Almost 40 Maine employers set up tables at Bowdoin’s fourth annual Maine Employers Career Fair Thursday to chat with students who perused the offerings and flipped through brochures. The only requisite for an organization’s inclusion was that it had to have at least one job or internship opening appropriate for a Bowdoin student and be based in Maine.

More than 250 students attended the fair, which was designed in part to show the variety of job possibilities in Maine. Students don’t need to go to Boston or New York to launch their careers, said Sean Sullivan ’08, who planned the event in his role as employer relations coordinator for Bowdoin Career Planning. “Personally I’m passionate about working to keep people in Maine,” he said. “My message to employers for this career fair was, “˜Stop the brain drain.’ We’ve got some of the best and brightest talent here. Why not show [students] they can work for you?”

Sullivan said he also advertised the fair to students with a decidedly pro-Maine slant. “Part of the marketing messaging I did for this was about the joy of working and living in Maine,” he said. “Whatever you may want to do, you can do in Maine, and have a better quality of life.”

The participating companies represented a range of sectors, including finance, consulting, nonprofit, shipbuilding, education, environmental advocacy, politics, media and more. Ten Bowdoin alumni, including one who found her job last year at the fair, attended the event to represent their employers.

Isabelle Blankmeyer ’11, an economics major, said she stopped in at the fair last year “in that anxious end-of-year senior year phase,” not knowing what to do or where to go after graduating. She fell into conversation with Tom Day, co-founder of iVantage Health Analytics, which provides healthcare business intelligence to hospitals and is headquartered in Portland. “Tom had an open outlook,” she said, “and in retrospect, the best part of my job is how great the culture is, and that came across in the fair.”

Day, too, was impressed with Blankmeyer and hired her as an analyst. He raved about her contributions to his company. “She’s just incredibly bright, and I say that in quotations because she’s not just bright intellectually, it’s also her personality, curiosity and breadth of interests.” At the fair Thursday, he said he had met two promising candidates with whom he would follow up. “This is a high-quality place. Within Bowdoin the people are extraordinary.”

MedTech Media was attending the fair for the second time, according to Michael Miliard ’98, who writes for the New Gloucester-based business media publisher. “Last year we got an amazing intern out of it, [Hannah Young ’13]. She was really sharp,” he said. MedTech Media, which is growing quickly, was at the fair because it’s seeking an editorial intern and has two open entry-level positions, Miliard said.

Alexandra Fields, a preservation associate with Environment Maine, chatted with students curious about her work. One student quizzed her on what Fields does in a typical day, and Fields responded, “There is no typical day.” She said she might run a press conference at the state house in Augusta, encourage citizens to attend a bill’s hearing, or research the effects of proposed policies.

Environment Maine, a chapter of Environment America, was seeking applicants to its fellowship program, Fields explained. “We’re looking for passionate students looking to jump in and make a big difference in the environment, and we think Bowdoin students are great for that.”