Hiring outlook for 2015 graduates
More hiring: Employers plan to hire 8.3 percent more new college graduates for U.S. operations than they did last year. For jobs worldwide, employers plan to hire 7.5 percent more.
Wider recruiting for jobs abroad: Hiring for international positions is expected to increase by 3.2 percent for Class of 2015.
Employees needed in these areas: Graduates with bachelor's degrees are most in demand in business, engineering, computer and information sciences and math. The college majors most in demand are finance, accounting, and computer science.
Source: National Association of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook 2015 report.
Job outlooks for new graduates are getting better since the Great Recession, which is good, because college costs, particularly in Georgia, and student college debt continue to rise. Go to these sites on myAJC.com to take a look at how Georgia compares with other states in the price of a four-year education and for an interactive peek at how students in recent years are accumulating more loans to get through school. http://www.myajc.com/local-education/college-costs-student-debt/ or http://www.ajc.com/local-education/college-costs-student-debt/.
Georgia college commencement schedule:
April 25 - University of West Georgia
May 1, 2 - Georgia Tech, UNG, Reinhardt
May 2 – Brenau, Bainbridge State, Ft. Valley
May 7 – Darton State, Abraham Baldwin, South Georgia State
May 8 - UGA, Georgia Perimeter, GRU, Atlanta Metro, East Georgia, Gordon State, Valdosta State
May 9 - Georgia State, Clayton State, Savannah State, Georgia Southern, Georgia College & State, Dalton State, College of Coastal Georgia, Armstrong State, Albany State, Georgia Southwestern State, Brewton-Parker, Young Harris
May 10 – Paine College
May 11 – Emory, Columbus State
May 13, 14 - Kennesaw State
May 14 - Georgia Gwinnett, Middle Georgia
May 16 - Mercer, Agnes Scott, Oglethorpe, Georgia Highlands, Truett-McConnell, LaGrange
May 17 - Morehouse, Spelman
May 18 - Clark Atlanta
May 23 – John Marshall Law School
May 30 - SCAD
Hiring outlook for 2015 graduates
More hiring: Employers plan to hire 8.3 percent more new college graduates for U.S. operations than they did last year. For jobs worldwide, employers plan to hire 7.5 percent more.
Wider recruiting for jobs abroad: Hiring for international positions is expected to increase by 3.2 percent for Class of 2015.
Employees needed in these areas: Graduates with bachelor's degrees are most in demand in business, engineering, computer and information sciences and math. The college majors most in demand are finance, accounting, and computer science.
Source: National Association of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook 2015 report.
Job outlooks for new graduates are getting better since the Great Recession, which is good, because college costs, particularly in Georgia, and student college debt continue to rise. Go to these sites on myAJC.com to take a look at how Georgia compares with other states in the price of a four-year education and for an interactive peek at how students in recent years are accumulating more loans to get through school. http://www.myajc.com/local-education/college-costs-student-debt/ or http://www.ajc.com/local-education/college-costs-student-debt/.
Georgia college commencement schedule:
April 25 - University of West Georgia
May 1, 2 - Georgia Tech, UNG, Reinhardt
May 2 – Brenau, Bainbridge State, Ft. Valley
May 7 – Darton State, Abraham Baldwin, South Georgia State
May 8 - UGA, Georgia Perimeter, GRU, Atlanta Metro, East Georgia, Gordon State, Valdosta State
May 9 - Georgia State, Clayton State, Savannah State, Georgia Southern, Georgia College & State, Dalton State, College of Coastal Georgia, Armstrong State, Albany State, Georgia Southwestern State, Brewton-Parker, Young Harris
May 10 – Paine College
May 11 – Emory, Columbus State
May 13, 14 - Kennesaw State
May 14 - Georgia Gwinnett, Middle Georgia
May 16 - Mercer, Agnes Scott, Oglethorpe, Georgia Highlands, Truett-McConnell, LaGrange
May 17 - Morehouse, Spelman
May 18 - Clark Atlanta
May 23 – John Marshall Law School
May 30 - SCAD
Hiring outlook for 2015 graduates
More hiring: Employers plan to hire 8.3 percent more new college graduates for U.S. operations than they did last year. For jobs worldwide, employers plan to hire 7.5 percent more.
Wider recruiting for jobs abroad: Hiring for international positions is expected to increase by 3.2 percent for Class of 2015.
Employees needed in these areas: Graduates with bachelor's degrees are most in demand in business, engineering, computer and information sciences and math. The college majors most in demand are finance, accounting, and computer science.
Source: National Association of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook 2015 report.
