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November 30, 2007 > News > Job market for grads stays consistent

Job market for grads stays consistent

By Diana Lee | Thresher staff

To get a job or not to get a job. That seems to be the eternal question for graduating seniors. And the answers seem split down the middle. Many students who do work upon graduation get their jobs through one of two career fairs hosted by the Career Services Center at O’Connor House each year.

The 2007 Post Graduate Survey reported that 52 percent of respondents planned to start working immediately upon graduation, a percentage comparable to 2006’s 51 percent that planned to enter the workforce. In 2007, 39 percent of respondents were planning on attending graduate school in fall 2008, a decrease from 41 percent for respondents in the 2006 Post Graduate Study. The remaining percentages for 2007 were distributed across students planning to travel, volunteer or focus on fellowships after graduation or were undecided. Last year, 79 percent of the graduating class had definite plans by the time of graduation, such as attending graduate or professional schools or having accepted job offers. Although some students do decide to work immediately after graduation, there is a trend for the majority of Rice students to go back to obtain their master’s degree or higher in the future.

Those students without definite plans can attend any one of the two career fairs hosted by Career Services. Assistant Director of the Career Services Center Heidi Glantzberg said 88 companies are recruiting on campus this year, which is comparable to 89 companies last year.

The Rice Career Expo, which took place this September, was primarily focused on full-time jobs. The Rice Collegiate Job Fair and Summer Opportunities Fair, scheduled for Jan. 29, is composed of two segments. The first half, called the Rice Collegiate Job Fair, is for permanent positions, while the evening session is geared towards summer opportunities that are available to non-seniors.

The companies that come to the career fairs vary from year to year, but there are certain companies that recruit at Rice every year, Glantzberg said. The companies that come on campus are typically large corporations, such as ExxonMobil, Microsoft and Schlumberger. There is generally a strong showing from public service organizations such as Peace Corps, Teach for America and the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program. Rice is also a target school for many government organizations, both local and federal.

“Companies have different hiring cycles and must make annual projections as to how many students they want to hire the next year,” Glantzberg said. “Companies that recruit at Rice return because they know that when they hire a Rice student, they get somebody who can be challenged and wants a challenge and can do a good job for the company.”

Students looking to go into publishing, journalism or human resources may not be able to find those types of companies at Rice because they typically lack the resources needed for on-campus recruiting, Glantzberg said. However, since every company has a sales, marketing or human resources aspect, Glantzberg said companies tend to hire approximately equal numbers of science & engineering and liberal arts students.

Glantzberg said she encouraged employers to take a holistic approach when evaluating applicants.

“Career Services tells employers not to focus on the Rice major but to look at the skills sets that are necessary for the job,” Glantzberg said.

Glantzberg said even though Rice did not have an undergraduate business major for years, students still went into the finance field.

This year, Glantzberg said there are more companies interested in hiring students than there is space at the career fair.

“Any student that wants to have a job has that opportunity,” Glantzberg said. “Now, there are waiting lists for employers to recruit at Rice. We don’t have enough space to accommodate all the employers that want to come, and in the past, this was not the case.”

Jackson Wu, a Lovett College Career Advisor, said the CSC was very helpful in his career search, which ended with him receiving a position as a financial analyst with British Petroleum.

“The first semester of senior year is very tough with trying to balance courses and job-searching,” Wu, a Lovett senior, said. “But if you have a job secured already, next semester will be a lot easier … I did all of my own job search on RICElink. The CSC has been instrumental in helping me find my internships and full-time position with BP.”

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