Competing for top software engineers against such giants as Google and Microsoft has forced the guys at up-and-coming startup Netronome Systems to be creative.

John MacDougall, AFP/Getty Images

So the Pine firm's executives didn't just show up at the popular technical job fair at Carnegie Mellon University earlier this week. They planned ahead, wooing professors to get access to their best students, even offering to guest lecture in classes to tell students how their technical studies can be applied to the real world.

With hiring in the tech industry revving up, and with Google's arrival to Pittsburgh and other startups in a hiring mode, Netronome and other firms aiming to harvest technical talent are having to get creative about how they try to land desired recruits.

Showing up at job fairs isn't enough. Companies are having to court key professors and academic advisers, use university alumni to chat up prospective hires, highlight company camaraderie and outings, and reel in younger undergraduates for summer internships.

Unlike dot.com's post-bubble nuclear winter, when hiring was scarce and talent plentiful, "the economy's rebounded and there's more money for research and development,'' so companies are pulling out all the stops to lure the best students, said CMU's associate dean of students Paul Fowler, who heads the school's career center.

For startups such as Netronome, it's made scouring for talent that much harder. "Right now, we're at 30 people and we're expecting to double that within the next year," said Scott Esser, Netronome's vice president of sales.

Minus the budget to run daily radio ads like Google does on National Public Radio, the telecommunications software firm has sought other avenues to promote itself and showcase what it has to offer

It touts competitive pay, work visas if they are needed for foreign students, and the promise of meaty projects that typically go to seasoned veterans. And it pitches this message not only through job fairs but also through professors and word of mouth.

Ironically, Google isn't the talent thief it was feared to be after it swept into town last December to set up a Pittsburgh outpost with the aim of hiring 100 to 200 employees. So far, it has only brought in 30 software engineers, though it continues to pepper morning radio shows with employment ads.

Other firms are on the prowl, too. As many as 170 companies crowded into a CMU gym earlier this week, looking for future graduates with a technical bent to scoop up. And they weren't only technology firms. Teen-oriented retailers Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle Outfitters, and cosmetics giant L'Oreal USA also set up booths.

Job opportunities for CMU graduates are expected to climb 30 percent this year, university officials said, based on the number of firms that have signed up to recruit on campus. The Pittsburgh Technology Council reports that it has seen a doubling in the number of jobs available on its Web site the last 18 months, mostly in the information technology arena.

Still, Google's allure as a talent magnet is nothing to sniff at. This year, the firm surpassed Microsoft as the top employer of CMU graduates. "They probably hired close to 20 students this year," said CMU's Dr. Fowler. "Microsoft hired about 15."

Settled near its big-name tech brethren -- including Intel and Apple -- at CMU's collaborative innovation center, Google is looking to hire more software engineers, though it won't say just how many.

"We're planning on keeping up this rate of growth, but I can't be specific about the numbers," said Andrew Moore, who directs Google's Pittsburgh office, which didn't begin to become visible until this summer.

Dr. Moore added, however, that Google competes less against local firms than it does against companies in the Silicon Valley or Seattle, where technical talent typically flocks. Smaller Pittsburgh tech companies such as Syndesis Inc., ECI Telecom and Network Appliance that are on hiring sprees agree. They say while Google's name occasionally comes up -- its celebrity is a selling point -- they don't feel they are competing all that much against the search engine darling.

It's also true that the jockeying for local talent hasn't reached "bubble levels" of the late 1990s, during which companies commonly undercut each other to land a much sought-after new hire, they say. "It's a healthy competition,'' not "cutthroat,'' said Ron Bianchini, who leads California data networking firm Network Appliance's local office.

Dr. Bianchini recalled the industry's high-flying days when there were two staffers at his former firm, Spinnaker Networks -- which was later sold to Network Appliance -- solely focused on chasing resumes. These days, the contest for workers is decidedly more relaxed.

At CMU's job fair, he said he was swapping jokes with the guy in the next booth, the chief recruiter for ECI Telecom's local office, Jagdish Chugani. "[We] compete locally," Dr. Bianchini said. "But it's nothing where we need to be tricky."