NACE surveyed early career professionals about their experiences and attitudes; in this article, we examine the effects of gender on the experiences of early career talent.

The North Dakota State University Career and Advising Center team has found that its Employer Town Halls held via Zoom are a great way to disseminate information in a different format than just an email.

Hybrid and in-person remain the preferred work modalities of employers for both their overall and entry-level positions, which matches the ways students prefer to work, NACE research has found.

Although overall hiring projections are up just 0.6% from last year, nearly 90% of employers anticipate increasing or maintaining hiring for the college Class of 2025, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update.

In-person activities are the most widely used and effective means for recruiting interns, according to results of NACE’s 2025 Internship & Co-op survey.

NACE surveyed early career talent—those who graduated in 2021, 2022, and 2023—to determine if (and how) experiential learning impacted their careers once they had graduated and landed in their first job. The results showed that those who took part in experiential learning while in college had higher rates of career satisfaction and a higher average salary than those who did not engage in experiential learning.

The Career and Life Design process that Hassan Akmal created is evolving. Today, AI makes this pursuit more tangible than ever, acting as an unprecedented sounding board for self-exploration.

Moving to skills-based hiring opens opportunity for a broader demographic of students to access positions where they otherwise would not meet the qualifications. Many employers include skills development in their internship programs to enhance their interns’ career readiness and bolster conversion.

More than 70% of organizations expect to increase or maintain intern hiring, according to NACE’s 2025 Internship & Co-op Report. However, overall intern hiring is expected to fall 3.1%.

The average hourly wage for bachelor’s degree level interns has increased each year over the past 10 years and now stands at $23.04, according to NACE’s 2025 Guide to Compensation for Interns & Co-ops.

Career center budgets for the 2024-25 academic year have increased across the board since 2022-23, according to results of NACE’s 2024-25 Career Services Benchmarks survey.

To persist toward successful conversion of interns, organizations must not view engagement as a 10-week summer pursuit. Instead, engagement must gain momentum through recruiting and pre-internship, accelerate during the internship itself, and be maintained after interns return to campus.

The University of North Florida (UNF) has historically offered innovative programs, services, resources, and events to ensure students are successful and career ready by the time they graduate. This approach led leadership to embark on a new path at the intersection of UNF’s core functions and NACE’s career readiness competencies.

Understanding the experiences, preferences, and goals of the early career Gen Z professional will help employers craft meaningful experiences that will ultimately enhance productivity and retention, while career centers will be able to better guide their students.

Attendance numbers reflect the preferences employers and students have for the format of career fairs, results of NACE’s 2024-25 Career Services Benchmarks survey reveal.

The College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington recently launched its Pillars Undergraduate Experience, a framework designed to prepare students for academic achievement and lifelong career success.

More than 200 senior career services leaders took part in a March 5 virtual meet up hosted by NACE to discuss effects of the Trump administration’s recent executive orders and “Dear Colleague” letter on the profession.

Among the main reasons why career center staff are not using AI with students are concerns about the technology collecting students’ personal data.

The goal for employers should be to keep autistic employees from “hire to retire,” which is the ability to sustain these employees by providing them with the support they need to build their career in an organization.

Class of 2025 engineering and business graduates at the master’s degree level are expected to see salaries climb 12.5% and 3.1%, respectively, according to results of NACE’s Winter 2025 Salary Survey.

Relocation assistance may be the secret sauce to attracting top-notch interns.

By measuring employment brand strength, companies can identify areas to improve their employer brand, pinpoint strengths to leverage, and assess the effectiveness of their recruitment strategies, ultimately aiming to attract the best candidates and reduce hiring costs.

Networking is a valuable tool for students that offers both career exploration and access to opportunities, particularly in a competitive job market. To get the most out of its networking events, USC Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections has taken them through several iterations to reach their current format.

There are two primary reasons that career centers might lack confidence in using AI in their work: speed and ethics.

Overall, starting salary projections for the Class of 2025 are something of a mixed bag as projected movement in salaries ranges from a gain of 2.8% for agriculture and natural resources to a decrease of 3.6% for the social sciences.

The Trump administration has issued several executive orders and taken other actions that impact the work of career services and early talent recruiting professionals.

When recruiting and hiring students with autism, it’s important for employers to train hiring managers so they understand how the hiring process might look different and adjust their criteria on how they evaluate candidates.

Over the past five years—and maybe because they weathered the pandemic and got a giant taste of how quickly things can change—new grads’ wish list has largely reflected one thing: their desire for security.

When students responding to NACE’s 2024 Student Survey were asked to identify the obstacles preventing them from participating in internships, their responses revealed they attributed their decision to a lack of time, concerns over pay, and scant opportunities.

The most prominent elements of a successful partnership between an HBCU and an employer are gaining understanding of challenges, demands, and goals and changing behaviors.

There are several factors linked to the decision to convert for Class of 2024 graduating seniors, according to results of NACE’s 2024 Student Survey.

There is a clear and persistent disconnect between how students and employers perceive students’ development of the competencies they need to be career ready as they enter the workforce.

Aurora University’s career services office uses ChatGPT as a tool to help its students prepare for job interviews and teach them ethical ways to use generative AI.

Hyster-Yale Materials Handling is developing a pre-onboarding program to engage and build excitement among its interns prior to their start date next summer.

College students from the Class of 2025 looking to enter the job market should highlight on their resumes the attributes and skills they developed in their classwork and through their various experiential assignments. But which attributes and skills are most important to employers?

To produce career-ready graduates, the Lehman College School of Business intentionally equips its students with competencies through the promotion of applied learning in its three programs.

Close to two-thirds of employers responding to the Job Outlook 2025 survey reported that they use skills-based hiring practices for new entry-level hires, and more than half use these practices always or most of the time in their hiring process.

Hiring for the college Class of 2025 is expected to increase 7.3% over hiring for the Class of 2024, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2025 survey.

Disney provides resources to the College Fund to administer the latter’s scholarship program, called the Future Native Storytellers Program. Recently, a smaller group of program scholars was selected to receive additional enhancements to increase the awareness of opportunities at Disney for Native students.

This past summer, Arup expanded its career readiness programming for summer interns by working with its internal learning and development team to implement a series of competency-focused workshops.

Nearly 85% of Class of 2023 bachelor’s degree graduates and nearly 90% of master’s degree graduates were employed or engaged in further education within six months of graduation.

While some of the experiences of nontraditional-aged students mirror those of their traditional-aged peers, there are important areas where they diverge. This information can help career service professionals and recruiters better serve this growing group of college students.

