What Are Your Chances Of Being Hired In 2003?
by Sarah E. Needleman

Seniors, you may want to wear comfortable shoes before lining up to meet with recruiters on campus this fall. You could be in for a long wait.

Employers plan to hire fewer graduates during the coming recruiting season than in recent years, so they're limiting their presence on college campuses. Meanwhile, student interest in career events, such as job fairs, has soared. As a result, you'll have to work harder to land interviews with company recruiters.

"I think it's going to be another tough year. A lot of employers are still on the fence and not sure what they're going to do," says Camille Luckenbaugh, employment-information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) in Bethlehem, Pa. "They're being very cautious in hiring."

Although 46% of employers polled in a NACE survey say they plan to hire the same number of new college graduates this year as last, more than one-quarter say they expect to hire fewer. On average, they anticipate hiring about 23,000 new college graduates in 2002-2003, about 1,000 fewer or 3.6% less than the number hired in 2001-2002. The data are derived from an August survey of hiring expectations of about 350 employers. Most respondents hail from the service sector, followed by manufacturers and government and nonprofit employers.

Hiring projections may fluctuate throughout the year depending on the economy's condition, Luckenbaugh says. For last year's survey, which was tallied just prior to Sept. 11, employers anticipated a 19.7% decline in hiring from 2000-2001 levels. A winter update in December showed no change, but by April 2002, employers said they'd hire 36% fewer graduates compared to the prior year.

The class of 2003 may have more success at landing jobs with employers in certain industries, according to the NACE survey. Retailers and wholesalers (companies that sell goods in large quantities to retailers) expect to hire 16.7% more new college graduates in 2002-2003 than in the season prior. Computer-software and accounting firms plan to increase hiring by 5.1% and 3.1%, respectively. Government and nonprofit employers will be recruiting about the same number of graduates as in 2001-2002.

Conversely, engineering firms anticipate an 11.4% drop in hiring, and financial-services companies predict an 11.2% decline. Manufacturers say they expect to hire 6% fewer graduates this year, and service-sector employers project a 2.4% decrease.

By region, Midwest employers say they expect to hire 11.2% more new graduates, but recruitment is down elsewhere, the survey shows. Employers project a decrease of 1.5% in the South, 8.1% in the Northeast and 15.7% in the West.

A decrease in employer confidence is the likely cause of the cutbacks, says Philip Gardner, director of The Collegiate Employment Research Institute of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. "There's just a real weak economy and a lot more uncertainty this year, which means students are going to have a harder time finding jobs," he says.

Since employers are predicting fewer entry-level jobs in the coming year, many haven't finalized plans to visit colleges this fall. "Many are waiting to see how the economy will affect business before committing to colleges events," says Nancy Paul, director of the Binghamton University Career Development Center in Binghamton, N.Y. For her school's two-day job fair this month, about 65 employers were expected to attend. More employers planned to be present last year, but the event was cancelled due to Sept. 11, she says.

At Iowa State University, a career fair this month was expected to draw about 160 companies, 40 fewer than in 2001, says Heather Johnson Huntley, career-development coordinator for the university in Ames, Iowa. She says more employers may show up, though. "A lot of companies have contacted us, but say they don't want to register yet because they don't know how much they'll be hiring. They've really developed a wait-and-see attitude," she says.

It may save them some embarrassment. Some recruiters at the 2001 Iowa State University career fair learned they couldn't hire any more students after they'd interviewed several for jobs, Huntley says. Others had to retract offers.

This year, employers are being careful not to overestimate their needs. For example, International Business Machines Corp. in Armonk, N.Y., expects to hire about 1,500 graduates, slightly more than last year, but about half as many as three years ago, says Dave Ferrell, director of staffing, channels and programs. The 2001-2002 season was the first for which IBM had to greatly reduce the number of offers it could make, and the company didn't have to rescind any offers or reduce salaries, he says. "When we go out this year, we'll have real jobs to offer, but we'll also have to be really selective about whom we hire. Students will want to work harder at making sure the people they engage with recognize their talent and skills," he says.

Recruiters for the computer-hardware provider will be traveling to 90 schools this season instead of the 140 they visited on average in 2001 and prior years, Ferrell says. Fewer campus visits will help IBM cut recruiting costs. "It's expensive to travel to faraway campuses, stay overnight, host events and have collateral material," he says. "It's important that we align campus activities with actual hiring requirements so as to not mislead or disappoint." IBM recruiters will concentrate on schools where recruiters have strong relationships, he says.

The Procter & Gamble Co., a Cincinnati, Ohio-based manufacturer of household products, plans to hire about the same number of new college graduates as last year. However, that figure is down from previous years, says company spokesperson Jeannie Tharrington. "In 2000, we started a restructuring program which reduced the company's total employment" and college recruitment was lowered accordingly, she says.

At this point last year, students appeared to be unconcerned about job hunting, says Leigh Turner, executive director of the career center at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. "We don't see that this year." Attendance at workshops has more than doubled. At a publicity event for the career center on the Friday before school started, at least 500 students showed up, she says.

Texas A&M director of placement Gail Vermillion suspects parents and the experience of recent graduates have prompted seniors to begin job hunting earlier this year. "I think they saw friends who graduated last year not get jobs, so they're getting started earlier," she says. Other members of the school's career center agree. "When I reminded students about the upcoming career fairs and the importance of registering early, probably 90% said they were aware," says Daniel Orozco, assistant director of student career services. "I've had 126 e-mail contacts this year since the start of school," says Samantha Wilson, assistant director of life-sciences career services. "Last year, I had about 80 around the same time."

Only days after Adam Spafford started his senior year at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Fla., the business-administration major had his resume critiqued by campus career experts. Spafford, 21, says he'll need a well-written resume to stand out in a highly competitive market this spring. "I have a friend who just graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University who has to wait tables because there aren't any jobs," he says. A native of Kissammee, Fla., Stafford is interning in the marketing department at a bank near his school this semester to help beef up his resume. An avid mountain biker, he says he'd like to land a marketing or sales job with a bicycle manufacturer, such as Cannondale Corp., in Bethel, Conn.

Also getting a head start on her job search is Melissa Yeung, a management-science/information- systems major at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. She had her resume edited and used the job-search database at one of Rutgers's career centers a week after starting school. She's also scheduled a mock interview with a career-center staffer to enhance her interviewing skills. She says that since the job fairs she attended last year presented few opportunities, she may have to look outside her major, perhaps at administration jobs, after graduating in May.

In 2001-2002, employers offered lower annual starting salaries to recent graduates than the season before, according to a fall NACE survey. For example, the average offer to computer-science graduates was $49,413, a 5.87% drop. Management-information-systems graduates were offered $42,524, an 8.8% decline, and information-science graduates were offered $41,375, an 8.5% decrease. Economics and finance graduates' were offered $39,961, a 2% decrease.

NACE isn't making predictions about this year's average starting salaries. "Data from past years do not help to provide any indication about the future because the numbers are affected by the current economy," says Luckenbaugh.

Ms. Needleman is associate editor of CollegeJournal.com.