Tech Hiring on the Rise?
By Theresa Sullivan Barger
Unlike his peers who graduated a year ago, NSBE member Kingsley Iduma left school with a mechanical engineering degree in the midst of a hiring boom for recent college graduates.
Iduma had an offer by spring and began work this summer at Union Pacific Railroad Company’s headquarters in Omaha, Neb. The 2010 Michigan Technological University alumnus applied for 15 jobs, interviewed with two companies and received one offer. But he wasn’t that unusual among his technically trained college friends: Most of his friends with technical majors have job offers; some have multiple offers. Not so for most of his friends with business or liberal arts degrees, who still didn’t have offers in June.
Iduma and others with technical skills are enjoying a surge in demand. But while companies are hiring and demand for tech skills is up, the economy is still so weak that employers can afford to be selective.
Earnings Surge
A National Association of Colleges and Employees (NACE) survey released this spring shows that accounting, business administration, computer science, engineering and mathematics majors were more likely to receive and accept job offers than were graduates from other fields. Overall, the survey found that 24.4 percent of graduates who had applied for a job had one waiting for them after graduation, an improvement over May 2009, when just 19.7 percent could make that claim. The survey polled more than 13,000 graduating seniors at more than 400 colleges and universities across the country.
In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that surging earnings in the technology sector were driving waves of hiring. Big-name companies such as Google, Inc., Intel Corporation, General Electric Company, The Boeing Company, IBM Corporation and Cisco Systems, Inc. are in the midst of hiring thousands of employees. The Journal noted that tech-jobs website Dice.com lists more than 62,000 positions nationwide, a nearly 22 percent jump from the 51,000 listed a year earlier.
In February, Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced an initiative to support investment in U.S.-based, growth-oriented industries and pledged to increase jobs available this year to recent college graduates. Intel Capital — Intel Corporation’s global investment organization — and 24 venture capital firms pledged to invest $3.5 billion in U.S.-based technology companies over the next two years. These investments include a $200-million Intel Capital Invest in America Technology Fund and will target key innovation and growth segments such as clean technology, information technology and biotechnology.
The Invest in America Alliance also includes commitments from 17 technology and corporate leaders to increase hiring of college graduates. Along with Intel they include Accenture, Adobe Systems, Autodesk, Broadcom Corporation, CDW, Cisco, Dell, eBay, EMC Corporation, GE, Google, Hewlett-Packard Company, Liberty Mutual Group, Marvell Technology Group, Ltd., Microsoft Corporation and Yahoo!
Employers’ Market
But employers say they’re not having difficulty finding good candidates at every level.
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