Job fair focuses on multicultural students By Jen Fish Daily Staff Reporter Nearly 120 representatives from companies and graduate schools filled the second floor of the Michigan Union yesterday for Career Planning & Placement's Multicultural Career Fair. The fair targeted minority students and drew more than 800 attendees. Because of its emphasis on attracting minority students, employment recruiters aiming to find a more diverse workforce crowded the fair. Attendees included recruiters from the private sector, all branches of the armed services, as well as representatives from other government organizations, like the FBI and CIA. "We always come to the multicultural fair. We're trying to increase minority groups within the agency and U of M has one of the best diverse populations, both in the Midwest and in general," CIA recruiter Michael Coles said. Other business representatives at the event said they had similar sentiments about the University's diversity, as well as its high academic reputation. "Michigan is a good school; we've gotten good candidates from here and we are also looking for diversity," Boeing recruiter Jill Antonen said. Both Antonen and fellow Boeing recruiter Art Friess said the aircraft building giant has had a high rate of success of taking Michigan students for positions and internships. "Not only is the engineering program highly ranked, but we've also found that it's easy to convince Michigan students to come out to where some of our facilities are in Southern California or Arizona," Friess said. Debbie Dunipace, an Intel recruiter, said her company also likes to recruit University graduates. "Out of the 50 to 60 campuses we actively recruit from, U of M is consistently in the top 10 in number of graduates we take." Sally Schueneman, CP&P career events manager, said the fair "went well." "Although we do target students of color, the fair is open to all and we had good attendance today." Schueneman also said the fair might have had even more employers, but the snow storm in the Eastern United States made for difficult travel conditions. "Companies and schools that were unable to attend were able to send in literature, so they were represented as well," she said. The multicultural aspect of the fair was attractive to students as well as employers. "It was a main reason to come," Business junior Fu Keung Lau said. "But I think there should be more job fairs with more companies," he said. Other students agreed with Lau, complaining that CP&P's fairs do not have enough companies compatible with their fields of study. Schueneman noted that while the fair was a success, "a job fair is not the only way to find a job or internship." CP&P's next event is an Internship and Summer Job Fair on Feb. 9. For more information, call 764-7460 or e-mail CP&P at cp&p@umich.edu. Originally on page 3A in the 1-26-2000 issue of the Daily.