Matt Purdy of Murray State advises career services professionals to think about the resources they are trying to obtain and find data that not only align with what they are asking for, but to connect them to the priorities of their administration or institution.

Graduating students weighing job offers heavily consider the cost of living in each job’s location when making their decision, according to NACE’s 2024 Student Survey report.

Forté, winner of the 2024 NACE Business Affiliate Award for Excellence in Leadership, focuses its work on systematically addressing the barriers that prevent women from pursuing MBA degrees and business leadership positions.

Career fairs are relatively effective means for students to convert connections into jobs, according to NACE’s 2024 Student Survey report.

Liberty Mutual has found that one of the most effective ways to maintain or strengthen connections with prior interns when they are on campus is to meet them where they are, such by hosting meetups, dinners, or coffee chats on or near campus.

The percent of graduating seniors who participated in an internship is the highest that NACE has recorded in the past six years, according to results of NACE’s 2024 Student Survey.

When done right, execution—meeting or exceeding students’ expectations throughout their candidate experience—helps drive success in early talent recruiting.

The Georgia Tech Career Center, large-college winner of the 2024 NACE Career Services Excellence Award, hired eight new staff members across various functional areas within the office in a process that aligned with the institute’s DEI Blueprint to, in part, closely reflect the demographics of Atlanta.

Because faculty are frequently asked by their current and former students for career advice, there is an opportunity to increase awareness among faculty of the resources available to them.

Salaries for college graduates overall continue to climb as, for the second straight year, the increase in average salary for a graduating class has surpassed 7%.

There are interesting data points from NACE’s 2024 Recruiting Compensation Report in terms of budgets, internship offers, and retention that provide insight into the operations and approaches of URR functions.

Fear of AI has turned into curiosity, says Jeremy Schifeling, who reports seeing more and more career leaders getting excited about leveraging these tools for both their students’ and their own success.

Recruiters are taking more time to extend an offer to a candidate following an interview, but the deadline for acceptance remains close to two weeks.

The political and social unrest seen on college campuses last spring and that may potentially reignite this fall has little impact on college recruiting, according to results of a recent NACE quick poll.

Attendees of the USC Leventhal School of Accounting’s inaugural “Accounting Without Walls” Festival left with actionable plans to implement DEI strategies in their organizations, a deeper understanding of the current DEI landscape in accounting, and more.

The University of Illinois Chicago, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Career Development Office, winner of the 2024 NACE Career Readiness Excellence Award, designed an innovative eight-week, one-credit career strengths-based course for its students.

Global Atlantic Financial Group, the small employer winner of the 2024 NACE Recruiting Excellence Award, addressed a pressing need for increased diversity and innovation and a robust talent pipeline.

Lifted by average increases that ranged between 3.5% and 4.4%, salaries for all recruiting professionals increased in 2023, while the majority of respondents at all levels received bonuses.

The college winner of the 2024 NACE Technology Excellence Award, University of California, Berkeley Career Engagement used Google Workspace products to create a data-visualization dashboard to tell its story in a low-cost, efficient manner.

The employer winner of the 2024 NACE Technology Excellence Award, Freese and Nichols implemented talent acquisition platform Yello and modified its roles and processes related to its on-campus career fair strategy to significantly increase its university hiring.

The conversion rate for interns fell, fueled by a lower offer rate. The lower rate could reflect lower-than-expected hiring needs or could signal an issue with the intern selection process.

Nearly 90% of the college Class of 2024 indicated that their institution prepared them for the next step in their career, according to results of NACE’s 2024 Student Survey.

The small college winner of the 2024 NACE Award for Career Services Excellence, Providence College’s Chirico Career Center has created and honed an engaging program designed to help students as they consider their majors and explore potential careers.

Although allyship with the LGBTQ+ community different for everyone, one thing is clear: It requires action.

The college Class of 2024 is looking for economic security in a job, according to results of NACE’s annual student survey.

Northwestern Mutual shifting the focus of its internship program to development of career readiness competencies seemed like a natural progression since the company was already focusing on themes similar to those identified by NACE’s competencies.

The NACE Career Readiness Competencies can be a valuable tool to help faculty members demonstrate to administrators, students, and parents that what they do creates long-term value for students.

While nearly 20% of employers that responded to NACE’s Job Outlook 2024 Spring Update survey have had discussions about removing the college degree as a key requirement for entry-level positions, nearly 80% of respondents expect that there will be no change in the next two years.

Despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling overturning affirmative action, the decision appears to be having little to no impact on employers’ DEI recruiting priorities.

Winner of NACE’s 2024 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Excellence Award for colleges, the Georgia Tech Career Center’s Georgia Tech’s AuthenTECH Partnership initiative leverages staff to provide population-specific resources, expand programming, and cultivate partnerships to advance equitable career outcomes.

Landmark College, an institution exclusively for students who learn differently including those on the autism spectrum, champions a strengths-based model and gives students the skills and strategies they need to achieve their goals.

Winner of the 2024 Chevron Innovation Award, the Gregory S. Fehribach Center at Eskenazi Health empowers Indiana college students with physical disabilities to achieve equitable employment following graduation.

Faculty are a key source of career advice for students—with more than nine of out 10 saying students asked them for guidance in the past year, according to a new study conducted by NACE in collaboration with the American Association of Colleges & Universities and the Society for Experiential Education.

Hiring for internships is expected to remain stable this year, according to NACE’s 2024 Internship and Co-op Report. Overall, eight out of 10 employers taking part in NACE’s annual benchmark report expect to maintain (47.2%) or increase (32.2%) the number of interns they bring in for 2023-24 compared to the 2022-23 academic year.

Nearly 83% of employers responding to NACE’s Job Outlook 2024 Spring Update survey anticipate increasing or maintaining hiring for the Class of 2024. This leaves just 17.4% of respondents planning to decrease hires, but their planned cuts mean overall hiring projections are down 5.8% from last year.

Because Liberty Mutual Insurance hires hundreds of interns a year, it equips interns with a wide range of skills and has the skill profile of an intern closely align with its early career roles to prepare interns for potential future full-time roles.

Belonging at work—feeling that one is valued, accepted, and supported—helps to ensure a healthy, productive, and positive work environment. NACE surveyed its membership to better understand their experiences with belonging in the profession.

For Spring Hill College, the work to attain a high knowledge rate on its first-destination survey begins in the fall.

