Spotlight Online for Career Services Professionals, December 9, 2009 

Spotlight Online for College Employment and Recruiting Professionals, December 9, 2009 

Many among us will be happy to close the book on 2009, a year rife with fallout from the economic downturn. Bankruptcies, bailouts, mass layoffs, increasing unemployment, and dips in college hiring are some of the things we would prefer to leave behind.  

So as the sun sets on 2009 and we prepare for the dawn of 2010, career services practitioners and human resources professionals alike wonder what the new year will hold in terms of college recruiting and hiring. To gain greater perspective about what might happen, NACE asked several experts for their predictions about what will transpire over the next 12 months with regard to several areas of interest to our members. Following are their responses:  

Ron Alsop, author of The Trophy Kids Grow Up, on Millennials in the workplace:  

I expect the recession and weak job market to be a major wake-up call that will humble Millennials a bit and make them more resilient and realistic. I believe they will modify some of their expectations for unrealistically rapid career advancement and salary increases. They obviously can’t do much job hopping now with jobs in such short supply, and they may be more willing to stay with an employer longer, even after the economy strengthens. I believe that after suffering through this abominable job market, they are likely to appreciate an employer more and spend more time with one company if they see a variety of career-development opportunities down the road. However, I don’t believe the recession will change some of their basic values. They still will want more work-life balance, a diverse workplace, and a socially and environmentally responsible employer that gives them opportunities to make the world a better place.  

Julie Cunningham, founder and president of The Cunningham Group, on college recruiting and hiring:  

One area that comes to mind in the trends, issues, challenges, and outcomes in college recruiting and hiring is assessment. I see increased interest and activity on the part of employers to evaluate all aspects of their recruitment programs. It's based on the issue of needing to streamline and focus when time and budgets are tight, while increasing quality of hire. The challenge will be to find the tools and time to conduct a good assessment, the ability to gather meaningful feedback and data, and then to act on it. The outcome will be positive: Employers who can define, measure, and control their goals and activities will do better branding, better relationship development, and better hiring. I think you could sum this up by saying for many the 2010 mantra will be “More Focus, Better Quality.” 

The other thought I had is that maybe...not much will happen in 2010. Economically, our country is operating under a mantle of uncertainty and many employers may just hold the line on things to see what happens as the year goes on.  

Keith Ferrazzi, relationship development expert, bestselling author, and keynote speaker for the NACE 2010 Annual Conference, on networking and relationship development:  

The obvious trend is that it’s not going to be easier for students to get jobs; it’s going to be more difficult.  

The next obvious thing is that we’re not going to have a glut of organizations rushing to college campuses; we’re going to have a dearth. From the employers’ perspective, why hire a college kid with no experience when there are a load of unemployed kids two or three years out of college with experience who employers can get for the same price?  

Given the increasingly challenging situation, the most important thing I can see is that the students who take upon themselves their own relationship management strategies to find jobs will be the winners over those students simply waiting for jobs to be posted. While this is true in any economy, it’s increasingly important now. And shame on the career center that doesn’t focus most of its time on giving students those skill sets and teaching them “to fish” for themselves. Instead of trying to provide more jobs, they need to unleash their army of individuals who are the students and teach them how to go out and build relationships. 

Shama Kabani, Web 2.0 expert and president of online marketing firm the Marketing Zen Group, on social networking: 

I think the trend is toward integration. Right now, social networking is such a stand alone. “New media” is still, well, new. I think we will see a much more mainstreaming attitude toward it all.

 Ed Koc, director of strategic and Foundation research, NACE, on the near-term future for college hiring: The Class of 2009 faced a very difficult employment market. Overall hiring, based on NACE’s Job Outlook Spring Update, was down about 22 percent from the previous year. The class entered a labor market that had the highest unemployment numbers since the early 1980s when the overall unemployment rate peaked at 10.8 percent. How long will the slide continue? When will it start to turn around? And how soon until we get back to a positive market for college hires? 

Recent numbers suggest that the worst of the slide may be just about over. The unemployment rate for November, as reported by BLS, declined from 10.2 percent to 10.0 percent—the best jobs report since the labor market began its decline in the fall of 2008. The unemployment rate for college graduates has been fairly stable for several months, fluctuating between 4.7 percent and 4.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis. Furthermore, the number of employed college graduates has grown steadily for the past four months.

In addition, the numbers from the new NACE poll of college hiring expectations have shown small but steady improvement during the fall. The percent of firms indicating that they will be increasing their number of college hires has gone from 17 percent in August to 26 percent in October to 28 percent in November. 

