In a time when manybusinesses are being forced to lay off large percentages of their workforce, companieslarge and small continue to attend campus job fairs, whether they are lookingfor eager interns or are actually in the position to hire promising youngtalent.

Officials from threeprominent engineering schools say, despite the economic downturn, many companiesrecruit on their campuses in the spring, fall and winter.

Charity Mouck, associatedirector of Career Services and Employer Relations at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology,says the school held its largest career fair ever in the fall, despite"rumblings of economic concern." Located in Terre Haute, IN,Rose-Hulman is a four-year, private, non-sectarian college of engineering,science and mathematics. It was founded in 1874 as Rose Polytechnic Instituteand was renamed the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 1971.

"More than 200 companies wereon campus," Mouck says. Companies include Alcoa, BMW Mfg. Co., BostonScientific, Caterpillar Inc., Delphi, The Dow Chemical Co.,Frito-Lay, Honeywell, Ingersoll Rand, Microsoft, Medtronic and the U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers.

About 56 percent ofRose-Hulman's Class of 2009 has either accepted a job, has an offer on the tableor has decided to join the military, according to Mouck, and about 95 percentof the Class of 2008 had a job when they graduated. "We just came off of anincredible last couple of years in terms of recruiting," she says.

Tim Luzader, director of theCenter for Career Opportunities at Purdue University's College ofEngineering, says many companies coming to his Indiana campus are being cautious and aretaking a "wait-and-see" approach when talking to students, but are stillvisible during career events. Many are looking to take on interns in hopes ofhiring them full-time when the economy stabilizes, he says.

"They still need to maintainavailability on campuses. They need to make sure the brand of their company continuesto be seen on campus," he says. "We are still getting companies representing avariety of industries. We haven't seen any one industry disappear."

Luzader says smallercompanies usually don't have as much success on campuses than large companiessuch as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Intel and IBM, but they may be ableto leverage themselves and compete for top talent given the economy, sincethere are fewer jobs out there.

According to Lockheed Martin,the company actively recruits at more than 80 colleges and universitiesthroughout the year, including Rose-Hulman and Purdue.

Sandra Beckett, Raytheon's universityprograms manager, says the company has not seen a decline in its campusrecruiting activity.

"This past fall was prettymuch like any other season. Our focus is engineering and for the fall we areprimarily looking to fill full-time positions first and both co-ops andinterns, as well," she says. "It's still a good time to be an engineer, in myopinion."

Beverley Principal, assistantdirector of Stanford University's Career Development Center, says there arestill "big players" coming to campus, such as Cisco, Apple, Microsoft andAmazon.

"What we are seeing is peopleramping up their internship programs," she says.

According to Beckett,Raytheon hires on average between 1,000 and 1,100 students across alldisciplines each year, but the top needs across the company are in theelectrical, computer science and mechanical fields. She says there was a slightdecline in the number of people hired this year - about 900 across the board.

"It's not a huge drop. Wedon't want to find ourselves overstaffing or having to pull back offers toanyone," she says. "We definitely are still recruiting, but we are being morejudicious in our selections and in the numbers that we hire. Our campus programreally continues to be a really important focus across the company.

Mouck says very few offers made to Rose-Hulmanstudents have been rescinded. "I think we've seen most of the pullback at thispoint," she says. "The jobs that are being offered now ... I think the studentsand the companies are feeling confident in those decisions. Of course, thingscould change at any time."