Cayuga Community College’s career services office launched its microcredentialing program in 2018. Since then, it has been building microcredentials in the non-credit and credit side of the institution, including developing its microcredential program and updating it to an online learning platform.

Recent data reveal that systemic barriers continue to limit progress on achieving pay equity for all—yet there are tangible, proven ways that career centers and employers can make an impact.

Visa’s internship program is designed to build full-time conversion and provide an exceptional experience for incoming talent. Phill Haig, Visa’s director of early career programs, says Visa’s target conversion rate has been 70%.

Despite achieving a knowledge rate of 90.6% on its most recent first-destination survey, the Roanoke College career center is tweaking the survey’s process to improve it.

Recruiters who foster a sense of belonging among potential hires have a positive impact on the candidate’s view of the organization.

Centre College’s three-year average knowledge rate for its first-destination survey (FDS) stands at an impressive 98%. This is especially notable given that the survey wasn’t required for students until 2023.

Consultant Katie Donovan offers tips for employers to eliminate the main causes of pay inequity for women, including that women are underpaid doing the same jobs as men and are underrepresented in leadership roles.

Hourly wages for interns have kept pace with inflation, signaling the value of these programs to employers.

Interns who feel committed to the organization because they were well treated are 7.14 times more likely to accept an offer of full-time employment.

When it comes to the attributes of a job and an organization and the benefits the organization offers, there are some differences in student preferences by race and gender.

The University of Dallas career development office listened to student feedback to pivot from texting students career-related information to sending messages via email. The results have been impressive.

Women remain underrepresented in computer science majors and careers. Two researchers conducted a study to see how women in computing experience and make sense of their internships, and how their internship experiences shape their future career plans.

The University of Western Florida CDCE recently launched its AI Career Toolkit to address AI use, challenges, and possibilities by students exploring careers and the career coaches supporting them.

Employers were slower in making offers to their candidates for their full-time positions than they were prior to the pandemic, although students who accepted the offers were quicker to do so.

Despite calls to “return to the office” from employers and the prevailing media narrative, the hybrid work modality appears here to stay.

Visa has found that hiring diverse talent is easier to accomplish the earlier it can engage students and it helps create a network of brand evangelists who are able to advocate for Visa on campus.

There is good news for the Class of 2024: Salary projections for all reported groups of majors are higher than the projections reported for the Class of 2023

NACE’s Job Outlook 2024 survey found that among employers that capture their new hires’ degree modality, 87.4% hired new college graduates with an online degree.

As HBCUs are a key source of high-quality, diverse talent for employers, there are benefits for both institutions and organizations in developing successful partnerships.

The latest federal updates will keep NACE members informed on how career services and recruiting are impacted by federal action, what developments can be expected, and opportunities available for them to weigh in.

Although new college graduates looking to enter the workforce and employers hiring these graduates agree on which competencies are most important for job candidates to hone, their perception of student proficiency in them differs.

Career services practitioners can help college students attract the attention of employers via their resume by encouraging them to highlight the skills they developed through their education and experiences.

The Yale Office of Career Strategy enlisted the help of key partners to create an assessment tool that incorporates design-thinking principles and is available to everyone, not just Yale students and alums.

The career services office at Colorado Boulder launched an Artificial Intelligence Working Group to collect information on developments, discuss campus applications of AI, and more.

Caregiving students are more likely to tap into the help the career center can offer than their non-caregiving counterparts, but may be stymied by scheduling conflicts that arise with in-person offerings.

After two relatively down years connected with the COVID-19 pandemic, the outcomes rate for Class of 2022 bachelor’s degree graduates returned to pre-pandemic levels.

UCSD’s Rady School Career Management Center is addressing and creating resources around AI to guide students in its effective, safest, and ethical use during the college recruiting process.

A joint research project by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and Break Through Tech uncovered the positive impact career services has on outcomes for women in general and for women pursuing tech careers in particular. The research is detailed in “The Impact of Career Services on Women Pursuing Tech Careers,” which is free to the public.

To foster a truly diverse and inclusive workplace, employers should expand their DEI efforts to encompass what is increasingly being referred to as DEIA—or diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Slightly more than 43% of employers plan to increase starting salaries to Class of 2024 bachelor’s degree graduates, and nearly all remaining employers anticipate keeping salaries at last year’s levels.

New college graduates embrace the value of higher education, with 91% reporting that, if they had a chance to do it again, they would opt to pursue a college education.

The small dip in college hiring revealed by NACE’s Job Outlook 2024 survey is down from the last two years, when the college job market experienced brisk growth that, in 2022, reached record levels.

As October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, several organization offer resources about disability inclusion for employers and career services offices to use now and throughout the year.

Employers confirmed their belief in the value of higher education and higher education institutions in NACE’s latest benchmark survey.

To make McPherson College students aware of the skills they are developing during their campus jobs, Amy Beckman incorporated career readiness competencies into student job descriptions and supervision.

Mary Scott compared data from 2016 to that from 2022 to gauge students’ assessment that an employer “made it seem as though they were interested in me.” What she found was astonishing.

The University of California, San Diego Career Center developed the Triton Career Readiness Passport to help students launch a personal career journey by answering a simple question: Why?

Getting faculty buy in, having liaisons in different departments, and having the faculty be program champions was the key to the success of Georgia State’s “College to Career” career readiness initiative.

What is the value of earning an advanced degree? In terms of salary, some Class of 2022 majors benefited significantly by earning a master’s degree.

The Williams Companies evaluates talent for internships based on the NACE Career Readiness Competencies, focusing on the competencies where it has seen gaps in its intern class.

In 2022, Cappfinity partnered with EY’s UK student recruitment team to deliver an immersive, inclusive, and differentiated approach to early careers recruiting, creating VR for intern attraction and development.

The overall average starting salary for Class of 2022 graduates who earned bachelor’s degree is up 7.4%, climbing to $60,028 from $55,911 for the Class of 2021.

Career centers looking to increase FDS response rates might want to focus on communicating regularly with students, providing participation incentives, and ensuring the process is convenient for students.

Last year, Progressive Insurance achieved an intern conversion rate of 91%, far exceeding the overall conversion rate of 57.6% for 2021-22.

Not only does PathwayU offer student assessments, but it also provides guidance based on predictive knowledge that accounts for the user’s sense of purpose and meaning.

While moving to a virtual world and with little experience using virtual tools, William & Mary career center staff connected students and alumni by creating the Professional Development Academy.

Early data from a forthcoming NACE study indicate that the gender pay gap has widened over the past year, with female graduates now earning just 72 cents to every dollar earned by male graduates, down from around 81 cents.

