With more than 350 employers expected to set up booths at Comcast Center this week, this year’s Fall Career and Internship Fair will be the largest in this university’s history.

This is the first year the fair will be housed at Comcast Center instead of Stamp Student Union. The larger venue allows University Career Center officials to take more employers off their waitlists and increase employer participation in the fair by 24 percent from last year, according to Career Center Associate Director William Jones. Jones said the move will also increase space at the fair, which has been a major complaint in previous years. The 18-foot aisles at Comcast would replace the previous 8-foot aisles at Stamp.

The three-day fair starts Wednesday and will be open from noon to 5 p.m. through Friday. The organizations attending include big-name companies such as AOL, Amazon and Geico as well as government agencies such as the State Department and the CIA.

“We actually can’t allow employers to come multiple days,” Jones said. “So it’s important for a student to come each day.”

This year, 254 of the attending companies are looking to fill technical positions such as computer science and engineering, while 211 are looking to fill nontechnical positions, such as graphic design and marketing, Jones said. Moreover, 104 of these organizations are looking to hire both types of positions, he added, noting students should not assume certain organizations would be unwilling to hire someone from their academic field.

“[The] IRS came to a career fair one year, and when you hear IRS you probably think, ‘Well, it’s a business-related position or an accounting position,’” Jones said. “They’re actually looking for art majors because they wanted people to do art appraisals.”

Additionally, 303 recruiters are hiring full-time employees, 42 are hiring part-time employees and 189 are hiring interns. For international students, 103 organizations are willing to sponsor visas.

Sophomore criminology and criminal justice and psychology major Julia Fuller said she plans to be the first in line at the fair Wednesday in hopes of finding an internship.

“I’ve always wanted to work in the federal government,” Fuller said. “I looked on the website for the Career and Internship Fair and I found that most of the ones I want to go to – the big ones – are on the first day. So I have to figure out a way to make sure I can get there on the first day.”

Adam Hamot, a sophomore computer science major, said he will be looking to find a summer job with a major company.

“I look for the big [employers] like Google, Microsoft,” he said.

Jones said students should not necessarily expect to get job offers at the fair, but he noted students can obtain business cards from potential employers and find out how they can apply for jobs or internships with the company online.

“It’s a great opportunity for you to network, which can then lead on to other things,” he said.

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