Brooks Brothers-decked Blue Devils swarmed the Bryan Center yesterday for the 2005 Career Fair. They were courted by 106 companies, non-profits and government agencies, an increase of 20 employers from last year's fair.
"You can tell the economy's rebounding," said Allison Kats, the assistant director of employer relations at the Career Center. "We have more employers coming and more people excited to do interviews, and hopefully more hiring that will go on."
For their part, recruiters said they appreciated the quality of Duke applicants.
"[Duke] is a high quality applicant pool, a very motivated, intelligent group of students," said Edward Minn, a representative from Raymond James Financial. "We love recruiting here."
Even the political orientation of some students appealed to certain employers. The Defense Intelligence Agency's John Archibald said he found "the conservative aspects of Duke very appealing."
"We also recruit at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, but I do find the conservative element [at Duke] attractive," Archibald said. "It's easier for us to relate certain topics [here] than with some guy with dreadlocks and a purple tie-dyed shirt, at least when it comes to the global war on terror."
Kats said the fair featured companies who had never recruited at Duke before, including L'Oreal and Macy's. Although the most popular fields for Duke graduates are investment banking, consulting and engineering, Teach For America recruited 28 members of the Class of 2005, more than any other organization. Goldman Sachs was second with 18 recruits, and Citigroup came in third with 13.
"It's kind of monotonous," said senior Blake Stanfill, referring to the array of employers. "The type of companies are mostly banking industries and consulting, there isn't too much variety."
Stanfill, a psychology major with a minor in economics, said he spoke with representatives of UBS, Goldman Sachs and Teach for America.
"This career fair is kind of overrun by financial and consulting companies," senior Larissa Goodwin said. "I guess they're the people who primarily recruit on campus, but I feel it's a little unrepresentative of the options that are out there." Goodwin plans to apply to Teach For America and said she hopes to "make an impact that is visible and tangible."
Standing in front of a handmade presentation board, Betsy Edwards of Lutheran Volunteer Corps conceded the difficulty of competing with Fortune 500 companies and the government for employees.
"We've had a couple of Duke students, but not a lot, partly because the LVC can't afford to do extensive recruiting on the east coast," Edwards said. "It's a little intimidating to see everyone [offer] $42,000 a year, and I'm saying, um... $600 a month?"
Sophomore Chris Bryant acknowledged the lure of big name investment banks. In search of a summer job, the biomedical engineering and economics double-major visited Goldman Sachs, UBS, General Electric, Medtronic and Stockamp & Associates-a healthcare consulting firm.
Asked which employer made the strongest impression, Bryant responded: "Goldman Sachs, just because they're Goldman Sachs."
Some students said they attended the fair solely to collect the handouts provided by aspirant employers. Crisply dressed Deutsche Bank reps doled out vanilla chapstick, the Federal Reserve of Richmond handed out baggies of shredded dollar bills and the financial firm UBS provided tiny chocolates from its native Switzerland.
Perhaps the most coveted items were the green Nalgene bottles given away by the Boston Consulting Group. Word spread quickly throughout the Bryan Center, and before long BCG's supply of bottles was depleted.
"As a freshman, there's no real need to dress up in a suit for an interview," student Nick Millar said. "The primary reason I went is because I had run out of highlighters."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.