UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — With more employers in attendance this year than last, Penn State’s Spring Career Days 2013 offers graduates careers and students internships and summer jobs. According to Corinna Fisher, lead career fairs coordinator in Career Services, 344 employers confirmed attendance, up from the 333 that came last year. Many of these employers have made Penn State career fairs, both in the spring and fall, a regular stop for recruiting future personnel.

“We find consistently strong employees coming from Penn State,” Marisha Baldwin, university recruiting manager at Siemens Corporation, said. “A lot of times they are very passionate, and have a strong sense of community. There are a variety of programs offered at Penn State close to what we need, in business, engineering, health and human development, health sciences and even IST.”

Brooks Renoll, a recruiter for Dick’s Sporting Goods, said Penn State is their largest school and the campus where he spends the most of his recruiting time.

“We continue to recruit and invest our time at Penn State due to the success of the alumni we have hired,” he said. “I really enjoy interacting with the students, alumni, staff and faculty at Penn State, everyone has been incredibly welcoming to me when I come to campus.”

This year, Penn State’s Career Services decided to host the spring career fair a little later than usual. Jeff Garis, director of Career Services said this gave graduating seniors more preparation time after spring break and allowed more recruiters to come onto campus, instead of competing with other fairs, like the statewide Pennsylvania career fair.

Whether employer numbers are up because of the later date or because more businesses are hiring isn’t quite clear, but Garis said he’s ecstatic. Since the economy has been slowly recovering in recent year, he admitted that he was expecting employee attendance to level-out and said he would’ve been happy just to see this year’s numbers match last year’s.

Baldwin credits the hard work Garis, Fisher and everyone else in Career Services puts into each of their fairs, in addition to campus recruitment in general.

“The set up at Penn State’s Career Services sets it apart from other schools,” Baldwin said. “Everyone there is very friendly, so helpful and knowledgeable. They help us connect to the right people on campus and have always been great helping us with any of our needs for the fair or when we’re recruiting in their building. It’s a great relationship which makes recruiting on campus a breeze.”

In addition to the helpful employees, the size of the fair makes it easier to find the right candidates, according to Kathryn Staargaard, of TSC Services LLC, a staffing firm based in Washington, D.C. This is the company’s first year at the Penn State Spring Career Days, and they chose to recruit here this year, for several reasons.

“Penn State is one of the biggest schools, with one of the biggest career fairs, with a great reputation, which gives employers a larger pool of well-educated students to interview, Staargaard said. “People know if you’re coming out of Penn State you’ve received a good education and we can expect a lot from Penn State students.”

Spring Career Days — which was held this year March 20, for business and finance, communication and design, general management, human services, Liberal Arts and sales and marketing, and March 21, for computer and information technology, engineering, health and life sciences, physical sciences and research — is for both Penn State students and Penn State alumni in all majors from all campuses. It is the final opportunity of the academic year to meet with employers personally to discuss opportunities — full-time as well as internships, co-ops and summer positions.

Tips for students and employers — and future spring career fair information — can be found at careerfairs.psu.edu/spring/.