Yesterday, I discussed the important role a university faculty or staff member plays in college recruiting. I received some comments about how students also need to be actively involved in the process because at the end of the day, they are the ones who are looking for a job.
Big schools like University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Texas A&M have already seen increased number of students showing interests in internships, a few of them are freshmen. For those who think freshmen are too early to prepare for a career, please think again. The truth is the competition starts early. The more prepared a student becomes, the more likely s/he will receive good job offers upon graduation.
References:
Evans, T. (2010, September 13). State schools lure more employers: Recruiters like one-stop-shopping for grads with solid academics, job skills, record of success. The Wall Street Journal, p. B1, B8. (http://on.wsj.com/aLwYwE)
Picture (SU Class of 2014) was downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok09152010P
A successful college recruitment program relies on a close partnership between a school and a company. The Wall Street Journal report also suggests companies have increased interest in working with universities on either class projects or internships. The latter has become the key of how companies select job candidates as well as how students may secure a job offer even before they graduate.
During internships, companies will be able to observe students at work and see how well the interns fit in the organization --- as companies want to hire “well-rounded” and the best fit students. Meanwhile, students can “show off” their qualifications and see if they really enjoy working for the company. One fourth recruiters being surveyed admitted that they hired more than 50% of college grads who have completed an internship with them and that 14% respondents hired 75% of those who had been interns with them.
Big schools like University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Texas A&M have already seen increased number of students showing interests in internships, a few of them are freshmen. For those who think freshmen are too early to prepare for a career, please think again. The truth is the competition starts early. The more prepared a student becomes, the more likely s/he will receive good job offers upon graduation.
References:
Evans, T. (2010, September 13). State schools lure more employers: Recruiters like one-stop-shopping for grads with solid academics, job skills, record of success. The Wall Street Journal, p. B1, B8. (http://on.wsj.com/aLwYwE)
Picture (SU Class of 2014) was downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok09152010P
There is a dilemma when it comes to offering jobs/ internships. As recruiters, they only have limited budget or resources to recruit certain number of employees. However, there are countless of college students looking for job experiences. After 3 years of college and approaching my last year, I've been in both shoes - the freshman perspective and the senior perspective. I was eager to get started on my career and wanted to learn as much as I could when I was a freshman. I was upset that career fair recruiters won't even bother to talk to me. Yet now that I look back, I understand why those recruiters won't respond to freshmen, because they are looking for people who have higher skills (such as Juniors and Seniors) as well as people who can be potential full time employees for the company. So this is a dilemma, there will be a continue rise in student's interests in earning job experiences at early stage, while there are only limited opportunities offering to only the ones who have had the experiences and skills.
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