If, like most Sacramento State students, you’re hoping to enter the workforce full-time after graduation, one of the first places you might look is the Spring Career Fair. But before you leap at the chance to work for one of the 109 firms presenting at this semester’s fair, let’s examine who exactly will be recruiting future Sac State graduates:

A number of nonprofit companies and public agencies will be recruiting at the Spring Career Fair. The Child & Family Institute and the Seneca Center are among the recruiters offering students the opportunity to help children with troubled pasts. Their work, as with other Fair recruiters such as Peace Corps and Americorps, is both admirable and important.

Another employer that students might be happy to work for is Sherwin-Williams. The paint manufacturer is the only recruiter at the event found in Fortune’s most recent “100 Best Companies to Work For,” placing 99th on the list. Also, the firm appears to be proactively solving its legacy of lead-related litigation by donating millions to lead cleanup efforts around the country.

However, with the good opportunities available at the Spring Career Fair also come recruiters that offer less savory positions. National Credit Acceptance Financial, is a firm that buys past due debt from Visa and other creditors at a discounted rate and then attempts to collect through calls and litigation. So, if students want to start a career investigating or harassing indebted consumers, the career fair has what they’re looking for.

Perennial protest inciters, Phillip Morris, will also be asking students to come work for them. While the work done by Phillip Morris is legal, recruitment pitches asking students to work for a company whose primary product is a drug known to be addictive and carcinogenic will hopefully fall on deaf ears.

“It’s an abomination that the school would let a company like Phillip Morris come recruit students,” said Luke Wood, ASI vice president for Academic Affairs.Other lawful-but-awful recruiters will include the Army and Marines. These groups are oddly out of place on our campus, as they openly violate our nondiscrimination policy by investigating, discharging and barring soldiers for being openly gay or lesbian.

But at the top of my “employers to avoid” list at this semester’s career fair will be the booths of developer Centex Homes and produce shipper C.H. Robinson Worldwide. These companies are asking us to come work for them, but their track records should probably dissuade all but the most desperate applicants.Centex Homes was fined a total of $299,000 by the Federal Elections Commission and Florida Elections Commission in late 2003.

The fines were punishment for a scheme that poured illegal contributions into the coffers of George W. Bush’s 2000 election campaign and conservative political action committees.

Employees were asked to make the political donations, send copies of their checks to the company’s chief financial officer, and then expect reimbursement in their year-end bonuses. Where does a good liberal like me sign up?

C.H. Robinson is a different story. The firm is currently the object of a combined class action lawsuit that alleges millions in unpaid overtime and egregious discrimination against female employees. While the company won’t speculate as to the possible costs of an unfavorable outcome, it has acknowledged in its SEC filings that such a ruling could threaten its operations. So students are not just offered a great working environment, but job security to boot!

While our job prospects might seem a little bleak in light of these examples, students shouldn’t necessarily come away from the career fair with such a cynical mindset. Rewarding jobs at worthwhile companies are out there and Sac State students are quite well qualified to take them.

Knowing what a company is up to before you apply, though, is immensely important.

Sean Catanese can be reached at [email protected]