CSU Fullerton’s “I Am First” program teaches first-generation students how to create social capital through a curriculum that empowers students to cultivate agency in their career search.

The Villanova University Disability Inclusion in the Workplace Conference is a half-day program designed primarily with hiring employers in mind to help them build disability inclusion into internship and entry-level hire experiences.

Data provided by more than 2,300 bachelor’s degree-level graduating seniors who took part in NACE’s 2023 Student Survey demonstrate that systemic inequities continue to exist in internships—not only in terms of who takes part, but also in terms of who gets paid.

Many URR and career services functions are using artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline their processes and enhance their operations. However, there are potential legal risks adopters should consider as they move from dipping their toes into the AI pool to fully diving in.

Dominican University, a Hispanic-serving institution with 64% of students identifying as Latinx and located just outside of Chicago, launched its successful career development program in its Brennan School of Business in fall 2017.

As we head into the warm days of the summer, the Class of 2023 is getting ready to make their mark on their first career destinations. They are starting careers in a world that is trying to emerge from a global pandemic but one that continues to grapple with social justice and equity.

In 2021, Hope College’s Boerigter Center for Calling and Career partnered with several computer science majors to develop a custom, interactive application for the college’s students and visitors to see a visual representation of the locations of Hope alumni around the world and their jobs. It also shows current job and internship openings in a given city.

CUNY SPS recognized that certain curricula could better communicate to students how their courses address career competencies and the significance of the competencies in achieving career success.

Some of the rewarding aspects of being a URR professional include changing people’s lives and providing a seat at the table for many who may not have been historically represented.

BYU works to help students understand that they have these transferable skills and competencies that can be used in a variety of ways in a variety of situations.

Mohawk Industries believes it has a responsibility to do what it can to support the transition of students to the workplace, which is just one of the reasons its ASPIRE program is so important.

Projections in the Job Outlook 2023 Spring Update show that employers are planning to hire 3.9% more graduates from the Class of 2023 than they did from the Class of 2022.

In a unique interview with ChatGPT, NACE asks the AI language model how it feels about its use as a tool in the job search, career readiness, and talent acquisition; the ethics of its use; and more.

What are some key considerations and steps for employers to take to create long-lasting, mutually beneficial partnerships with HBCUs and PBIs?

To prepare students for their transition to the workforce, career centers have to account for the standards of professionalism shifting over the past several years.

This gain underscores the value employers place on their internship programs and their commitment to them.

Members of the NACE Community recently offered some suggestions to their colleagues for books to add to their summer reading lists.

The large-employer winner of the 2023 NACE Award for Recruiting Excellence, DISH’s “Recruit Once, Hire Twice” college recruiting process brings in top interns and works to convert them into full-time hires.

Signed into law in 1963, the Equal Pay Act prohibits pay discrimination based on sex. However, 60 years since the passage of the law, women continue to experience a pay gap, relative to men.

Among the key information recruiters need to know to successfully navigate their careers is to stay informed and value relationships.

Slightly more than 85% of employers reported having formal diversity recruiting goals, according to NACE’s 2022 Recruiting Benchmarks Report, but how effective are these efforts?

Research conducted by NACE and The Center for the Study of HBCUs underscores how important it is for companies to conduct audits to assess gaps and inequities in their recruiting efforts.

What is the advantage of obtaining a master’s degree? In terms of average starting salary, that advantage has been declining in recent years.

A new $1 million gift supporting career development at William & Mary will triple the number of students annually who can receive university funding for unpaid and underpaid internships.

All reported categories of majors at the master’s degree level show projected increases for the Class of 2023.

The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) is a public Research 1 university with 52,000 students and 18 colleges and schools, including medical and law schools. Like many large universities, UT Austin has a highly distributed model of 15 career centers within schools, and each area operates independently.

The 2022 midterm elections brought many surprises. While we still don’t know all the winners and losers, we do know who the key decision-makers will be and what we expect their priorities to be related to higher education and the workforce.

The amount of time for students participating in a job interview to receiving an offer has increased over the past several years, but the time they take to accept the offer dropped in 2022.

Chelsea C. Williams, founder and CEO of Reimagine Talent Co., defines “belonging” as a feeling that people have when they are seen, valued, protected, and respected. “While, ultimately, individuals determine and define their sense of belonging, I do believe there are steps we can take to build for belonging,” Williams adds.

During the pandemic in 2020, LaGuardia Community College—a public community college that is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system—inaugurated a new president, who is an advocate for workforce development as well as for internships. In addition, the chancellor for CUNY established career services as one of his priorities.

Career services practitioners can help college students attract the attention of employers via their resume by encouraging them to highlight the skills they developed—such as problem-solving and teamwork skills—through their various experiences, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2023 report.

When employers consider skills and practice skills-based hiring and skills-based networking, they bring in a more diverse slate of candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, says Asha Aravindakshan.

A grant from the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) helped to move career services to a position of more prominence at Tougaloo College and embed career readiness in the school’s curriculum.

The unusual and uncertain times experienced by the college Class of 2021 in its final year was reflected in its outcomes, which improved from last year, but remained down from pre-pandemic levels, according to NACE’s First Destinations for the College Class of 2021 report.

Through its Experiential Learning Platform™, Saxbys builds individualized academic partnerships to open cafes that provide exceptional paid experiential learning opportunities for students.

Employers plan to hire 14.7% more new college graduates from the Class of 2023 than they did from the Class of 2022, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2023 report.

Career services at Michigan State University (MSU) is a centralized/hybrid organization of offices and is well-known for its Career Services Network, which is composed of career services professionals strategically located in central and college-based offices.

Job security tops the list of attributes new college graduates say are important in a job. The ability to develop job-specific and soft skills, friendly coworkers, and a good benefits package round out the top five, with the top four all coming within two percentage points of each other according to results of NACE’s 2022 Student Survey.

The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Engineering Job & Internship Fair Tours were created to engage more first- and second-year students in job fairs and to reduce barriers to attendance.

Employers are strongly committed to in-person college recruiting activities this fall as they are largely unencumbered by travel restrictions that organizations imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to results of NACE’s Quick Poll on Fall Recruiting and Career Services.

Diversity and inclusion have traditionally been about race and about sex, but we are all so much more than just what is visible, explains author, speaker, and social impact adviser Michele Sullivan.

William & Mary (W&M) has recently undergone a shift that has elevated career services, alumni engagement, internships, and applied learning at the highly selective, Research 2, public, residential research university.

