College Hiring Projections and Patterns

Employers expect to hire 8 percent more new college graduates from the Class of 2008 than they hired from the Class of 2007, according to the "Job Outlook 2008 Spring Update" report of the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Despite that positive outlook, the current negative economic climate has had an effect on the hiring prospects of new college graduates. In fact, although hiring projections remain positive, they have cooled off since the fall of 2007, when employers projected a 16 percent increase in college hiring for the Class of 2008. That drop off, however, is tempered by the fact that much of the negative impact is concentrated in specific industries, such as finance, leaving a significant portion of the market for new college graduates robust.
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Another NACE report showed that employers are increasingly looking to their internship programs to find new employees. Employers reported that nearly 36 percent of the new college graduates they hired from the Class of 2007 came from their own internship programs, up from 30 percent from the Class of 2005. In addition, employers say they extended job offers to nearly 70 percent of their interns; in 2001, they offered jobs to 57 percent. Survey findings also indicate that interns who become full-time hires are more likely to stick with the organization than their co-workers who didn’t go through the program.

Career Cornerstone News, July 2008
http://www.careercornerstone.org/