This summer’s weather posed a unique problem for the semester’s career fairs as their usual location, Hilton Coliseum, is still being repaired from flooding. Career fair ambassadors had to work harder hard to bring in businesses.

The number of companies present at this fall’s business/LAS fair increased by about 7 percent from the fall 2009 fair, to 123.

Laura Walczak, career fair ambassador, said there have been more interviews this fall than last year at this time. This could be due to the recovering economy. In fall 2009, many businesses were still in the process of laying off some of their employees. 

Additionally, fall career fairs are typically larger given that companies are looking to immediately fill full-time and internship positions before the new year as they move on with new operations.

The College of Agriculture hosted its career day Oct. 19 at the Lied Recreation Athletic Center. Mike Gaul, director of career placement for the Agriculture Career Services, said there were roughly 500 interviews, which is about the same number as last year.

“The ag field is pretty strong compared to other sectors on campus [in terms of career placement],” Gaul said.

There were 15 new companies, from locations including Germany, California and Alaska.

The field of agronomy, Gaul said, is in high demand given the constant need for food production around the world, and the growing population and diet changes.

Agri-business, food science and veterinary medicine are next in line. 

Gaul said students are not getting into this much-wanted workforce because many pursue graduate school or end up farming on their own. He added that companies expressed disappointment in the lack of seniors at the career fair because most of them have already accepted full-time positions or internships.

The College of Engineering was also successful, said Roger Bentley, the Engineering Career Fair coordinator. Companies were able to recruit well-prepared students for many internships and full-time positions, he said.

The Engineering Career Fair had 212 companies registered this year, compared to 222 last year.

Bentley said company numbers are strongly correlated to the overall economy and to the ability of companies to hire and justify travel costs of representatives coming to Iowa State.

He added that although there was a slight decrease in companies this time, interview numbers for students were higher this year than last fall.

“As an example of the increase, the day after the career fair this fall we ran 715 interviews in the Memorial Union compared to 646 last year, a 10-percent increase,” Bentley said.