I'd say skip the job fairs: In four years, I never considered attending one because they are mostly perceived as boring among your likely target demographic.
Some companies come and give talks about their infrastructure or technology -- these were always what got me excited and interested. I also really enjoyed a few of the competitions and challenges (like Facebook's and Yahoo's).
Just being on campus and doing events which give students a taste of the excitement of creating something would probably generate much more interest than you're seeing now.
I already knew I wanted to work at a startup a year ago, so I had to actively ignore the constant recruiting from the big names while putting effort into chasing down leads with startups. Had I not already known what I wanted (from past internships), it would have been much easier to just sit back and take the pitches which came my way.
Bottom line: come woo us with talks about the cool stuff you do. Send your engineers along too to talk shop with us. Run hack sessions and showcase the winning apps. Show us how much more fun we'd have doing things your way, as opposed to Microsoft's, and you'll have the students you want lining up to apply.
I'd say skip the job fairs: In four years, I never considered attending one because they are mostly perceived as boring among your likely target demographic.
Some companies come and give talks about their infrastructure or technology -- these were always what got me excited and interested. I also really enjoyed a few of the competitions and challenges (like Facebook's and Yahoo's).
Just being on campus and doing events which give students a taste of the excitement of creating something would probably generate much more interest than you're seeing now.
I already knew I wanted to work at a startup a year ago, so I had to actively ignore the constant recruiting from the big names while putting effort into chasing down leads with startups. Had I not already known what I wanted (from past internships), it would have been much easier to just sit back and take the pitches which came my way.
Bottom line: come woo us with talks about the cool stuff you do. Send your engineers along too to talk shop with us. Run hack sessions and showcase the winning apps. Show us how much more fun we'd have doing things your way, as opposed to Microsoft's, and you'll have the students you want lining up to apply.