Posted on 09/13/2010 5:32:47 AM PDT by reaganaut1
State universities have become the favorite of companies recruiting new hires because their big student populations and focus on teaching practical skills gives the companies more bang for their recruiting buck.
Under pressure to cut costs and streamline their hiring efforts, recruiting managers find it's more efficient to focus on fewer large schools and forge deeper relationships with them, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of top corporate recruiters whose companies last year hired 43,000 new graduates. Big state schools Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were the top three picks among recruiters surveyed.
Recruiters say graduates of top public universities are often among the most prepared and well-rounded academically, and companies have found they fit well into their corporate cultures and over time have the best track record in their firms.
Employers also like schools where they can form partnerships that allow them to work with professors and their students, giving them an inside track when it comes time to make offers for internships and jobs.
...
So where are Harvard University and other exclusive schools? While many companies that answered The Journal's survey say they recruit and hire Ivy League graduates, far fewer ranked them as top picks.
Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economics professor and lead researcher on a study tracking Harvard graduates' career paths, said, "We have none of the basic bread-and-butter courses that serve you well in much of industry." What's more, Ms. Goldin said, at Harvard, more than 55% of graduates went on to a doctorate degree, according to a recent survey, so they tend to stay in a first job for a short period of time—often a year or less. It's an observation recruiters in the Journal's study also made.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
My son just graduated from with an Economics Degree from Rutgers and landed a job in his field in two months.
At schools like Penn State (my alma mater), especially in the technical degrees area, students don’t have a lot of lib arts, (my husband got his undergrad lib arts all done his first year and a half or undergrad) and the core classes give them the skills they will need in industry. Most of his professors came to teach after spending years doing industrial research. They are also schools that for their graduate programs, are doing research work with companies. While completing his PhD, my husband worked on a project for Dupont, which helped him learn the ropes of working in industry.
My husband used to recuit engineers for his former company. Their favorite schools where Michigan State, Ohio State (was in Ohio), Penn State and Purdue. When my husband started, there was one masters level hired from MIT. He reminded every constantly where he studied. He was always angry that he did not make more money his first year out of school, and had a fairly abbrassive personality. He lasted a year, and then went to do a PhD so he could be a professor.
Thanks for your informative reply. I grew up in Pennsylvania.
“Under pressure to cut costs and streamline their hiring efforts, recruiting managers find it’s more efficient to focus on fewer large schools and forge deeper relationships with them…”
This is nothing new. Many, many years ago during college I applied for and worked as a summer intern at a major corporation in Houston. I was a attending a small, private school. I learned of the opportunity via non-school connections, and the other students (from schools like Texas A&M) were recruited at school. I asked the corporate recruiter who handled our administrative matters why they did not recruit at my school. She told me because they could never get enough (or any) graduates from my school to work at the company. The funny thing is that this company was started by two brothers who both graduated from my school.
Well, the corporate recruiter was correct. My school graduated under 700 students a year, and over half went straight to graduate school. As for me…I went to grad school.
As far as the practical skills stuff: well, I would say that some of my classmates were more of the type depicted on the Big Bang Theory tv show, that’s for sure, but most are pretty well adjusted and turned out to be quite successful.
It’s one thing to learn the theories of economics, math, science, etc. and another thing entirely to put them to work in the marketplace.
That might be what he’s referring to. If an undergrad degree is just seen as a foundation for a Ph.D., s/he may not be much of a hire.
My three sons have five engineering degrees between them from Texas A&M, and all were well-recruited, well-employed, well-compensated. Very good mix of core curriculum, high-tech, and hands-on, the emphasis at A&M on a well-rounded grad.
Kids are also expected, from the time they set foot on campus, to participate in what’s called “The Other Education.” Described here under “Aggie Spirit”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditions_of_Texas_A%26M_University
Worked well for my kids, and that’s probably part of what these recruiters are talking about.
The smaller, and sometimes more exclusive, schools offer students a lot of personal attention and support. Once you're in, they work hard to keep you there. The big state schools don't (can't) do the same. You either perform or find somewhere else to play. In my experience, the big school environment better prepares students for the real world.
I have a junior at Penn State in Meteorology. Loves it there and you are right about the lib arts being a minor part of the degree. Also, they tailor the math and science to the subject area by teaching courses within the department. They also have the latest technology having opened a new weather station a year ago. Hard on the pocketbook tho being an out-of-stater.
both my husband and are from PA, and both are happy with our choice of studying at Penn State!
exactly. But remember, PSU is a huge name in Meteorology, and after graduation, just alumni networking will help a lot with career placement. Plus PSU has HUGE career fairs. When he did recruiting, they would always end up hiring a few employees and a lot of interns from them.
My husband had his first job out of PSU because the recruiter was a friend of his advisor. When he went to the advisor for recommendations, his advisor introduced them, and an interview was set up for the next day. He had a job offer within 2 weeks, and that was a few months before he defended.
It’s not just corporations but Government as well.
I worked for a Fed. outfit that had a mixture of blue collar workers, engineers, mathematicians, etc. They had an active recruitment presence at Penn State and about half came from there. They were referred to as the “Penn State Mafia”. We’d sometimes tease them about Happy Valley and tell them to wipe the Nitanny off of their shoes, but they were good-natured to a man.
As the article suggests, they were well grounded and “normal”, not like some from the fancier schools who walked around with their premier sheepskins rhetorically glued to their foreheads.
Here in St. Louis, most of the business people I know would much rather hire a well rounded kid from the University of Missouri, versus an “I’m entitled”, one dimensional, never worked nerd snot from our local “elite” Ivy League school, Washington University.
For some reason, my kid was told to look beyond PSU for a masters program, so Oklahoma, Purdue, Iowa, Florida Tech, and Colorado are high on the list.
you don’t want your graduate degree from the same school you got your undergrad. Purdue is an amazing school! We have lots of friends who went to Purdue.
As someone without anything beyond an associate degree, thanks for the info. Purdue is a good school.
did you see this?
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10257/1087353-298.stm
Penn State was also #1 for graduate preparedness.
My kid was a bit bummed out that, being a meteorology student, couldn’t get into programming classes (C, C++, Fortran) for Computer Science students, and had to take the non-CS versions of the courses. Wanted to double major, but was told by advisor he didn’t know anything about Computer Science and they didn’t offer a double major in meteorology and computer science. I went out to University of Oklahoma website and they specifically offer a double major. This would have been useful for students wanting to go the research route like my kid. My kid is hooked on Penn State, so I dropped it.
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