Openings exist in engineering, computer science, information systems, sales, marketing, retail, recreation, and banking. Traditional customer service employers, such as camps, resorts, and government agencies, are also queued up for a brisk round of hiring. There's an increase in internships, many of which are paid internships. For example, the Bear Creek Corp. of Medford has recently listed 15 paid positions for graduate level internships at Southern Oregon University. The jobs offer opportunities in finance and accounting, business process improvement, garden marketing, marketing finance and horticulture.
Internships allow companies to train people with the way they do business.
They also help students clarify their career plans. Some employers are even reaching down into the sophomore and junior classes with summer jobs and internships hoping to convert them into career employees, observes Joe Holliday, career director at Oregon Institute of Technology, where the Opt for Coop program has increased opportunities for technical students statewide. One sign of the favorable market for students is growing employer participation in campus job fairs. UO, SOU, WOU and OSU report record sign-ups for recent campus fairs. At OSU, the Spring Career Fair attracted 103 recruiters.