In a positive sign for college seniors seeking employment after graduation, a prominent entry-level job site announced a projected 14.2 percent increase in hiring for the year 2005 Thursday.
The site, https://www.collegegrad.com, also released a list of the top five hundred entry-level job employers for 2005.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car is listed as the top entry-level employer with a projected 7,000 open positions available for 2005. Many government agencies also appear on the list, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Agriculture. Both are expected to offer about 3,000 jobs in 2005.
Employers cited increased customer satisfaction and a rise in tenure as causes of the recent trend toward hiring more recent college graduates.
Steven Jungman, a national recruiter for Mattress Firm, also noted that college graduates’ “overall positive energy” is often seen as an advantage by companies hiring younger employees.
Sylvia Robinson, executive director of the MBNA Career Education Center, encouraged students to visit the center and meet with a career counselor, whether students have a clear idea of post-graduation plans or are still making decisions. She cautioned that an early start is critical, because a job search takes time and “is almost like taking another [academic] course.”
“While the job market is definitely showing signs of improvement, I would still advise seniors to take a proactive approach to their job search,” she said.
Robinson said that employers often indicate that Georgetown is one of their top recruiting schools “in terms of their successes recruiting Georgetown graduates” and the success graduates have at their jobs. Some of these organizations are on the top 500 recruiters list released by the job search website.
According to the Career Center’s Report on a survey of members of the class of 2003, 64 percent of the graduating class was employed within six months of graduation. Twenty percent of students were in graduate school and 16 percent were still seeking employment. Surveys from the Class of 2004 will be completed in February.