Employers from computer, healthcare, electronics, financial, construction, environmental, and other industries gathered Sept. 23, 2009, for the 17th annual Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Career Fair to recruit for full-time positions, co-ops, and summer internship programs.
"We exceeded our goal; it was a packed house," said Jeanette Doyle, director of WPI's Career Development Center. "In fact, with just days to go before the fair, four companies who had not signed up beforehand arrived the day of the event to take whatever space we could provide.
"As in the past, this year's fair was a testament to the quality of our students, as well as to the health of many of the business segments that hire WPI students," she added.
Raytheon's Caleb Warner, a senior principal software engineer, said the company "always does well at WPI. WPI students are quicker off the mark. We have had a lot of success recruiting here; Raytheon's operations in the Northeast employ more than 500 WPI alumni."
For United Technologies representative Zissis Dardas, the reason for attending the Career Fair was simple: "We find top-quality students at WPI. They know how to solve problems, and they get the job done."
Other companies, such as Computer Associates, attended the WPI Career Fair for the first time. The company plans to fill 20 associate engineer positions in mainframe computing, a field that is growing as companies embrace the energy-saving solutions of "green computing."