During the current slide, the unemployment numbers have trended in a roughly similar fashion to the unemployment rates experienced during the major recession at the beginning of the 1980s. In that period, unemployment peaked in the 14th to 15th month of the decline and began a steady improvement from that point. We are now at about the same point in the current decline. If we use the 1980s as a rough model for the current period, the unemployment rate should decline slowly but steadily through the spring of 2010. A rough guess would be that the current 10 percent level will be 9 percent by May 2010. This will mean an improving picture for college hiring in the spring, but still not the robust market that greeted the graduates from the Class of 2007. 

By fall 2010, we can expect further improvement, but unemployment numbers overall are still likely to be relatively high—7.5 to 8 percent. The prospects for the Class of 2011 will be correspondingly much brighter than the prospects for their predecessors from 2009 and 2010.

Sue Keever, founder and president of the Keever Group, on college recruiting and hiring:  

By now, most companies have planned and budgeted for 2010. Regardless of what optimistic economists may predict, 2010 isn't expected to show much improvement over 2009. My clients are continuing to look for ways to either maintain or reduce their budgets for next year. It is important to note, however, that many companies are looking for new revenue streams (acquisition, new business lines, innovative new markets, and more), which may result in job creation.

As far as the U.S. work force goes, Baby Boomers are delaying retirement and we don't expect to see significant job growth until 2011. Recruiting of college students, however, is slightly different. Yes, companies are reducing the numbers of students they're hiring, but unlike years past, they aren't eliminating their university recruiting programs. Perhaps years of stop-and-start campus recruiting have taken their toll, and companies have learned how damaging this tactic can be. Instead of cutting their university recruiting programs, corporations are maintaining their campus relationships and continuing to recruit students—albeit in lesser numbers. Companies have come to realize that university relations is a long-term commitment and that hiring college graduates is one of the best ways to build their talent pipelines.

Are there more students available now that companies are reducing their hiring numbers? Yes, there are, but it is important to stress to management that the competition for the best talent hasn't changed. In fact, it might be more intense. When companies go on campus with a reduced number of slots, they're even more focused on filling those slots with the "best" students—especially diverse candidates. What will we see in 2011? We'll see companies focusing their energies on K-12 programs, we'll see them use the slowdown to retool their university recruiting programs, and we'll see companies targeting freshmen and sophomores to build long-term relationships with top talent.

If I were to head a university relations function, I would groom one of my recruiters to become a digital relationship manager with targeted students. 2010 is a wonderful year to test Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a multitude of other digital media opportunities to find out how to best to use them to build relationships. My second priority would be to secure management approval to hire a head of employee retention. I have never understood why companies have huge recruiting organizations and not a single person responsible for retention. History shows that the minute the economy improves, employees start looking for new jobs. I would protect my investment.

Amber MacArthur, web consultant, web journalist, co-founder of MGI Media, and keynote speaker for the NACE 2010 Annual Conference, on Web 2.0:  

I would say the major trend for 2010 and beyond is all things mobile. We will finally cut the computer cord! This will include apps, devices, and anything that keeps us moving and connecting. 

Marilyn Mackes, executive director, NACE, on strategic positioning for hiring and retaining college graduates:  

In today’s economic environment, employers must carefully manage the tension between retrenchment and growth, the need to contain costs and still invest in developing the future work force. As we look ahead to 2010 and 2011, we can see this tension at the center of college recruitment programs as employers review their campus relationships, evaluate the effectiveness of their programs, and revamp their strategies for hiring and retaining college graduates. 

Ask any employer what is “front of mind” today and you will hear a range of themes: redefining pipeline programs; measuring and assessing recruitment effectiveness; targeting quality candidates; using social media, mobile technology, and virtual talent hubs for recruiting; combining print, face-to-face, digital, and relationship recruitment strategies; rebranding; and gaining new avenues of access to candidates. As we enter this new decade, every one of these themes will be considered as employers strategically position their organizations for growth and the acquisition of talent to create that growth. How hiring organizations focus their energies and resources in the next 18 months will make all the difference in terms of their successfully ramping up to meet the hiring needs they will face.  

Finally, even with the exciting growth of new technology and media tools for use in recruitment, it is clear that relationships will continue to be core to effective hiring and retention—whether it’s the relationship between the campus career services office and the recruiting employer, the candidate and the interviewer, or eventually…the employee and the employer. People hire and retain people.

Marcos Morales, New England regional director, INROADS, on diversity recruiting and hiring:  

In my observations, those companies that were on the forefront of layoffs and downsizing have flattened out. They are in a position now where they need to get their existing staff fully engaged at the levels they were at before the economy fell. For example, that may mean adding hours that were cut because of lower production. It’s consistent with what we have heard in the news in terms of slow growth. This has some residual effects on diversity. With diversity, it takes on a different dimension where a lot of organizations understand and appreciate the need to maintain the course with their diversity initiatives as it pertains to their affirmative action activities. But I want to make the distinction that affirmative action is just a piece of the entire diversity initiative and goals at most organizations.