Job outlooks for new graduates are getting better since the Great Recession, which is good, because college costs, particularly in Georgia, and student college debt continue to rise. Go to these sites on myAJC.com to take a look at how Georgia compares with other states in the price of a four-year education and for an interactive peek at how students in recent years are accumulating more loans to get through school. http://www.myajc.com/local-education/college-costs-student-debt/ or http://www.ajc.com/local-education/college-costs-student-debt/.
Long hours spent in the classroom and hitting the books will lead to a better payoff this year for many college graduates, who will have an easier time finding jobs than other recent classes.
A number of national labor and economic reports show that businesses are likely to hire more graduates as the economy improves and older workers retire. The outlook is good news for graduates, who are leaving school with some of the highest debt loads ever.
"Many employers look to the new graduates they hire to be the future leaders of the company, and with a lot of retirements from baby boomers leaving the workforce, they need to fill these positions," said Andrea Koncz, research manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
Employers are expected to hire almost 10 percent more new graduates from the class of 2015 than the previous year, according to NACE's recent 2015 job outlook. Rising demand for workers in finance, business administration, technology and health care have led to more recent graduates finding jobs. That trend is expected to continue for the more than 1.8 million graduates entering this year's job market, according to a similar report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
Trey Sides, who just graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering, is a direct beneficiary of the bright employment outlook.
“I looked at a variety of places from really hard-core engineering to consulting, things that sounded interesting. I applied a bunch of places, got a lot of interviews and was gone like every other week this (school) year for off-sight interviews around the country and came out with a few fantastic offers,” Sides, 22, said.
The Birmingham, Ala., native secured an early job offer in December with Boston Consulting Group in Midtown. He’s already negotiated time off for travel to Vienna, Austria, in the fall on a prestigious Fulbright scholarship for nine months of engineering research and teaching English at a high school. After working in Atlanta for a year, he’ll take two years away from BCG to complete an MBA program at Harvard Business School.
Fulbright scholar Sides may not be the typical grad, but more jobs seem to be available for all students.
The University of Georgia career center, for example, reported 63 percent of the graduating class last year had received jobs, and 15 percent had enrolled in graduate school. Data on the 2015 class was not yet available, but career counselors said the numbers look to be trending ahead of last year, and more students are also reporting more than one job offer.
But there are still students who struggle to find work.
“In years with positive job outlooks, it’s easy to assume that that applies to all students coming out, but there are some who struggle a bit more and who come out of majors where their marketable skill sets aren’t so clear cut,” said L. Michelle Tullier, executive director of Georgia Tech’s career development center. “This often happens with liberal arts majors and can be demoralizing for them when hearing their peers are having offers fall into their laps and that’s not happening to them.”
Savannah State University student Alayna Stovall hadn’t secured a job yet when interviewed this spring, but the political science major was hoping the positive job market and her ongoing networking with school alumni would help reach her goal.
“It’s been a little challenging finding jobs in my field because political science is so broad and you have to have a master’s (degree) in this field to even be considered for many jobs,” she said.
Stovall, 21, was offered a sales and marketing position in Washington, D.C., but turned it down. The Lilburn resident wanted to stay in the Atlanta area and become a high school government teacher for Atlanta Public Schools.
For many graduates, a rosy job market means getting a jump on repaying student loans. Stovall, for example, expected to graduate with about $15,000 of loans left to repay, less than many of her fellow grads.
Georgia State University biology graduates Nicole Hall and Tiffany Dunn left school with about $45,000 in student loans. Knowing that creditors will soon come calling increased the pressure to get jobs, they said.
Economists say that high student debt loads have been a drag on the economy as graduates put off buying cars, homes and other goods.
That has been exacerbated by rising tuition, fees and room and board at public four-year schools. Nationwide, they are nearly a third more expensive than they were 10 years ago, according to figures from the College Board. Student loan debt that has risen to more than $1 trillion nationally.
In Georgia, about 61 percent of students have student-loan debt, averaging just over $24,500, according to the most recent data collected by the Project on Student Debt. The debt burden has increased almost 48 percent, or about $8,000 over the past five years.
Despite the much-improved job market for entry-level candidates, students can’t expect to hand out a few resumes at job fairs and reply to online posts and wait for a phone call or email, said John Challenger, CEO of the Challenger outplacement firm.
Networking and face-to-face meetings with people such as professors, former internship supervisors and college alumni who can help with a job search are critical, he said.
“Get at it now. Work with your college career counseling center. Don’t spend the last month of your college career partying,” Challenger said. “Now is the time to get your career and life after college secured.”
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