The TCU Campus Recreation Center was filled to capacity Wednesday night with a record number of employers eager to land Horned Frog talent.

“We’re really excited about the turnout this semester. There was actually a wait list for employers,” Jennifer Reitz, marketing coordinator for Career Services, said.

Career Services does not have the final numbers from Wednesday night yet, but they anticipated having between 700 and 800 students in attendance, Career Adviser Terrance Hood said.

“Last semester we had around 600 or 700 students, and it’s increased by 25% every semester,” Hood said.

John Thompson, executive director of the Career Center, said student turnout at any career fair is very important to employers.

“The typical rule of thumb to measure attendance is 10% of the student body,” Thompson said. “Employers spend a lot of money on recruiting and they will go where they believe they will get the largest pool of candidates.”

Though 135 companies attended the expo, only seven Fortune 100 companies were represented.

Kim Satz, associate director of Employer Development at TCU, said that even though certain companies do not attend the expo, they still recruit TCU students through information sessions or postings on FrogJobs.

In comparison to the seven Fortune 100 companies at TCU’s Career and Intern Expo, The University of Texas at Austin has nearly 20 Fortune 100 companies attending its natural sciences career fair alone.

“Many Texas schools are three and four times our size,” Dr. Kathy Cavins-Tull, vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said. “With 8,500 undergraduate students, TCU may be perceived as not having as many students to walk through these fairs.”

What TCU lacks in the quantity of students, it makes up for in the quality of its candidates.

“TCU does have a reputation of producing intelligent candidates,” an AT&T recruiter at the expo said. “We recruit everywhere, but especially the more prestigious schools like TCU. We like to get the best and brightest.”

The quality of the expo improves every year. In addition to having more students attend, Career Services continues to grow its network of employers.

Thompson said Career Services discusses the national reputation of its employers constantly. They meet weekly to review employer candidates and determine more strategies to recruit them here.