For college seniors, it’s decision time. Bobbie Koppel, director of career services at the University of Rhode Island, can see it already.
“I’ve already had several students ask me (how) to pick from multiple job offers,” Koppel said. “It’s only October, and they’re already getting multiple offers. It’s a whole new ball game.”
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The new ball game is played at high speed. Traditionally — with the exception of accounting firms — most recruiters have waited until spring to woo graduates. No more. Today, with companies clawing for help, recruiters are already storming Rhode Island college campuses in search of the best prospects. For example, the number of companies interviewing on campus this fall at URI has doubled since last year, up to about 80 now, Koppel said.
The same is happening elsewhere. Exxon, Fidelity Investments, Nabisco, GTECH, Caldor, and Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Co. are just some of the companies competing for graduates. All understand the importance of starting early.
“What we have seen this year is some recruiters who had problems with recruitment last year wanting to get on campus early and be a little more tenacious,” said Patrick Lennahan, director of the Career Center at Roger Williams University. “I think some of them left empty-handed last year.”
Last year, as the building of the Providence Place mall was gearing up, companies were asking Roger Williams construction management majors to leave school early and take jobs, Lennahan said. The students resisted. Once they graduated, however, “they were all snapped (up),” Lennahan said.
Predictably, graduates with technical and business skills are in high demand. But career counselors say liberal arts graduates are not being excluded. Companies are looking for people with interpersonal and communication skills as well as technical know-how, they say. The result is that students are attempting to become more well-rounded, counselors said.
“A lot of liberal arts majors are acquiring the technical skills and the technical (students) are getting the interpersonal (skills),” Koppel said.
Where graduates go for their jobs depends on a number of factors. Some students from Rhode Island want to leave the state. Others want to work in their hometown. And some out of state students fall in love with New England and go to great lengths to stay here, Lennahan noted. Still, counselors said most are willing to go where the opportunities are.
“We emphasize in our classrooms that students have to be flexible to get the job of their dreams,” said Karen Petrarca, director of employment in the career development office at Johnson & Wales University. “If they only want to stay local, or stay in Rhode Island they might be compromising their opportunities.”
Recruiters, however, are offering incentives to ease that transition. With college seniors being bombarded with offers, companies are forced to offer signing bonuses and relocation packages, noted Judith Clare, director of Career Services at Bryant College.
“We didn’t see that five years ago,” Clare said, “not at the entry level.”
Still, with demand for skilled labor running high, many new graduates have the ability to choose where they want to work. And now, more so
