Monday, May. 06, 1974

Return of the Campus Recruiter

For years, when the weather turned mild and trees sprouted buds, corporate recruiters would flock to the nation's campuses, intent on signing up the best and the brightest of the graduating seniors. But in the past several years the interviewing often has been a polite and fruitless exercise on both sides: many students were not anxious to join companies--especially those making munitions or polluting the environment--and businesses were not eager to hire large numbers of new graduates amid alternating threats of recession and inflation. This spring the atmosphere has once again changed: the recruiters are back in record numbers, they mean business, and they are getting a warm reception.

As of the end of February, reports the nonprofit College Placement Council, job offers to seniors were up 26% over those made to the class of '73. And by last week, when the recruiting season ended at many colleges, more companies had visited more campuses and conducted more interviews than at any time in the past four years. The business interest seems paradoxical since the economy is threatened with that worst of all combinations, an inflationary recession. But many companies are still flush with the profits of boom-year 1973; they are going ahead with expansion plans and looking for new employees.

For students the stigma of working for industry has largely gone. "People realize that business is starting to clean up, to become conscious of its responsibilities," says Senior Ron Wolff of Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. Students once again seem more interested in careers than causes. "When I started college, I wanted to help peopie," says Diane Gordon, a senior at Syracuse University. "Now I want to help myself."

Most likely to help themselves are seniors with engineering degrees; they are receiving 59% of all job offers. Average starting salaries now range from about $11,500 for a civil engineer to $12,900 for a petroleum engineer--the best since the heyday of the space age. The demand is a legacy of the energy crisis, says Mike Donohue, placement director at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "So many manufacturers have been affected by a shortage of oil or oil derivatives that they have to make more efficient use of materials. The problems are technical problems, and it will take engineers to solve them."

There are not that many engineers to hire--enrollment in engineering schools has dropped 20% in the past three years--and companies are competing for the best as fervently as the colleges recruit top athletes. Gary Budd, a senior in industrial engineering at Georgia Tech, was invited to visit seven different companies' plants. He traveled with his wife, wined, dined and lodged lavishly--all at the companies' expense. Says Michigan State University Senior Keith Miller: "Even if you have only a 2-point average in chemical engineering [the equivalent of a C], you are supposed to be able to get a job."

Accounting majors are also riding high this year. Benefiting from industry's and government's growing requirements for more precise information, they are being offered up to $12,348 a year. Starting salaries for students with degrees in the social sciences or humanities are only around $8,000, and jobs are hard to find. The market in education, journalism, publishing and public relations is still glutted.

Hang Up. The most striking change is that 1974 is the year of the woman. Says Russell Cansler, director of placement at Northwestern University: "The demand for women is just about the same as it was for blacks five years ago." Indeed, in the eyes of placement officials, the most sought-after job candidate by far is that rarity, a black coed in engineering. After her, in order, come a white woman, a black man and white man. Says Susan Levy, a senior at Boston University: "If I were a white liberal-arts guy this year, I'd hang it up."

Some companies seem to be astonished to discover that women are capable of doing good work. Gary Shoemaker, an interviewer for H.J. Heinz Co., rhapsodizes about a woman graduate hired last year, who "did what no man has been able to do": she sold a Line of pickles to a customer who had refused to buy for five straight years. The problem is finding coeds to return the business recruiters' new interest in them. "They tend to get into education, social studies--areas of low demand," says Michigan State's John D. Shingleton, a national authority on job placement.

Most female students complain, too, that they still face discrimination. "Women are asked many more questions than men with comparable credentials," says Sandra Grundfest, assistant director of career services at Princeton. Even so, the College Placement Council predicts that businesses will hire 54% more women graduates this year than in 1973. That big an increase would give women 24% of all the jobs to be filled by graduating students this year.

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