Dan Papaleo arrived at Northeastern in 2010 with his major undeclared, but ultimately he choose a career path in supply chain management after taking the concentration’s introduction course in the D’Amore-McKim School of Business.

Now in his final year at Northeastern, Papaleo, DMSB’15, is in search of a full-time job in that field. On Thursday afternoon that search brought him to Northeastern’s biannual career fair in the Cabot Center, where he and more than 2,000 students arrived ready to seek out full-time, internship, and co-op opportunities and network with representatives from 262 companies.

One of the companies Papaleo was eager to connect with was Johnson & Johnson. “It was a very positive interaction,” Papaleo said. “Hopefully it will lead to a career opportunity for me.”

The event is sponsored by Northeastern’s Department of Career Development, which has received national recognition for its career services. The second career fair of the academic year is scheduled for February 2015.

Duy Le, E’15, said he was looking to connect with a variety of different companies, especially ones that allowed him to delve into areas beyond his chemical engineering concentration.

Throughout the day, many students huddled with their peers to review the long list of companies and decide where they would go next. Companies from a range of industries were represented, including information systems, food, finance, travel, and defense.

“You really have to do your research beforehand because there are a lot of companies here,” said Bala Gopalakrishnan, MS’16.

He and Janvi Charkraborty, MS’16, were at the fair in search of summer internship opportunities in information systems and both spoke with Deloit and Kayak, among other companies. “They were all very informative,” Charkraborty said.

A number of Northeastern alumni were at the fair as well representing the companies where they now work. John Falkowski, E’08, was at the fair with Vermont-based Keurig Green Mountain, where he is a design engineer.

Falkowski said his company was looking to connect with students searching for full-time employment or co-op, and he was very impressed about the caliber of students with whom he’d spoken.

“We’ve gotten a lot of interest and a lot of good questions,” Falkowski said. “We find great talent in the students here. We use the co-op students as extensions of our teams, and the students really enjoy what they do.”