Posted on 03/28/2004 8:36:00 AM PST by harpu
Last spring, career counselors and their students described the job outlook for college seniors as "horrible," "bleak" and "problematic."
This year, fewer discouraging words are heard.
"I'm seeing a definite improvement," said Dr. Richard Paterik, director of career development at the University of Dallas, adding that hiring hasn't returned to the levels seen in 2000.
A University of Dallas student job fair on Wednesday drew 15 employers, up from 12 at a similar career fair last fall and 11 last spring.
National surveys confirm that businesses are back in the hunt for new graduates.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers found in a quarterly survey that employers will hire 12.7 percent more graduates this year than last.
"That's the first year since 2001 that we've had an increase," said Andrea Carr, the association's employment information manager.
Dr. Philip Gardner, research director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University, surveyed employers late last year and reported similar findings.
"I think we're seeing a slight improvement and a warming in the labor market," he said. "It bottomed out last year."
That doesn't mean jobs are plentiful. Demand varies widely from industry to industry, and competition is intense, hiring experts say.
Technology graduates, in particular, face limited prospects even as the industry heads toward recovery. Manufacturing and transportation remain weak, and government hiring has tapered off.
The health care industry, on the other hand, continues to feed an almost insatiable demand for fresh recruits. Financial services and education employers are among other active recruiters, at least in certain specialty areas. Retail is also picking up.
Mary Baird, an elementary education major who graduates from the University of Dallas in May, expects to land a job in the Irving Independent School District after student teaching there. But she knows of some classmates with other majors who are less confident.
"In general, teachers seem to be always needed," she said. Her friends and classmates who aren't in teaching are "very uncertain what they're going to find."
Meghan Kuckelman, who will complete her bachelor's degree in English literature in May at UD, said she's considering applying for a job in publishing but is leaning toward going to graduate school.
She interned with a local publisher last summer but is worried about her prospects for full-time work. Many of her classmates are worried, too, she said.
"Everyone knows what the job market is like, and I don't know anyone who is encouraged by it right now," Ms. Kuckelman said. "Looking for other options is definitely on everyone's mind."
Bob Chrismer, global director of recruiting for management consulting firm A.T. Kearney Inc., a subsidiary of Plano-based Electronic Data Systems Corp., said his industry is among those shopping for graduates.
"I think what you are seeing on campus this year is an appetite on the part of employers to reconstitute and replenish their entry-level employment ranks," he said. "Certainly that is the case at A.T. Kearney and all of our peers and competitors. There's not a one of us that's not out in the marketplace trying to increase the number of entry-level consultants."
Mr. Chrismer said A.T. Kearney hopes to expand its staff nationally by about 10 percent this year through graduate hires.
"We made offers to probably 120 or 130 undergraduate and graduate students," he said. "And we will have 70 join us."
That compares with about 20 offers last year and none the year before, he said.
Sue Sherbet, director of career services at the University of Texas at Dallas, said small companies seem to be driving much of the college recruiting rebound.
She noted that large telecommunications companies used to be among the biggest on-campus recruiters. Now many of those companies are outsourcing noncore functions to smaller firms, and those firms are doing more campus recruiting.
Heavy competition
The number of jobs may be growing, but so is the pool of candidates.
Older unemployed workers are still competing for entry-level positions – and that includes the classes of 2002 and 2003, hiring experts say.
Freshly minted graduates took any job they could get or took cover in graduate school when the economy began to collapse in 2001. Many moved back home.
A.T. Kearney just finished hiring graduates to whom it had extended offers in 2001.
"I was in this position three years ago when we made all of our offers and then had to delay start dates for literally hundreds of graduates," Mr. Chrismer said. "Some of our competitors even rescinded their offers. It was horrendous."
Michigan State's Dr. Gardner said that employers must step up graduate hiring 15 to 20 percent every year for the next couple of years to finish absorbing graduates from the last few years.
More members of the class of 2004 are also in the mix, with fewer planning to pursue higher degrees.
According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, students sat for the GMAT exam 21,858 times in February, compared with 23,930 in February 2003 and 29,345 in February 2002.
Slow job growth
Given the economy's expansion in recent months, recruiting should be accelerating faster than it has been, Dr. Gardner said.
"I anticipated last fall that we'd start seeing a little more activity by now," he said.
He said a combination of factors, including high health care costs, growing productivity and overseas outsourcing have kept some traditional college employers on the sidelines.
"And the information technology sector still has a whole bunch of problems, some of its own doing," Dr. Gardner said. "We just haven't been able to reabsorb the tech bubble yet."
Even so, prospective graduates who don't have jobs lined up aren't always victims of a stingy job market.
"A lot of students are uncertain about their career plans and have not applied anywhere, even though I spend four years telling them to think about it," said Jerry Alexander, director of the career center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "In many cases, I'm much more concerned about the student having a job at graduation than they are."
Mr. Alexander said the tried-and-true methods of landing a job – doing internships and networking with potential employers – still hold.
"In the boom times, you get the expectation that companies are coming after you," Mr. Alexander said. "That was the best of times. This is not the best of times."
Graduates may still face frustration in their job searches, but they shouldn't underestimate the value of their degrees.
"You have some naysayers saying 'What good is a college diploma?' " said Dr. Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development at the University of North Texas. "But the statistics belie that notion."
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in February for workers with at least a bachelor's degree was 2.9 percent, compared with 5.6 percent for all workers.
We are all in this together. Parents of graduating students are comprised of both Democrats and Republicans. Both types want their kids to succeed and get a good job.
Salary Information: High: $82,000 Low: $22,000 Mean:$58,671 Median: $55,000 Mode: $55,000.
I would say that this author didn't do much research as they cried poor mouth for this article. OH one other point two surveys had one cavet, "this does not include signing bonus!! I recall my first job and it didn't ahve a signing bonus.
Take a look at what the KIDS graduating from MIT earn and you would think that they all had ten years on the job. Most start above the best on the factory floor at GM or Ford. The low is in the 40s and the high is over 100K.
It looks to me that the world is coming to an end, that the papers are reproting it, but they left out a few details.
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