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Campuses see pickup in company recruiters for entry-level workers

By Cal Blethen
Seattle Times business reporter

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"We're seeing a little more variety this year, and (employers) are offering more positions this year than last year," said Vic Snyder, a counselor in the UW Center for Career Services.

In the fall quarter, requests for interviews with students rose 14 percent over the same quarter in 2002, Snyder said. This winter, requests are up 10 percent.

Nationally, the trend is similar. Students who graduate from college this year are likely to find the most entry-level opportunities in three years. But they will also find more competition for those jobs.

High-demand fields CollegeGrad.com says several fields are hot this year for entry-level workers: • Business • Management • Information technology/computer science • Engineering • Education • Accounting

Two surveys — one by the nonprofit National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and the other by the entry-level job-search Web site CollegeGrad.com — each projected a nearly 13 percent increase in entry-level hiring.

"What we're seeing is the job market start to come back," association spokeswoman Mimi Collins said. "This is a positive sign, (but) it doesn't mean (the job market) is going to be fabulous."

The trend shows the job market improving, Collins said, but it still has a long way to go to reach more typical hiring levels.

This year marks the first projected increase since the 2000-01 academic year, the NACE said. In 2001-02, the number of entry-level jobs fell 36 percent, Collins said, the most dramatic drop in recent years.

That year "the economy went downhill, so job rates went downhill," Collins said.

"2001 to 2003 have been very slow hiring years for college grads, and we still are not back to the high-demand days of the late 1990s, when demand far exceeded supply of available entry-level talent," Collins said.

In the 1990s, when the economy was booming, few grads struggled to find jobs. Many received multiple offers with fat salaries and great perks.

But things didn't stay that way as the economy weakened.

Recruiting at the UW in the 2001-02 year dropped 50 percent, to 203 companies from 407 in 2000-2001, said Susan Terry, director of the UW Center for Career Services.

Last school year, 204 companies visited the campus. Since the start of the fall quarter, 184 companies have visited.

"We're up by about 14 percent . . ., but that isn't a heck of a lot compared to three years ago," Terry said. "Any little bit of growth is good news right now, but it's still going to be extremely tough for college students to find work this year, especially if they want to stay in Seattle."

UW is seeing more companies from the retail, banking and consulting industries.

Among the big recruiters are Microsoft; Lockheed Martin; Exponent, an engineering- and scientific-consulting firm; Weyerhaeuser; Philip Morris; Ortho-McNeil, a pharmaceutical company; and Cerner, a health-care-management company.

Some companies that had bowed out of on-campus recruiting are back, Terry said. Others — such as Washington Mutual, Lockheed Martin and Safeco — have increased their recruiting.

Business, technology big

Top entry-level employers nationwide CollegeGrad.com asked about 5,000 companies nationwide how many entry-level jobs they expect to fill this year. The top 500 are on the CollegeGrad.com Web site, www.collegegrad.com/topemployers. The 10 companies projected to hire the most entry-level employees are: • Enterprise Rent-A-Car • Lockheed Martin • Federal Bureau of Investigation • Immigration and Naturalization Service • Schlumberger, an oilfield services company • Social Security Administration • EDS, an outsourcing services company • Aetna, a medical insurance and benefit provider • Boeing • Ernst & Young, a business consulting company

Nationwide, the areas with the highest demand were business, management, information technology and computer science, engineering, education and accounting, Collegegrad.com says.

It sent surveys to more than 5,000 companies and asked them how many entry-level employees they expected to hire this year.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car topped the list, projecting 6,500 entry-level employees, most of whom will enter a management-training program, said Marie Artim, corporate human-resources manager. The company employs 54,000 nationwide.

Starting salaries vary by location, Artim said, but generally range from the high $20,000s to high $30,000s.

"We have extensive training programs within, so you don't need to be a business major to be successful," she said.

Employees hired into the management-training program work through several departments, she said.

"We promote almost entirely from within," Artim said. "We get (new employees) in and involved in every branch of the business. We're open to (applicants from) all majors. It's really more about the individual and what they're looking to do career-wise."

Other top employers in the survey were Lockheed Martin, the FBI, U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Services and a few Washington-based companies, including Boeing and Microsoft.

Although more companies are hiring, more students are looking for work, so the market is still tight.

"The entry-level job market is still very competitive (because) many grads from 2001 to 2003 are still underemployed or unemployed," said Brian Krueger, president of Collegegrad.com. "Many went to graduate school to temporarily move back their graduation date."

Students should be researching and talking with companies, building résumés, mastering cover letters and learning about job profiles and matching with personal skills, Terry said.

"If they want to find the best position, they need to be very thorough in their job search," Terry said.

"We encourage them to take every path there is. It is a time-consuming committed path you have to go through to find a job."

In January, Washington state's jobless rate was 6.5 percent, an improvement from a year ago, when rates topped 7 percent. But the state's rate is still among the highest in the nation.

"New grads still need to do their homework... in order to find the opportunities available in the market," Krueger said. "There is still a (lot) of competition at the entry level."

Tough hunt for senior

UW senior Nicolas Michel-Hart, a mechanical-engineering major who has been looking a couple months, says the market is still tough.

"I don't think there's a lot of opportunity at the entry-level these days," Michel-Hart said.

"There's more opportunity for people who are already experienced; the entry-level people, they don't need so much right now."

Michel-Hart has been researching companies, filling out job applications, sending out letters, working on his résumé, talking with recruiters and looking for opportunities.

He said he hopes to find a job within three months.

Attending career fairs and getting your name out is "what you have to do these days — it's pretty competitive," he said.

Cal Blethen: 206-464-8223 or cblethen@seattletimes.com

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