Experience Stern | News & Events

College Employment Survey
• Energy, Technology, Accounting, Mfg Lead the Way; Wall Street Lags But Still Hiring
• A Four‐Year Drought Seemingly Coming to an End; Prior Year Classes Slowly Recovering
• Behind the Hiring: Business Expansion and a Wave of Retirees on the Horizon

NEW YORK (EconoPlay) Dec. 2 – Employers are again looking to hire students on a wholesale basis, seemingly ending a four‐year dry spell that left legions of young people jobless and heavily indebted right out of the gate, campus career centers report.

Schools are reporting a huge increase in on‐campus interviews this fall, along with greater representation in the types and number of companies at career fairs, presaging a more normalized job market by Graduation Day next spring.

Companies are coming around to the reality that it’s time to train the next generation of workers to replace an impending wave of retirees. There are also indications that they are ready to expand again after spending the last few years stockpiling cash and cutting labor costs.

All this good news comes with one proviso – the same thing happened last fall, when the economy was also on a nice recovery groove only to be hit by those killer asteroids out of Egypt, Japan, Greece, and the U.S. Congress.

The big new employer presence on campus is energy, trailed closely by technology, startups (not a traditional presence), social networking companies (also new), and manufacturers (now blazing a comeback trail). Consulting and accounting also are back after a long leave of absence.

The big laggard is financial services – but that too, oddly, is up despite mass layoffs. The big investment banks might be on hiatus, but private equity firms and regional banks have taken up the slack.

“We are more than big banks. Energy is our major focus now,” said Denise Dwight Smith, director of the University Career Center at UNC Charlotte (yes, a major banking center).

Despite all the problems in the world, employers seem to be back in a general way. “We’re actually seeing increased interest, and increased hiring, both at the internship and full‐time level,” she said.

On‐campus interviews and job postings are up 40% over last year – “and they don’t get to
interview unless they have an opening they’re trying to fill,” she said.

Technology companies are back, and demand is “almost as much as it was in 1999,” she said. Only this time it’s not Y2K, but manufacturers looking for technology majors to help automate factories.

Dwight Smith sees employers not only competing again for the best talent, but also trying to stake their claims earlier than ever. Some of the bigger banks now have formal applied technology programs that begin with sophomore year internships.

It may sound strange that they would be recruiting young people at the same time that they’re engaged in mass layoffs – but they’re looking long into the future, she said.

“A lot of organizations are getting more nervous about their aging employee base,” Dwight Smith explained. “I see it all the time where some bank might announce a layoff in the morning news and that afternoon be on campus interviewing.”

A lot of the biggest employers who went AWOL during the recession are back. They include the big accounting firms, as well as some big box retailers. “I’m seeing a slow turnaround that feels healthier than last year,” she said. “The big question, though, is who knows what will happen next spring?”

So what did become of the Class of 2011?

“I haven’t received a final report yet. But a lot of students are getting part‐time work or volunteering. It was a little better than the year before, but they’re still having difficulties,” she said. “The class of 2012 is on the better cycle.”

Big Banks Laying Low

“Recruiting has been fine this fall. The main difference is less activity from the largest banks,” said Patricia Rose, director of career services at the University of Pennsylvania.

Overall recruiting is up from last year, even though the school actually had a “great year” last year with 14,000 interviews and most students landing employment. “We just wrapped up our survey, and only 8 percent of our respondents said they were still seeking employment. That was a three‐year low,” she said.

Even if the biggest banks are absent, others in financial services are stepping up to the plate, including regional banks, and boutique investment and private equity firms, she said.

The biggest banks still are around, though, even if they have reduced the number of interviews for next summer. “We still expect them to hire our grads. It won’t be down precipitously,” Rose said. “They had taken an unprecedented number of interns last summer and many have received offers for permanent employment. Our grads will land jobs on Wall Street.”

Others will land employment with the big (and small) consulting firms and in the technology sector (Microsoft and Google), along with several “late‐stage startups” that are beginning to be a significant presence. She also sees a newbie like Facebook spreading out (right now, it’s only focused on Harvard and MIT).

Rose has not done any salary surveys yet, but she expects salaries to be flat after rising last year (offers made last fall reflected a false sense of an economic recovery by summer). “It’s too soon to say, but I don’t know that there’ll be any big jump in salaries this year,” Rose said.

