It’s a rough economy and it’s hard to find a job, but the Creighton Career Center is making to easier for Creighton students by bring the employers to them.

The Career Center held its annual spring career and internship fair Wednesday in the Harper Center Ballroom. Creighton has been holding career fairs for over 20 years and usually has one in the spring and another in the fall.

Jim Bretl, director of Creighton’s Career Center, said the point of the fair is to bring employers to campus so they can meet prospective employees in the Creighton student population.

“It’s basically a meet-and-greet kind of event,” he said.

Each company attending the career fair sets up a booth and most of them send two or three representatives. Students looking for jobs can then browse and find interesting companies, introducing themselves to the representatives.

“You’re going to meet somebody face-to-face who works for the company,” Bretl said. “These employers wouldn’t be there unless they had jobs ready to go, or at least summer internships available.”

Tracy Thelen was at the career fair representing Cerner Corporation, a supplier of healthcare information technology solutions based in Kansas City, Mo.

Thelen said this was Cerner’s first year at the career fair and the company will come back to the Career Center on March 16 to conduct interviews.

“We’ve hired several Creighton students over the last few years,” she said. “We’re just trying to find more out there.”

Bretl said there is a big variety of companies that come to the career fair. Local Omaha business, such as Berkshire Hathaway, Mutual of Omaha and Kiewit are usually present. Some companies are non-profit, some are offering internships, some recruit for the military, some are for local businesses and many others. Some are looking for full-time positions, some are looking to fill part-time jobs and some are looking for volunteers.

“It’s all kinds of jobs for all kinds of students,” Bretl said. “In fact, some of them you can’t get an interview unless you first talk to them at the career fair.”

The Rev. Patrick Gilger, S.J., graduated from Creighton in 2002 with a degree in Philosophy.

He was at the career fair looking for post-graduate volunteers to work at the Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, S.D.

“It’s a great, great program built around adult communities of faith,” Gilger said.

For students who missed the career fair this semester, there are still opportunities to meet with the companies. Bretl said some companies will be conducting interviews today in the Career Center and throughout the semester.

Business sophomore Briana Zuroske attended the fair to look for a summer internship in finance or accounting. She said she probably wants to work full time after graduation, but she’s open to graduate school.

“It seems like there’s a lot of stuff here,” she said. “There’s a lot of financial-service companies — here, so [I’m] excited.”