OCR still continues to drop

In three years of participating in on-campus recruiting, College and Wharton senior Ravi Naresh is three for three - summer internships after his sophomore and junior years and a full-time job for after graduation.

But Naresh is just one of approximately 1,800 students that go through the on-campus recruiting process each year, and the picture isn't quite as rosy for everyone else.

Career Services director Patricia Rose said on-campus recruiting fell about 13 percent from fall 2007 to fall 2008, and although numbers aren't yet available for the spring, on-campus recruiting "will clearly be off for the year at least 15 percent and perhaps more," she said.

Rose was quick to point out that the numbers referred to the number of interviews resulting from recruiting.

"We still have a lot of interviews," she said. "The important question is, how many offers will result from those interviews?"

The answer, she said, will certainly be "fewer." Some employers who recruit on campus have contacted Career Services, saying they had informed interviewed students that they wouldn't be making job offers, Rose said, and other recruiters said they were making fewer offers than the year before.

The three hardest-hit recruitment areas were investment banking, consulting and retail, she said.

On-campus recruiting typically attracts larger companies that are able to identify their hiring needs well in advance, while smaller companies will post jobs with Career Services or attend one of Career Services' career days to respond to their day-to-day needs, she explained. The most recent Career Day, held on Feb. 20, featured 58 employers.

"We have lots of ways in which we work with students and work with employers," Rose said. "On-campus recruiting is just one of those, and it serves a pretty narrow set of employers in this economy."

Certain smaller companies are actually expanding their job postings this year, Rose said - which firms are hiring "depends on the industry." She pointed to alternative energy, start-ups and consulting firms that deal with bankruptcy or restructuring as examples.

Also doing relatively well are accounting firms and health care providers, she said. "They may not be experiencing double-digit growth, but they are still hiring, she added. "And in this economy, that's good."

In addition to such small companies, Rose said many students were considering two-year service programs like AmeriCorps, as well as government jobs. Every fall, Career Services hosts a federal government career day, and this year's was "very well attended," she said.

One organization that recruits on campus that has actually expanded its hiring goals is Teach For America, Rose said. Their recruitment efforts include signs all over campus, presentations, interviews and more.

"They do a fabulous job," Rose added.

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