Pamela Mittman, Assistant Dean of Career Services and Leadership Development at NYU Stern School of Business, reported a 40% increase in “company interest” in the business school’s 2011 Fall Career Fair.

“On‐campus interviews start in January, and the expected corporate presence is healthy and consistent with last year,” she said.

The school’s close ties to Wall Street and the global financial services sector provides some immunity from the downsizing there. “We haven’t been affected,” Mittman said. “There was a high yield in full‐time offers extended to Stern students following their summer internships.”

Besides, other industries are filling the hiring gap, including luxury and other types of retail. Base salaries increased by 5% for the Class of 2011, which actually did quite well. “We experienced an uptick as the economy improved, with 94 percent of the Class of 2011 securing jobs three months after graduation,” she said.

Strong and Steady

“Our hiring numbers remain steady. We plan to hire about 8,500 college graduates this year, which is the same as last year,” said Marie Artim, vice president of talent acquisition for Enterprise Holdings, the corporate parent of Enterprise Rent‐A‐Car, Alamo, National Car Rental, and WeCar.

The company appears to be in a serious hiring mode as it fans 200 local “talent acquisition specialists” to visit college and university across the country – searching for “a variety of majors,” but mostly in business and marketing, she said.

Salaries remain consistent with last year, “with no decline,” Artim added.

Andrea Koncz, employment information manager for the National Association of Colleges and Employers, sees plenty of reasons for students to feel more optimistic this year.

Her latest annual survey showed that among the 179 employer members who reported their hiring numbers, the total number of grads they planned to hire was 33,555, up 9.5% from a year ago.

About 51% (or 91 employers) are hiring more 2012 graduates than they did a year ago, 37% are hiring the same number, and only 12% (21 employers) are hiring less than they did a year ago. “So it’s looking pretty good,” Koncz said.

Still Cautious

“Employers are still a little cautious,” she added. “They plan to keep a close eye on their hiring needs. They now reassess their needs quarterly, where years ago they would do it annually.”

Koncz hears a mix of responses over what’s driving that hiring. “There’s the need to replace retiring workers. But companies are also experiencing more demand for their services, so that opens up positions,” she said. “A couple years ago, the only reason was to replace retirees.”

Among the industry segments doing the most hiring, “the big one this year is oil and gas, which is not surprising,” she said. “But we saw good responses across the board.”

Even financial services plans to hire 3% more than a year ago, “but that was one of the lower increases,” she said. “When we asked about specific majors, No. 1 was finance and No. 2 was accounting. So there’s still a need for more finance graduates,” she said.

Koncz also has engineering and technology majors high on her list each year, but complains that what’s driving that demand are persistent shortages. “Each year we have fewer and fewer grads in those majors,” she said.

Salaries in 2011 were up 6% from the prior year, according to NACE’s final salary survey, up substantially from 2010, when “average salaries were down 3 or 4 percent,” she noted.

NACE’s Fall 2011 Salary Survey report shows the overall average salary offer to a bachelor’s degree graduate rose from $48,288 for the Class of 2010 to $51,171 for the Class of 2011.

Graduates earning business degrees saw their overall average salary jump 4.6% above the September 2010 average—from $46,672 to $48,805.

Business administration and management graduates’ salaries jumped 5.4% to $46,372. And economics and finance graduates saw their average salary offers increase 3.9% to $53,690 and up 4.8% to $51,503, respectively.

Computer‐related grads saw their average salaries soar 9.6% from $58,189 to $63,760, while those majoring specifically in computer science saw a similar jump of 9.3% to $66,084.

Information sciences and systems majors saw their average salary offer increase by 5.9% to $55,619.

The average salary offer to engineering majors just rose 2.8% over last year’s average of $58,669 to $60,291. But the average salary offer to petroleum engineering graduates grew 7.1% to $82,740, making them the best paid among last year’s crop of grads, she said.

Finishing out the highest‐paid list were chemical engineering graduates, up 1.8% to $66,058 and computer engineering graduates, who posted a healthy 4.1% increase to $62,849.

The above commentary mainly reflects hiring conditions for late spring and summer.

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