On October 20, 2015, I attended the “Recruiting Trends 2016” survey in Chicago. This survey has grown and evolved over the years. Dr. Phil Gardner (Michigan State University) has conducted the survey for many years and did an excellent job of explaining the data to everyone who attended.
Because I work in Career Services, I like to think none of this information was surprising to me! However, there is always information in national data that is shocking when you broken down regionally. Hiring in the Midwest is driven by manufacturing — specifically, the resurgence in the Automotive market. Contrast that to areas hit hardest by low oil prices and you see the drastic disparity within a range of national averages.
Our Career Fair attendance has been at record levels for company attendance. Michigan Tech students are highly demanded and sought after. We hope these trends will last forever – but all things are cyclical.
This Fall, our focus was to help develop a “Career Culture” on campus. The creation of hands-on, interactive, networking events with companies to help students feel comfortable in a job market. Our partnership with corporate volunteers to review resumes, provide practice interviews, or just be available to listen to students created many individual connections. The active promotion of our Learning Center to coach students through the process.
These events help students “find their fit” for the first stop on their career journey. Whether the economy is strong or weak, an alumni that is passionate about what they do and has clear expectations about what they want to accomplish will always be a positive contributor to any company.
(The “Collegiate Employment Research Institute” (CERI) has consolidated this information into a series of short reports available on their website at: http://www.ceri.msu.edu/)