Throughout the fall and winter, few companies were calling Duquesne University to set up job interviews with graduating seniors. Then in the last two weeks, interest in recruitment suddenly picked up.

"About three companies called out of the clear blue sky" to get on campus and talk to students, said Jim McClenahan, director of the school's Career Services Center. There's also been a recent surge in the number of jobs companies have asked McClenahan to post at the career center.

It may be too early to tell if the sluggish job market of the last three years is finally picking up, but McClenahan and other career placement officials say employment prospects for the class of 2004 appear brighter than they did for graduates in the previous couple of years. More companies are recruiting on campus than a year ago and more have extended offers to students.

At Carnegie Mellon University's newly named Tepper School of Business, for instance, 53 percent of the full-time students who will earn master's degrees in business administration in May have received job offers compared with 41 percent who had offers in hand at this time last year.

A better indicator that the job market is improving, said Ken Keeley, executive director of career opportunities for the Tepper School, is that 97 companies have made offers to CMU students so far this year, up from 76 firms last year.

"What that tells me is that companies are starting re-engage. They may still be going to campuses with a reduced appetite from the late 1990s ... but we're feeling better about it and so are the students." In its 2004 job outlook survey, the National Association of Colleges and Employers said companies expected to hire 12.7 percent more new graduates this year than they did in 2003.

But about 60 percent of the 360 employers surveyed still described the job market for graduates as "fair, not good."

Graduates likely to fare best in the job hunt, according to the NACE survey, have degrees in business administration, accounting, economics, finance, management information systems and computer science.

Mechanical and electrical engineers will also be in demand among manufacturing companies that are looking to hire, the survey said.

Another good sign, Keeley said, is that more consulting firms are returning to CMU to interview MBA candidates. While a couple of big consulting firms -- including McKinsey & Co. and Booz Allen Hamilton -- recruited even during the flat economy of recent years, "now the other consulting firms are starting to come back. And companies hire consultants when they can spend money. It's a reflection of a better economic environment."

"On-campus opportunities are up over last year," said Terri L. Gregos, assistant dean and director of career services at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate School of Business.

The Katz School won't compile placement figures on its upcoming graduates until August but Gregos said there's more activity than last year. Companies talking to Pitt students include Alcoa, PPG Industries, Ford Motor and KPMG.

One trend Gregos has observed: Instead of hiring 10 or 12 new graduates for a management training class as they might have done in economic boom times, big companies target individual candidates "who have the skills for them to get immediate return on investment."

"I would describe recruiting as cautious because corporations are doing more with less," he said.

At CMU's campus career center that assists undergraduate and graduate students -- except those enrolled in the Tepper School of Business and the H. John Heinz School of Public Policy and Management -- there's been about a 15 percent increase in companies doing recruitment visits vs. last year, said Judi Mancuso, associate director.

"The most significant and exciting part of it is that employers are either returning to campus after not being represented the last couple of years or we have new employers who have never been here."

"They are larger, stable and make something like defense products, automotive or high-tech products" as opposed to Internet firms that flooded students with job offers and promises of security before the tech market crashed in 2001. "Dot.com is old history now," she said.

At Robert Morris University, there's an increase in the number of positions being offered in health-related industries and banking, said Mona Dine, director of the career center.

But students seeking entry-level jobs are still having trouble because the market is saturated with laid-off and unemployed workers, said Dine.

"And of course, the employer is going to take someone with more experience than just an internship or just a course or two [in that job specialty]," Dine said. "So that's another challenge new graduates face." Chatham College students "have known for a couple of years they're not going into a strong job market," said Eileen Buecher, career services director.

So the small, liberal arts school has tried to develop job search skills for undergraduates as early as freshman year by offering networking and mentoring events with alumnae and encouraging internships and volunteer activities.

"Whether it's a good economy or a challenging one, it's still the same premise for liberal arts majors: they need to translate their education into skills."