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Job outlook brightening for college grads

By Cate Prato, Globe Correspondent, 3/21/04

Globe Photo/Laurie Swope Babson College senior Kerrin Armstrong worked with the college's career center to help hone her job-search strategies.

Essay question: What are the employment prospects for this year's college graduates?

Short answer: Better than last year.

The long answer, according to college career specialists, analysts, and students, is that while the entry-level job market is opening up, it's still an employer's market and most students will have to work hard to land a job. Moreover, not all industry sectors are increasing entry-level openings, and salaries have stayed about the same as last year.

Employers said they expected to hire 12.7 percent more college graduates in 2003-2004 than they hired in 2002-2003, according to a survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the first projected increase since 2000-2001. And a 12.9 percent increase in entry-level jobs this year over 2003 is forecast in a new survey of top entry-level employers posted by the web site CollegeGrad.com. The types of jobs most in demand, according to the survey, include accounting, sales, management, engineering, financial services, and government services.

Another glimmer of hope for the class of 2004: In January and February, the unemployment rate dipped to 2.9 percent among recent college graduates with a bachelor's degree or better, according to Denis McSweeney, regional commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Boston-New York region. In comparison, the rate never went below 3 percent in all of 2003, he said.

Locally, some college career-service directors say the job outlook is definitely better than last year, though not as good as they had hoped. Also, it's not clear how much of the uptick is due to the economy and how much the increase in recruitment and job offers has to do with college marketing efforts, some said.

"This year, employers are calling me," said Hilles Hughes, director of career services for Clark University in Worcester. Hughes had her first clue this would be a better year when the number of employers attending the college's 2003 career fair last fall doubled, from 17 in 2002 to about 35, even though the career office was short-staffed for six months and Hughes wasn't able to actively recruit employers in 2003.

"With a small liberal arts college like Clark, I usually have to do a lot of outreach. Without an assistant director, I hadn't been able to do as much outreach, so the fact that more employers were calling me was very exciting," she said.

The recruiting outlook is also brighter at Babson College in Wellesley and Bentley College in Waltham. Both schools educate their students for business and finance careers.

"We are definitely seeing a difference this season over the last two," said Jennifer Shire, director of Babson's Center for Career Development. "We're seeing about the same number of full-time opportunities, but they're more substantial jobs."

Shire noted some companies that had stopped recruiting on campus have returned and brought more job openings with them. She also sees significance in the fact that internship opportunities have increased by 41 percent over last year. "Internships are important because they are a pipeline strategy to future jobs. The increase is a precursor of a turnaround," she said.

At Bentley, Don Brezinski, executive director of corporate relations, has tracked a 20 percent increase in the number of companies recruiting on campus. But he's most buoyed by the increase in the number of students each employer is asking to see.

"That's wonderful -- not just that there are opportunties, but the depth of growth," Brezinski said.

Both Brezinski and Shire said that because their schools are small and not well known outside of New England, they have worked hard to market their students to employers outside the region, and that may account for some of the increase in employers on campus.

Many colleges are working harder than ever to make connections to employers through alumni, and they are training students in interviewing and networking techniques. Internships and co-op placements during the undergraduate years are also a must in this economy, they say.

To hone her job search strategies, Babson senior Kerrin Armstrong, 21, worked with the college's career center, participating in mock interviews with corporate representatives who then gave her feedback on her performance. In real interviews, she stressed the accomplishments she accrued during past internships. "They want to know, what have you done?" she said.

Armstrong said she had anticipated a tough job market, as she had heard seniors last year had a difficult time landing jobs, and even internships were hard to come by. So she was pleasantly surprised when she landed a job last December.

"It wasn't as tight this year, but employers are more selective nowadays," said Armstrong, who has landed a spot in the financial leadership program at United Technologies. She estimated about half the seniors she knows also have job offers.

Cameron Bass, 21, a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, secured a job with Texas Instruments as a mechanical engineer last December. He acknowledged that a degree from MIT makes getting a job easier, even in a tough economy. He said his friends at other schools are having a tougher time. "A lot are still applying," he said.

At Boston University, career services director Richard Leger sees the job market for this year's grads improving "ever so slowly." For him, the positive signs are not so much in the numbers as the stature of the companies that are recruiting this year. "The 'name' organizations are coming back on the scene," he said.

Leger says there are more opportunities in the financial industry, including banking, and somewhat in high tech. "But is it like the days when employers were banging down the door? No," he said.

Career specialists said college grads can increase their chances of finding a job by being flexible and strategizing. Most students understand that the job market is still tough and are willing to take jobs that aren't their first choice for a couple of years until the economy turns around, Leger said.

"Networking is always a key piece," said Leger. "There's nothing like a conversation eyeball to eyeball" to help people remember you when an opening comes up.

Hughes encourages Clark students to "make creative use" of alumni for informational interviews. As liberal arts majors, Clark students have the advantage of being flexible with the skills to adapt to a variety of jobs. The downside for some is that they sometimes lose focus, particularly in interviews, said Hughes.

Leger agrees that focus is important in a job search. "Avoid desperation, saying 'hire me, I'll do anything,"' he said. "Successful job seekers make decisions and then aggressively pursue a direction."

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