Though hundreds of companies come to campus to recruit interns and employees each year, many are narrowing their search to reach a more diverse group of students.
Four of these companies - Google, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and PepsiCo. - did just that with a recruiting event in Irvine Auditorium hosted by Lime Connect, a company that helps companies recruit students with disabilities.
A Merrill Lynch representative said that the company is still hiring despite the financial crisis.
Google University programs specialist Andrea Powers said they are looking for people who are "passionate about technology" and "innovative."
Merrill Lynch analyst and 2007 alumnus Greg Quinn said Merrill Lynch wants people "willing to learn."
"If you look at the unemployment rate for people with disabilities, it's really quite high," said Career Services senior associate director Barbara Hewitt.
Yet nobody on the event's panel of speakers mentioned the word "disability," which, for the companies, can range from learning to physical difficulties.
And none of the students asked about disabilities during the question-and-answer portion of the event.
Lime President and CEO Susan Lang said, "Our partners are recruiting students with disabilities because it's the smart thing to do, not because it's the nice thing to do."
Students "want to talk about their brain-power," not about their disabilities, she said.
Events like this are important because "people may dismiss your ability to do the job when in fact you may do the job very well [with a disability]," said Hewitt.
When Lime, which was founded by Merrill Lynch, held its first recruiting event in 2006, the recruiters were surprised at the lack of wheelchairs in the room, Lang said.
But the lack of wheelchairs is to be expected - one in 10 university students has a disability, and 90 percent of disabled students have "invisible" disabilities, she explained.
Disabled students are not the only ones at the receiving end of targeted recruiting.
MBA student and Wharton Women co-President Lauren Cochran said that nearly every bank and consulting firm holds recruitment events specifically for women.
She added that the larger, public firms are often better recruiters because "their investors care" about the number of women in powerful positions.
Oliver Wyman also held a reception for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students on Sept. 25.
Wharton junior Baylee Feore, president of the Wharton Alliance, said she prefers targeted recruiting events to larger, more open events because she has an opportunity to interact one-on-one with the recruiters.
The recruiters at LGBT-targeted events are also "interested in seeing LGBT people succeed," she said.
The targeted recruiting events also allow minority students "to meet other people who are like themselves who are already in the industry," said Latino Coalition chairman and Wharton junior Rami Reyes.
"A lot of organizations realize that if they only have one type of employee," said Hewitt, they aren't representing the general population. She added that different people can bring diverse ideas to the table.
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