There are key steps that employers and colleges can take to ensure that their culture is inclusive, such as providing training, planning intentionally, and holding employees accountable, says MarTeze Hammonds, Ed.D.

A University at Buffalo program uses project-based internships with local nonprofits to promote collaboration, interdisciplinary exchange, and the value of social innovation among graduate students.

College graduates in their early professional careers report significant mental health issues and view their jobs as a contributing factor. How can employers and colleges provide support?

Based on their forward-looking staffing plans for the upcoming year, it appears employers are expecting similar or higher levels of recruiting activity this year, according to preliminary results of NACE’s Summer 2022 Quick Poll on Fall Recruiting and Career Services.

The University of Redlands’ Career Faculty Fellows Program was launched in 2019 to help the institution scale career services and embed career preparedness more intentionally into the curriculum.

The percent of interviews resulting in a job offer has climbed to its highest level of the past five years, but acceptances and retention rates for the first three years of employment fell.

Beyond ensuring diversity in the composition of their intern cohort, employers’ ability to convert their interns into full-time hires is a critical component to diversifying their workforce.

When it comes to the development of college students’ career readiness, industry should be complementary to and support career services professionals and faculty, explain Liz Moran and Lynn Letukas of SAS.

Liberty Mutual takes a very targeted approach to the sources of talent they try to attract, engage, and hire. This extends far beyond a traditional target school list.

Skill development and early engagement are key priorities of New York University’s (NYU’s) Wasserman Center for Career Development. It addressed both of these priorities by developing a program that embedded career readiness competencies in a course for first-year students.

There has been a shift in the requirements of the labor market. Twenty-first century careers demand executive-functioning mindsets and tactical and relational skills, says Allison McWilliams, Ph.D.

In terms of their career interests and goals, members of Generation Z have an increased appetite for and awareness of entrepreneurship.

NACE Brief: Understanding the Experiences and Attitudes of LGBTQ+ Students is free to NACE members. There are important—and troublesome—differences in pay, sense of belonging, and job offers that LGBTQ+ students experience during internships that impact their experience in the job search and employment, according to NACE’s newly released brief titled Understanding the Experiences and Attitudes of LGBTQ+ Students.

NACE provided a range of articles and resources around DEI-related topics throughout FY22.

After witnessing the impact that the pandemic had on early undergraduate students from underrepresented groups in the tech industry, IBM scaled up its early talent ID program.

Personal experience is a factor for how Gen Z high school and college students determine the industries they want to work in and the organizations they prefer to work for, according to results of the 2022 Career Interest Survey conducted by the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS).

Several years ago, Vanguard did away with giving out swag at career fairs. Instead, as part of the sign-in process at its table, Vanguard allows students the option to choose between three charitable organizations for the company to make a donation to on the student’s behalf.

Employers overwhelmingly believe hosting internships is the recruiting strategy that yields the highest return on investment leading to entry-level hires.

Protiviti has long felt that setting up its interns for success from the moment they first power on their laptop during the summer session is integral. When Protiviti switched to a virtual onboarding model for its interns in 2020, it realized there was more that could be accomplished in the virtual setting with intentional planning.

The overall average salary for Class of 2021 graduates is $55,911, which is only 1.2% higher than that for the Class of 2020 ($55,260). The fact that the increase in starting salary is small may simply be a case of timing as the Class of 2021 was still experiencing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the job market.

The University at Buffalo’s Career Design Center has put an emphasis on maximizing available technology tools that can improve operations and better meet the needs of students and employers.

There were gender and race disparities within the compositions of the 2020-21 intern cohort as the majority of students who take part in internships are men and identify as white, according to results of NACE’s 2022 Internship & Co-op Survey.

Launched in 2018 with a flagship two-day immersive conference, Workday’s “Future Females in Tech Engagement Program” helps women to build career confidence and make the connections they need to get started in the tech industry.

The UC Berkeley Career Center’s annual transfer student career summit is a five-hour virtual event that was created to help connect transfer students, who are often overwhelmed when navigating career opportunities, and employers that are not aware of the value transfer students can bring to organizations.

More than 80% of schools conducted first-destination surveys in 2021-22, according to NACE’s 2021-22 Career Services Benchmarks Survey Report.

The average number of full-time URR staff members that organizations employ decreased to 13.5 from 14.3 last year.

The average hourly wage for 2020-21 bachelor’s level interns and co-ops was identical at $20.82, according to results of NACE’s 2022 Internship & Co-op Survey Report.

The M&T Bank talent acquisition unit’s partnerships with employee resource groups (ERGs) has yielded a range of benefits, such as helping to identify internal talent, providing training opportunities, improving engagement across the organization, and boosting retention.

On average, there were 8.5 full-time recruiters per recruiting department within organizations replying to NACE’s 2021 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey.

University of Idaho Career Services created the “Career Services Internship Certificate Program” approximately five years ago to give undergraduate interns the knowledge, skills, and abilities to transition to the professional workforce.

The percentage of employers that use GPA screening as a method of choosing job candidates continues to fall as it has dipped nearly 3% since the fall, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2022 Spring Update.

In recent years, the overall knowledge rate of Davidson College’s first-destination survey (FDS) has been near or above 90%. Davidson has found several steps—such as getting an early start, using texts, and providing tailored information—to be helpful in attaining and maintaining a high FDS knowledge rate.

Regardless of how employers ran their programs in summer 2021, the hybrid model is their favored modality for their 2021-22 internships, according to NACE’s 2022 Internship & Co-op Survey Report.

Employers expect to boost their intern hiring by 22.6% for the 2021-22 academic year, while their hiring of co-ops is up 1.1% this year, according to results of NACE’s 2022 Internship & Co-op Survey Report.

The top-paid categories for Class of 2021 master’s degree graduates were computer sciences and engineering, according to results of NACE’s Summer 2022 Salary Survey, which is the final salary report for the Class of 2021. (See Figure 1.)

“Speed interviewing gives students strong, real-world practice on their interviewing skills in a low-pressure environment,” says Susan Proctor, who is the employer development manager in the career center.

While looking to use gamification to create a fun and interactive career development program for her students, Merry Olson hit on an idea that has created much interest among career services practitioners.

Intern conversion is a business imperative at all times, but especially in the current job market, when many organizations respond to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic by shrinking programs and budgets.

The Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University recently published a new practitioner packet that provides guidance to colleges seeking to redesign their new student onboarding practices.

Career fairs are part of the lifeblood of career services programs—and important events for students and potential employers. Many career centers are thinking of moving their career fairs online in the fall.

