Outlook for graduates brightens
By Barbara Hagenbaugh
USA Today
WASHINGTON — Good news, mom and dad. Your soon-to-be college graduate might not have to move back home, after all.
After years of barely any activity, the job market for college seniors and graduate students appears to be picking up. Firms are interviewing more, giving more offers and even bumping up pay.
While the market is nowhere near as strong as it was in the late 1990s — when the job market was so hot, firms were recruiting on beer-soaked beaches during spring break — a turnaround appears to be taking shape.
"It is starting to pick up," says Carol Lyons, dean of career services at Northeastern University in Boston. "Not in any drastic way; in a slow, hopefully steady, way."
Andrew Ferguson, director of the career development center at the University of Richmond, calls the current market more "normal," unlike the late 1990s. "It's actually been a decent year."
The same appears to be true for graduate students.
"This year is a definite improvement than earlier in this decade," says Dan Poston, director of the business school at the University of Washington in Seattle. The number of second-year MBA's at the University of Washington with job offers is up 20 percent from last year.
Megan Wasserman, 22, hasn't even gotten her diploma from Northeastern University but she has already started work as a production assistant at the "Dr. Phil" show, where the journalism student interned in the fall.
With enough credits to skip the final semester, Wasserman jumped at the chance for a full-time job when the Los Angeles show offered her one last year.
"I'm one of the lucky ones," she says.
Although there is little solid data about the current job market for college students, anecdotal evidence suggests things are getting better:
- Booz Allen Hamilton expects as many as 400 recent college graduates will start work in its government and technology group this fiscal year, which began April 1. Last year, 300 were hired; 220 were hired in 2002, says Judy Merkel, director of recruiting at the McLean, Va., consulting firm.
- The number of firms recruiting students at Georgetown University's business school is up 24 percent from a year ago. Half of second-year students have job offers, up from 40 percent at this time a year ago, says John Flato, director of MBA career management at the Washington, D.C., school.
- Enterprise Rent-A-Car plans to hire 6,500 college seniors for its management training program this year, up from about 6,000 last year.
- During the 2002-03 school year, 79 employers came to Southern Methodist University to interview students. This year to date, 124 firms have come to campus, a 57 percent increase.
SMU senior Joe Santos last week accepted a job with Comerica, a financial services firm in Detroit, after receiving four job offers. Santos, who is getting a degree in finance with a minor in psychology, even got a signing bonus.
"Last year I thought, 'Wow, it's going to be hard to find a job,' ... but it is far better than it was last year," the 22-year-old from Laredo, Texas, says.
A sampling of universities suggests hot areas this year are healthcare, accounting, defense, education, hospitality, insurance and even consulting, which had shown a drop-off in earlier years.
Salaries also are up. More than half of college majors showed an increase in starting salary offers from a year ago in a recent study of career services officers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
Many career counselors also say they expect hiring to pick up in May, as more firms practice "just-in-time" hiring, rather than making offers months in advance, assuming the students will be needed down the road.
"Everybody is being cautious," says Leslye Ellison, director of career services at the University of New Mexico.
Julie Hochheiser, a senior at Boston University, is waiting until after graduation to try to find a job in the radio industry. "I tried to apply earlier this year, and I didn't get any responses," the 22-year-old from Potomac, Md., says.
Like other soon-to-be graduates, Hochheiser figures she will do another internship during the summer, even though she has already interned at National Public Radio, America Online, Disney and People magazine.
Such real-life experience is especially important now because, with the overall job market still fairly sluggish, college students are competing against young, laid-off workers with a few years of experience.
"Many of them are underemployed, and they are competing with (new) graduates for entry-level positions," Robert Johnson of the University of Dayton says.
Not only are students coming into the interview process with a fuller résumé than in years past, they also are preparing more, says Jason Farago, of money management firm Lord Abbett, which plans to surpass last year's hiring of 18 students. Students are studying up about the companies and asking good questions, he says.
"The caliber of applicants has increased," he says. "In 2000, the question was, 'How big is my signing bonus going to be?' Now it's, 'Will I get a job?' "
