With a chance to jump-start their careers, students flooded Thompson-Boling Arena for the 2013 Spring Job and Internship Fair.

Lasting from 2 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, students mingled with potential employers, each with the hope of landing an interview and maybe even a job or internship. More than 190 tables were set up on the arena floor, each having representatives for companies such as GEICO, Aldi, Inc., Dollywood, Hertz Corporation and Frito Lay/PepsiCo.

One of those representatives was Lisa Orient, a UT alumna who worked the table for Youth Villages, an organization that helps with foster care and adoption. Orient said there were certain characteristics that she and the other employers were looking for with the students of UT.

“Preparedness is a big thing,” Orient said. “Are they dressed like they’re looking for a job? Do they have a résumé with them? Can they articulate what they’re looking for?”

She added, “I get about half-and-half that come up and say, ‘what does Youth Villages do?’ but some come and say, ‘oh you’re Youth Villages, I’ve been looking for you!’ … Those are the ones that I’ll make a note of.”

Career Services organized the job fair. Stephanie Kit, associate director for career planning with Career Services, helped get the employers to their designated spot in the arena. She said that organizing the fair is a major undertaking for Career Services.

“There’s a lot of details involved because you’re coordinating with a large number of employers,” Kit explained. “You have to invite the employers, you have to publicize and deal with all the details of the arrangement and logistics of it.”

Elizabeth Pallardy, the college consultant for Career Services, also helped with the incoming employers. Both Pallardy and Kit had been working at the job fair since 10:30 a.m. and would likely be there until around 7 p.m. to help clean up. She agreed with Kit that it could be a tough job but it was worth doing it.

“They’re long days, but we’re not tired yet,” Pallardy said with a laugh. “It’s fun to interact with the employers and the students. The people have a lot of energy, so it’s a lot of fun.”

In the past, there had been two separate fairs in the spring. Kit said that the Spring Job Fair and the Summer Internship Fair were combined into one primarily for logistical reasons. With several construction projects occurring on campus, parking had become a considerable concern. The other issue was that having two events so close together had become a burden.

“They were offered really close together in a way that was a strain on our resources,” Kit said.

Mariah Toler, a junior in retail and consumer science, was one of the students looking specifically for an internship. The job fair was the first one that Toler had been to, but she went in prepared to talk to specific companies, including Macy’s, Kohl’s and Chico’s.

“Both of the companies, their representatives, were really nice,” Toler said. “They were very informative about the internships they had and … wanting to help you further your career and your degree.”

For Daniel Rose, sophomore in public horticulture, it was also a first time journey to a UT job fair. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he had found the fair beneficial.

“It’s been interesting,” Rose said. “I’ve talked to a few groups so far and they were really helpful actually.”

Prior to coming to the fair, Rose researched the companies that would be coming to the fair and planned to talk to specific ones that he believed he would want to work with in the future. As a sophomore, Rose wasn’t planning on landing a job from the fair, but rather wanted to get to know some of the companies he had an interest in.

“I’m not really looking for anything at the moment,” Rose explained. “I just really wanted to scope things out. I wanted to meet with the few companies I might like to work for in the future.”

Ashley Smith, junior in biosystems, also researched particular companies, but her approach was a little different.

“I look into the companies a couple days in advance, and then I quit thinking about it,” Smith joked. “It’s too stressful to think about all the time. But I definitely research the companies that I want to talk to.”

Smith mainly focused on manufacturing companies, such as Johnson & Johnson and Rubbermaid.This was not the first job fair that Smith had been to. She said that she always goes to both the diversity fair and the engineering fair. Perhaps because of her frequent visits to job fairs, Smith said that she did not find Tuesday’s fair too stressful.