While virtual internships are essential in the current work environment, it is important to recognize that many benefits of a traditional internship are lost when internships are done online, says Matthew Hora.

Yale University’s Office of Career Strategy is undertaking an aggressive personal outreach effort to graduating students who indicate they are “still seeking” on the university’s first-destination survey.

The employers that could best weather the coronavirus pandemic in terms of their college recruiting programs will find ways to adapt to current conditions and still deliver on the aspects of their programs that are most important to college students.

In this time of disruption and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic, when many career services practitioners are working from home, it is crucial for them to stay connected, says Tammy Spenziero, who is in a unique position to offer guidance on working remotely.

An employer looking to set up a “campus champion” program as an element in its campus recruiting efforts turned to colleagues in the NACE Community for ideas on staffing, the responsibilities and expectations of the program, and the guidelines for campus engagement.

Interviews-per-hire average (IPHA) is the average number of interviews conducted with each college hire. IPHA is a deeper analysis to determine the variation of recruiting processes across positions or sourcing channels.

How do you get more students to attend your career fairs? Career services staff often brainstorm new ways to get more students in the door—and NACE members are sharing their latest ideas.

Employers play an important role in ensuring that college students are career ready and in developing the competencies that broadly prepare college graduates for this transition. “It’s a role that requires employer engagement with both students and college leadership,” explains Glen Fowler, a past president of NACE and, until his recent retirement, the recruiting and training manager for the California State Auditor’s office.

Position your internship program for success by ensuring your intern orientation provides a strong start for your interns. They will be able to make meaningful contributions to your organization, and your organization will establish goodwill with interns from the outset, putting you one step closer to conversion.

Two critical factors for limiting bias in AI systems are building diverse AI teams and implementing an enterprise-wide trustworthy AI framework.

Over the past 10 years, there has been a clear shift away from housing the career center in student affairs.

Most entry-level hires will start their careers in the office—at least for part of the time—according to results of NACE’s 2023 Job Outlook Spring Update Survey.

NACE Community members share ideas for keeping interns who have accepted their job offers interested and excited until the first day of employment.

Can a current job also count as an internship? Several members of the NACE Community weigh in with their views.

Career centers are being housed less frequently in student affairs, more frequently in other divisions, and increasingly in various parts of the institution.

Among respondents to a recent NACE quick poll, more than half of the association’s employer members and more than two-thirds of its college members reported experiencing burnout.

Career fairs are one of the most frequently provided services by college career centers, as 91.7 percent reported hosting at least one career fair in 2017-18.

Career services practitioners offer ideas for approaches that add form, function, or fun to helping students perfect their elevator pitches.

What tasks do your work-study students do? Career services professionals noted their student workers create content, conduct employer outreach, and more.

The career center’s name should reflect the services it offers to students, and help them identify it as a career development and job-search resource.

The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee flipped the tables on the traditional career fair concept and held its first reverse career fair with much success.

Uncertainty surrounds the use of artificial intelligence among university relations and recruiting professionals and, to a lesser extent, among career services practitioners.

Ellucian’s internship toolkits are intended to enhance the employee experience, while providing interns and their managers with key information and resources.

There are several research-based practices employers can implement to achieve greater success in recruiting and developing interns from HBCUs and PBIs.

What, if anything, do you give your interns to welcome them to their internship or help them remember their intern experience?

Schools that conduct an annual FDS to capture information on how their new college graduates fare following graduation can benefit their own institutions and demonstrate the value of higher education.

The University of Washington created an intern performance evaluation template that it shares with employers, and on and beyond campus.

Winner of the 2023 NACE/Chevron Award, the IUPUI First Generation Career Connection Night connects first-generation students to employers to build their social capital.

NACE offers suggestions for getting the most out of your organization’s intern surveys.

How can your career center help students to prepare for their mock interviews and set up the mock interviews to maximize the experience?

How long do employers give interns to decide whether to accept an offer of a full-time position? Employers want to give soon-to-be graduates plenty of time to make their decision.

Career services professionals urge students to include a professional picture with their LinkedIn profile, but what about on their resumes?

Use the Recruitment Toolkit Worksheet, provided courtesy of Jeff Brzozowski, The Travelers Companies, and Suzanne Helbig, University of California – Irvine, to identify areas of opportunity to leverage career services more effectively to improve recruiting outcomes.

"When setting intern salaries, factors such as students’ major, functional area, degree, and year of study are important considerations.

Richmond merged career services and alumni services to elevate career services, provide additional resources for students, and more deeply engage alumni.

When it comes to maximizing job fair attendance, there’s bit of quick advice from the NACE Community: Don’t hold job fairs on Friday.

Coaching is the primary focus regarding the career development of students and the professional development among career services staff.

The key competencies employers want in the students they hire for internships are also among the skills employers help their interns to develop.

When it comes to selecting students for their internship and co-op programs, employers have a set of five competencies that are “must haves.

Through a grant program, Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation is making internships accessible to low-income students.

Students who took paid internships or co-ops were more likely to receive an offer of full-time employment and a higher salary offer from their employers than were students who took unpaid internships or co-ops, according to results of NACE’s Class of 2015 Student Survey.

What do you call a “gap year” if you want to demonstrate a special transition period in education?

What advice would you offer to a student who wants to include religious information on his or her resume?

In terms of a college graduate’s starting salary, earning a master’s degree can make a substantial difference.

What are the projected top-paid Class of 2017 engineering majors? Chemical engineers at the bachelor’s level and software engineers among master’s graduates.

INROADS has co-developed a program to help organizations recruit students at a greater number of HBCUs across the United States for paid internships.

There are specific actions that institutions and organizations can take to ensure that they create a culture that supports the personal and professional growth of Black individuals.

During a recent NACE Town Hall, panel members shared experiences and offered ideas for moving ahead with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Management information systems majors are projected to have the highest starting salary among Class of 2020 business graduates earning bachelor’s degrees.

While engineering, computer science, and math and sciences degrees continue to be the highest earning bachelor’s degrees, the individual average projections for these degrees appear to have leveled.

Language is a key element of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and can help or hinder efforts in this area.

There are several key steps that organizations can take to best support “onlies” and provide a healthy space for them to excel at work.

An inclusive work culture mirrors the community the organization serves and yields many benefits for both the organization and its employees.

Expert and author Tony Byers cites research confirming that there are substantial benefits associated with having a diverse and inclusive workplace.

Initiative provides support and creates a culture of understanding for what it means to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community at a Catholic university.

