On Wednesday, Sept. 26, a crowd of a different sort will be heading to the Simon Recreation Center. They will not be wearing shorts and T-shirts, or carrying Walkmans or magazines; this crowd will not be focused on working out-just on working.

Part of the crowd will be dressed to impress, some wielding their resum?s in hopes of finding employment. Others will stop by between classes, backpacks in tow, simply checking out the possible employment opportunities their respective majors offer. But regardless of how desperate the students’ reason are for coming, their reasons are still the same-they want a job, either now or later.

Career Services is holding the Fall 2001 Job Expo from noon to 5 p.m. next Wednesday in Simon Rec. As of now, there are 73 organizations registered and scheduled to attend, and more are likely to join in the next week. This is an increase in the 62 organizations represented at the Spring 2001 Job Expo.

According to Dee Kauffman, the internship coordinator of Career Services, diversity among the types of organizations present at the job expo has also increased. Next week’s job expo will offer students exposure to nonprofit organizations, business-orientated companies and science-related fields, such as AmeriCorps, Centric Group, Ernst & Young and the Illinois State Police-Bureau of Forensic Science.

For an up-to-date list of the organizations participating in the job expo, visit the Career Services’ Web site, careers.slu.edu. Information about the organizations and the jobs and internships they have available can also be found at this Web site.

“If you are internship or job seeking, this is a wonderful opportunity to get a jump start,” said Kauffman. If this is the case, make sure to bring along several copies of your resum?s, leave yourself enough time to adequately speak with all employers in whom you are interested, and dress professionally.

But even if students are not necessarily looking for immediate employment, Kauffman stresses that it would still be quite beneficial for them to attend the job expo. She encourages students to come and speak with employers and get an overall grasp on what employers expect from students.

Job expos are generally more laid-back and casual than job interviews, so it is a great opportunity for students to get their feet wet in a low-pressure environment. “This is a chance to start exploring other careers, and to see what your intended career has to offer,” Kauffman said.

Communication major, Erin Kohne, voiced a common student concern, “Now that I’m a senior, I’m much more concerned about the job market, and I am finding myself more interested in job expos here at SLU. However, I hope that this job expo will offer a broader range of employment opportunities than that of previous years.”

As mentioned earlier, there is more variety to the employer list for the Fall 2001 Job Expo, a change that Kauffman attributed to a more intensive employer recruitment process.

This is a welcomed change for numerous students who thought that their fields of study, such as communication, biology and sociology were being slighted in terms of representations at the job expos.

Kauffman explained that the lack of employer representation in these fields is due to the specific nature of the jobs-most companies do not need to hire 10 biologists at once.

But Career Services expanded its recruitment efforts and was able to mix in a bit more variety for the students.