 I don’t project that organizations will immediately return to the heavy diversity hiring that happened prior to the economic downturn. However, I am hearing that it still is very much a business imperative going forward. Employers will begin a steady, but slow, increase in diversity hiring. They still have diversity initiatives and needs that feed into this imperative, but they also have general, overall hiring needs they need to address. They will integrate these two approaches to hiring. It’s tricky because at the same time, they must manage their existing talent force.

 Even in the economic downturn, INROADS has observed its corporate sponsors aggressively retaining the students that they had as interns and converting them into full-time employees, which is counter intuitive when you think about the overall hiring trend. That tells me that these organizations, despite all of the strains and pressures and demands that the current business crisis has stirred up, are trying to ensure that their long-term diverse talent needs are not cut off. They recognize that we will get through this economic downturn and they want to be ready with a pipeline of diverse talent for their work force when it does.

Lindsey Pollak, Gen Y career and workplace expert, and LinkedIn campus spokesperson, on social media:  

No one needs a crystal ball to predict that social media will continue to grow in popularity and importance. I predict that 2010 will bring more attention to the professional uses of social media, including in the university and entry-level recruiting space. LinkedIn.com, for which I’m campus spokesperson, made a big push in 2009 to train and communicate with career services professionals; in early 2010 we’ll be rolling out direct-to-student training and engagement programs. Many students are learning for the first time that social networking can help them professionally. This is carrying over into the way they use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social sites. Many of these sites are still primarily social, but I’ve noticed more awareness among students that recruiters are Googling them, which means they need to be smart about what they’re putting on the web. I hope that in 2010 we see more tools that help all professionals better “co-manage” the personal and professional online.

As more students become active on LinkedIn, more entry-level recruiters surely will begin to use this network in their recruiting efforts. We’ll continue to see recruiters paying more attention to social sites. While most companies’ social media efforts so far have been somewhat tentative, in 2010 I believe companies will make more strategic decisions about which social media sites to use and what policies to implement when it comes to connecting with candidates, vetting candidates, and retaining employees. We certainly have a long way to go, but 2009/2010 should go down in the books as the first time social media became a serious part of HR manuals and recruiting guidelines.

Mary Scott, president of the Scott Resource Group, on the ways employers will connect and interact with college students:  

I think it's a safe assumption that we'll see a continued push to leverage technology in student recruitment. This will certainly be driven by the need to reduce costs, but will also be influenced by employers' ongoing search for ways to interact with students “where they are.” Because social networking plays a big role in how those of college age communicate with each other, the conventional wisdom holds that this is the space where recruiters should engage them. This, however, is not an approach that students prefer—and loads of independent research, my own included, supports this finding. With human nature being what it is, I don't anticipate any shift in students' attitudes about employers' use of recruitment technology if the net effect is a reduction in personal interaction. If anything, I'd expect that, with the retrenchment in campus outreach this year, the employers that strengthen their brand will be those that find ways to remain connected with students face-to-face.

Maria Zacharias, public affairs specialist, Office of Legislative and Public Affairs for the National Science Foundation, National Science Foundation (NSF), on STEM education and hiring:  

President Obama has expressed renewable energy as a priority. This is a big area of emphasis for NSF, both with the ongoing research we've been funding and the additional work being funded thanks to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. We are funding studies that look at all aspects of renewable energy—from research on how to best harness the power of the sun and the wind, to developing a SmartGrid, to the kind of societal and economic challenges that present obstacles to adoption of clean energies. This has an impact on the work force going forward—from the faculty and grad students involved in research projects right now to the employees of companies, small businesses, and start-ups who ultimately adopt new technologies and new ways of delivering power to consumers. The energy industry will undergo significant changes in the years ahead that will require talented people in many areas.

We’re also seeing more interdisciplinary research. Our director, Arden Bement, talks about many important discoveries now and in the future coming from what he calls the “white spaces” between disciplines. In other words, it isn’t just biology; maybe it’s bioinformatics. We have a program called the Integrated Graduate Education Research Traineeships in which graduate students supported by NSF work on interdisciplinary projects bring together different fields of science—from computational science and engineering to chemistry and cell biology. There is an educational outreach component to the grad students' work, and most have internships outside the university as well.

I recently saw research that said the numbers of students receiving STEM degrees has been relatively consistent in recent years. But when you look at the top-performing students, more of that group have been going into careers in management and the financial field. With what has happened in the financial sector and the fact that the President speaks so strongly about the importance of science and engineering, I think it’s fair to guess that more of the “best and brightest” will come back to STEM careers because of new opportunities and the interesting and important work to be done.