With the appointment of a faculty director, a student-led initiative to create a campus-wide career and recruiting center is one step closer to becoming a reality.

The School of Undergraduate Studies appointed Karen Landolt, the former director of the Career Design Center in the College of Natural Sciences, to head the University Career Interview and Recruiting Center, a place expected to serve as a home base for all career searches. UT currently has 17 different career centers on campus.

Landolt said it is not known when the center will officially launch or where it will be housed. She also said she has not received a budget or a timeline for the center.

She said the idea is to create one place for companies to submit job positions and qualifications, which will then be sent out to the colleges and career centers on campus that serve students who meet those requirements.

Landolt said students who meet job qualifications but may not be seeking a degree in a certain field will also be able to take advantage of these listings.

“Before, the company would have a day of interviews at each college. Now, the company can see many students of different disciplines in one day,” Landolt said.

Michael Morton, president of the UT Senate of College Councils, said companies were frustrated about having to go to different career centers to recruit all candidates with the desired qualifications. In the future, companies will be able to contact the centralized career service center.

“It will be more efficient for the company to find students, and for the students to find the company,” Morton said.

Ray Easterlin, a career counselor at the UT School of Architecture Career Services Center, said the new center is not expected to decrease the demand for decentralized centers.

Easterlin has experience with both centralized and decentralized career centers and said they both serve purposes.

“Decentralized centers know students and employers individually,“ Easterlin said.

He said centralized centers fill a role that compliments the decentralized centers, such as hosting job fairs that are not major-specific.

The centralized center will only enhance what the individual centers can do, Debbie Kubena, career services manager at the College of Communication, said.

“Employers who are looking to interview and hire students from across campus have always been able to do so,” Kubena said. “Campus career services offices have collaborated to enable this to happen.”

The difference now will be the ease with which employers can find students, Kubena said.

“Offices such as ours will continue to be a resource for employers interested in only our students,” Kubena said.