Collaboration among campus offices is a critical aspect in supporting students with disabilities during their search for employment.

Providing impactful professional development opportunities for interns can have positive implications for organizations.

Students feel that their experiential education assignments have a positive impact on their career readiness competencies.

LIM College has a unique career education structure that is based on the NACE Competencies and that will allow the college to conduct longitudinal research.

Employers have consistently identified the four career readiness competencies that they find essential in their new college hires.

When it comes to rating the “career readiness” of college graduates, there are differences in perception between students and employers.

While employers rate critical thinking/problem solving as the most essential competency for new hires, they rate their hires more proficient in other areas.

When asked to rate the career readiness competencies of college graduates in terms of “essential need,” employers view four as vital, according to results of NACE’s Job Outlook 2016 Spring Update.

When asked to assess candidate skills/qualities, employers rated verbal communications skills the most important, according to NACE' s Job Outlook 2016 report.

Key aspects of building an effective neurodiverse hiring program are having a sustained supply of candidates and getting buy in from within.

There is a disconnect between students’ use of employer websites and their perception of the usefulness of those sites. Here’s why and how to fix it.

How do career services offices handle their for-credit career courses? NACE members share their approaches.

The likelihood of students becoming paid interns increases if they went to the career center for internship assistance.

Not only can workplace discrimination and microaggressions have a negative impact on people of color in their careers, it can affect their mental health.

The Stony Brook Center for Remote Internships & Experiential Learning provides practical resources for employers operating remotely during the pandemic and beyond.

Members of the NACE Community recently offered some suggestions to their colleagues for books to add to their summer reading lists.

There is very little differentiation in the average salaries for each of the career services positions until one gets to the management level.

Throughout the spring, the URR functions of employers in the transportation industry were particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

The reopening plan developed by the UNLV College of Engineering aims to minimize direct contact for services that can be effectively delivered online.

PwC is providing its more than 3,600 summer interns with an experience that is preparing them for the new virtual world.

Following the Great Recession a little more than a decade ago, many organizations learned a costly, yet valuable, lesson.

NACE research shows that disproportionalities exist in terms of race/ethnicity and representation by internship attainment and pay type.

Students with hearing loss may face challenges associated with communication that may be exacerbated during this pandemic, with requirements for wearing masks and physically distancing.

Career services staff share their plans and ideas for how they might handle drop-ins in an in-person or virtual environment this fall.

Companies that currently do not have jobs or internships should try to provide students with learning engagement support or development, and strive to make connections with them.

NACE research shows that women are overrepresented among unpaid interns and underrepresented among paid interns.

Swinburne University created the AccessAbility Careers Hub, which provides targeted career education for students with disabilities.

How do career centers handle alternative experiential learning experiences such as contests and hackathons that may not fall into a college’s or university’s internship bucket?

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has started scheduling Vietnam Era Veteran Readjustment Assistance Act-focused reviews.

Matthew Cowley warns that any trend that emerges that is considered to be a best practice could potentially threaten equitable outcomes for marginalized students.

First-generation college students are overrepresented among “never interns” and underrepresented among paid interns.

Last March, a group of five Florida schools shifted their joint in-person reverse career fair to a virtual “venue” in just two weeks, but with positive results.

In this new era of social distancing, what is replacing the firm, professional handshake?

For many organizations and institutions that made commitments to take action in response to racial injustice, the work has yet to begin.

CDK Global’s retooling of its internship offboarding process has expanded opportunities for interns to stay connected with the firm.

Class of 2022 bachelor’s degree graduates earning degrees in the computer sciences are expected to command top dollar, according to the Winter 2022 Salary Survey, published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

As they are reviewing college graduates’ resumes this year, employers are focused on finding evidence of candidates’ problem-solving skills and teamwork abilities.

Beginning on March 1, the USCIS will implement a new “pre-registration” system for employers seeking to file H-1B petitions for employees.

When a data breach comes from a third-party vendor, both the vendor and the party that provided the initial information may be subject to potential liability.

The significantly increased use of social media has changed the way employers and courts have handled noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements.

The DOL has released new guidelines around unpaid internships, replacing the six-part test with the primary beneficiary test.

Recently, members of the NACE Community shared resources that they find helpful when working with LGBT college students, job candidates, and employees.

Management information systems majors are the projected top-paid Class of 2017 business majors at the bachelor’s level, while marketing majors are expected to be tops at the master’s level.

The final overall average starting salary for the Class of 2019 is $53,889, which is up 5.8 percent over the final average starting salary of $50,944 for the Class of 2018.

The guarded optimism of early June has faded into the reality that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on college enrollments for the fall.

NACE members offer ideas for managing the career center staff’s interactions—whether in person or virtual—this fall.

NACE’s quick poll assessing our field’s reaction to combat racial injustice show that employers and colleges have been slow to take action.

The final results of NACE’s recent quick poll show how our field is responding to the need to address racial injustice.

Computer sciences majors have the highest starting salary at the master’s-degree level for the Class of 2019, while business grads are the top-paid at the doctoral level.

Abbott Laboratories’ high school internship program exposes students from diverse backgrounds across the United States to STEM fields.

WCU’s career center and autism program developed a sensory-friendly event where differently abled students feel more comfortable and confident interacting with recruiters.

Transportation and materials moving majors earned the highest average starting salary by far among Class of 2019 associate degree graduates.

Larger companies are more likely to recruit virtually during the 2020-21 academic year, according to a forthcoming report from NACE.

Although AOIC requires potential interns to be enrolled in college, in certain cases, summer interns who did not return to school because of COVID have been allowed to stay on.

Does your organization run a background check immediately after making an offer or closer to the new hire’s start date? URR professionals in the NACE Community share their approaches.

MI GEAR UP is a statewide program designed to provide support to students from high schools in low-income areas who are making the transition to college and throughout their first year there

Although college hiring has indeed been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, steps employers have taken have allowed them, at least to this point, to blunt its potential full impact.

Some career centers are noticing a decrease in employer and student registration for virtual career fairs. What strategies might increase the number of employers attending?

By the end of April, more than half of employers planned to move their internship programs to virtual and nearly half expected to delay intern start dates in responses to the pandemic.

Empower Retirement is moving away from assessing candidates for “culture fit” by aligning values and providing hiring managers with interview questions and language.

Last spring, career services offices were asked about the main ways in which they were engaging students, as nearly all contact had become virtual. In addition to email, phone calls were a popular tool.

The percentages of career centers offering virtual career fairs and employers taking part in them has climbed steeply this fall.

