Georgetown University’s MBNA Career Education Center will be the site of a career fair on Friday, Oct. 12, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is the first career fair of this kind that Georgetown University has ever had. Unlike career-oriented events of past years, which have been nonprofit and generally geared towards governmental jobs, this year the Career Center placed an advertisement on their Web site, inviting any and all companies who wished to attend Georgetown’s first career fair to apply.

The fair will welcome 104 employers from various industries and job fields who will be searching for interns and employees. The companies coming to the fair are paying Georgetown University for the privilege of recruiting at this event, and due to space constraints in the Leavey Center, there are many companies on the waiting list for the event as well.

The event will take place in the Georgetown University Conference Center (located in the Leavey Center) and is open to all Georgetown students, as well as students from the D.C. consortium of colleges and universities. Georgetown students will be given the advantage, however, as they are slotted to have exclusive access to the fair from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. as well as all-day access, while Consortium students are only permitted access from 1 to 5 p.m.

Associate Director of Employer and Alumni Relations James Dixey said the Career Center will observe the employers during the fair and decide who to invite back next year based on the quality of the job each one does. The Alumni Association will also have a table at the Career Fair, where students will be able to obtain information on alumni contacts in various employment fields.

Dixey said this Career Fair is partly an effort by the Career Education Center to correct the misconception many students have that the Center is focused mainly on providing students with jobs such as investment banking and consulting. He emphasized how false this belief was and spoke about the hundreds of jobs and internships and the many programs related to employment (such as e-recruiting and Cquest), which the center makes available to Georgetown students in the Center and on the Internet.