One common goal of the average college student is to find a promising employment opportunity.

Although it may seem daunting to find a position while balancing school life and college jobs, WSU students have a few avenues of finding new oppertunities.

For engineering students on Thursday, the Office of Cooperative Education and Work-Based Learning will host an Engineering Career fair from 2 to 6 p.m. on the second floor of the Rhatigan Student Center.

With an extensive list of attending employers, including GKN Aerospace Precision Machining, NetApp, Cargill and AGCO Corporation students will have an opportunity to network with a multitude of employers.

“We have 40 employers coming this year,” said Brian Austin, employer relations manager for engineering, business and liberal arts students at Co-op. “Of those 40 employers, nearly all of them I communicate with regularly.”

Austin said he has had a strong role in helping students find Co-op, internship and employment opportunities.

He said he has also had a hand in seeing that this career fair differs from previous fairs.

“We have pockets of engineering students that really have trouble finding opportunities,” Austin said. “One of those is the bioengineering sector — that industry just does not really exist in the Wichita area.

“Thankfully, this year, we have three employers who are actively recruiting bioengineering majors.”

The Engineering Career Fair hopes to provide opportunities for all engineering students, especially those who have had difficulty finding employment doors in the past.

“Another population of students that we have trouble finding work for are the international students,” Austin said. “Since Wichita is so aircraft heavy, they can’t really hire international students because of…restrictions.

“That is an area I am hoping to grow, especially for our international aerospace engineering students.”

Some employers that will be attending the career fair on Thursday have greater ties to WSU than it may seem, Austin said.

“One employer is Building Controls and Services, Inc.,” he said. “They have been a consistent employer with us, and they even designed the entire HVAC system that went into the Rhatigan.

“You need students who can design and maintain those systems, and many students don’t know who they are. However, the students that have gone to work for them have said that it is a very good place to work.”

Although a large career fair may seem daunting to attend, Austin said he believes that career fairs are extremely important to attend — especially at this time of year.

“Your larger employers, your Kochs, your NetApps, your Boeings, have recruitment seasons, and we are in the middle of one right now,” Austin said. “They are trying to fill their spring and summer 2015 Co-op and internship positions.”

Even if a student is not looking for one particular opportunity, Austin said that by attending a career fair, a student may have a better chance of acquiring a position.

“It is one thing to be a faceless applicant and submit an application online, and a completely different thing to meet with a recruiter, impress them, hand them your résumé and have them flag it to look at it later,” Austin said.

Austin said he stresses the importance of attending career fairs similar to this one, not only because they offer students an opportunity to network with potential employers, but also because they may open doors that students would not hear about otherwise.

“The face-to-face contact can help you over others who have simply submitted an application online,” he said. “Some employers only recruit for internships from career fairs with nothing put on their website.”