Photo courtesy of Piper Cherry
Leo Karpel, a sophomore information systems major at Hofstra University, held up a white dress shirt in the mirror, seeing if he liked how it looked.
“I’m shopping for suits for everything,” Karpel said. “So many times in the future I’m going to need them.” He put back the first shirt in favor of a lavender button-up, nodding in satisfaction.
The Career Closet, a unique offering by Hofstra’s Center for Career Development, provides students with the opportunity to pick out free, new and gently used business attire to wear for interviews, internships, networking events or professional settings.
The Career Closet has been operating for five years but has seen a surge of popularity in recent semesters, as more and more workplaces are requiring staff and interns to return to the office following the pandemic.
With the prices of clothing increasing consistently at stores, it can be difficult for college students to afford professional, high-quality attire. Even just getting to the stores can be hard for students without cars.
“Our goal is to help eliminate barriers and level the playing field when it comes to applying for jobs and internships,” said Michelle Kyriakides, the executive director of the Center for Career Design and Development. “We know that students don’t often have professional attire that they would need for an internship or for an interview.”
Since beginning its services in 2018, the Career Closet has provided hundreds of students with the clothing they need. It is currently located in Hofstra’s Campus Living and Wellness Center. Initially, the Career Closet did not have a specific space, and the event would only run every once in a while.
“We would attract a couple hundred students to those types of events. Then what happened during the pandemic was we couldn’t do a-couple-hundred-student events,” Kyriakides said. “So, we opened up by appointment. The feedback from the students was ‘We’d like this to be here all the time.’”
Alexa Cervo, a junior journalism major at Hofstra, knows the Career Closet well. “I actually worked for the Center for Career Design and Development last semester,” Cervo said. “I visit it at least once a semester.”
While working at the closet for a school year, Cervo helped to go through the clothing donations and pick out articles of clothing that had the potential to be good for a job interview or any other professional setting.
All clothes in the Career Closet come from donations, whether that’s from alumni, local organizations or other students. With clothes coming from so many different places, the Career Closet has anything one might need.
“I’ve gone there for dress shirts, for pants, for ties. Sometimes they have suit jackets,” said Daniel Lopez, a junior accounting major. “They really have everything.”
As great as it is, many students don’t realize the Career Closet is there.
“I’m not even sure I know what that is,” said Ryan Bemben, a freshman film studies and production major.
Now that he knows about the Career Closet, he plans to go. “I don’t really have any professional clothes so it’s good to know about,” Bemben said.
Hofstra was the first institution on Long Island to implement a Career Closet, according to Kyriakides. This has since inspired numerous other universities in the area to open them as well.
“It really is a dream come true, it’s something that I had wanted to do throughout my career,” said Kyriakides. “I think that’s my proudest part about this is that it’s spread around the area.”
The career closet is open every Monday and Wednesday during common hour and it is located in the Wellness and Campus Living Center. Donations are accepted in the Center for Career Design and Development.
