Starting this week, hundreds of unusually well-groomed, nervous seniors are meeting "the real world" for the first time.

With more than a few rounds of career forums and interviews during the months ahead, the annual recruiting process began Monday. This year, as has become increasingly evident, it seems "the real world" has a vested interest in hiring ethnic minorities.

Companies say they are not satisfied with last year's efforts to hire from among those groups they consider underrepresented.

For example, only 38 of Merrill Lynch's 546 directors are African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic, Business Week reports.

Recently, though, companies have engaged in unprecedented levels of diversity recruiting. As college campuses continue to vary their racial composition, the pool of qualified minorities has grown vastly.

Companies--both large and small--are specifically targeting minorities, through college scholarships, summer internships and the use of organizations like Crimson and Brown, which help both corporations and applicants through the recruiting process.

Services like Crimson and Brown have stepped in to "assist employers in finding top-caliber minority students," says company President Andrea K. Abegglen.

The organization runs nationwide Minority Career Forums at which companies congregate to provide information, as well as to meet and even interview students.

And the number of minorities being hired is growing--and growing despite the Supreme Court's repeated restrictions on and an increasingly negative public attitude toward affirmative action programs over the past decade.

Diversity Recruiting

Morgan Stanley has recently instituted a $2.5 million scholarship fund to sponsor minority internships for college juniors and seniors. The First Chicago Bank offers similar summer internships.

Many companies, such as Price Waterhouse, have also started to recruit at historically African-American colleges.

"[Diversifying work forces] is a definite trend," says Michael V. Littlejohn, managing director of national recruitment and work force diversity at Price Waterhouse.

And students are taking advantage of the new opportunities in the workplace.

At Harvard, Crimson and Brown is far and away the most widely used tool for minority students who opt to go through recruiting or who seek internships.

"Crimson and Brown helps make it clear to students which companies are interested in diversity recruitment," Abegglen says.