worth of internship. And by the time you graduate you’ve got a decent start to where you’re not spending your first three paychecks on clothes.”

Donations will be accepted through the summer, all leading to Sept. 10 when Stomper’s Closet will make its one-day debut. How it goes after that will depend on student response, which Jolicoeur anticipates will be strong.

“Anecdotally, I know there’s a need on campus,” she said. “Every student we talked to and asked ‘Would you participate in this?’ the answer’s been yes.”