More than 87% of responding organizations report that they have a diversity recruiting strategy for the Class of 2021, the second highest level reported in the past seven years.

The KU Engineering Career Center’s social media takeover program is especially important now, when employers are unable to engage students in person.

There are questions that career services professionals can suggest their students ask recruiters to assess an organizations’ DEI priority and commitment.

Students may ask specific questions to assess your organization’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Be prepared to answer them.

Employers were more likely to make changes to their recruiting methods than they were to their recruiting schedule for the 2020-21 academic year.

The value of Eaton Vance’s summer internship program is evident in the attention the firm dedicated to its transition to virtual last spring and its management last summer.

How do virtual internship programs compare with their pre-pandemic counterparts? NACE members share what they have heard from students about their virtual summer internship experiences.

The University of Georgia Career Center has facilitated more than 20 employer Instagram takeovers this semester.

Immigration attorney Mark B. Rhoads answers several critical questions about international students navigating the visa sponsorship process.

The average starting salary projections for all reported categories of majors for Class of 2021 bachelor’s degree graduates show increases, albeit some of them are on the smaller side.

Research conducted by Mary Scott reveals that students are far more likely to use laptops than smartphones to complete key tasks throughout the recruiting process.

The racial injustices that marked 2020 strengthened Roderick Lewis’ resolve to create a DEI scorecard for career centers to facilitate change in the employers engaging with their campuses.

Long-promoted as a viable replacement for employers’ physical presence on campus, virtual career fairs had not gained significant traction prior to COVID-19.

Data from NACE’s Winter 2021 Salary Survey show the value of computer sciences majors in the current job market.

Visibility and the tiering of school partnerships are two of the challenges Historically Black Colleges and Universities face in attracting employers to recruit their students.

While DREAMers tend to have qualities employers seek, there are several obstacles they face that career services professionals can help them navigate during the job search.

Many businesses and organizations are unclear about their ability to hire DREAMers who have DACA or TPS. In fact, employers are able to hire a DREAMer just as they would a U.S. citizen.

Starting salaries are expected to increase among many master’s degree majors this year.

Nearly 60% of Class of 2019 bachelor’s grads were employed in full-time positions with a traditional employer and nearly 19% were going on for an advanced degree by the end of 2019.

Even though the job search environment has undergone substantial shifts over the last five years—accelerated more recently by the COVID-19 pandemic—core aspects are intact.

Offering regular activities keeps interns engaged with the organization, which is crucial, especially in a virtual environment.

There is a trend toward an erosion in salary differentials among the degree levels, according to results of NACE’s Class of 2019 First-Destination Survey.

Employers anticipate hiring fewer interns and co-ops this year than they did last year, according to NACE’s 2021 Internship & Co-op Survey Report.

College hiring appears to have rebounded from the fall as employers now expect to hire 7.2% more new graduates from the Class of 2021 than they did from the Class of 2020.

By better understanding and accounting for the obstacles Native students face, career services and university relations and recruiting professionals can help them achieve their career goals.

Having a formal policy helps the team in the University of Oregon’s career center team with consistency when considering postings from employers seeking unpaid interns.

Students consider personal social media to be undesirable as a recruitment channel, whereas they view LinkedIn as professional online networking.

Solo or small-staff career services offices can take steps to sustain a satisfactory level of career services and, in some cases, grow their operations.

Research illustrates the hit that career center budgets took during the pandemic, as more than one-third of career centers reported cuts to their personnel budgets.

The average conversion rate for interns climbed nearly 20%, fueled by a substantial increase in the average offer rate, according to results of NACE’s 2021 Internship & Co-op Survey Report.

Building trust with TCUs and Native students and bridging gaps in areas of need will aid employers in their recruitment efforts.

Many challenges with managing an internship program as a sole URR practitioner can be overcome by being resourceful, especially by involving colleagues.

Just 56.6% of employers are using GPA to screen college graduates from the Class of 2021 for open positions.

More than 40% of employers are planning to hold a hybrid internship program this summer. Also, the highest percentage prefer to attend both in-person and virtual career fairs.

According to results of NACE’s 2021 Internship & Co-op Survey, an average of 62% of interns were white and nearly 58% were male.

With fewer employers screening job candidates by GPA, it is increasingly important that college graduates demonstrate certain key attributes on their resumes.

Employers report that internship experience is the most influential factor they consider when deciding between two otherwise equally qualified job candidates.

While many institutions and organizations have stepped up their inclusive communication—especially over the past year—some still fall short.

The average hourly wage for bachelor’s-level interns has increased steadily since 2014. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, that is the case again this year.

NACE has identified key behaviors that allow college students preparing to enter the workforce to demonstrate their career readiness to prospective employers.

Career services can play a vital role in helping student veterans realize their goal of meaningful employment after graduation.

Employers that hire student veterans have the benefit of hiring employees who have already received “the world’s best leadership training.”

The New College of Florida’s SMAH Internship Program has a twist in its approach that distinguishes it from other programs that fund students’ unpaid internships.

The lessons Cree Wolfspeed’s URR team learned during the COVID-19 pandemic have helped inform their preparation for this summer’s program and beyond.

It’s not surprising that fees for in-person career fairs were down sharply in 2020-21 compared to 2019-20, but the charges for hybrid fairs jumped for some employers.

There are differences and similarities in the attributes employers seek when deciding between two qualified candidates for a full-time job and for an internship or co-op.

Can building authentic relationships—the very essence of effective recruiting—be replicated digitally? There are steps employers can take to personalize the student experience.

One of the benefits of employers converting their interns to full-time hires is evident in employee retention rates.

The number of offers accepted by Cigna’s 2020 cohort of virtual interns indicates that the company’s conversion strategy was successful. There are several key reasons for this success.

During the pandemic, only 22% of college students took an internship, half were in-person positions, and quality indicators for online internships were low, according to a new study.

CSU Fullerton’s “I Am First” program addresses the specific needs of first-generation college students and prepares them for the challenges they face.

When one HBCU career practitioner is building relationships with employers, she is looking for authenticity, a shared sense of purpose, and impactful engagement opportunities for students and the university as a whole.

Over the course of the week-long NACE21 conference, it became clear that several topics—such as the new normal, professionalism, and career readiness—weighed most heavily on attendees.

Some career centers are seeking ideas for appreciation gifts that are unique, useful, and cost-effective that can be handed out to recruiters during on-campus events.

NYU’s Wasser-Buddies mentoring program helps shape institutional culture, equalize the experience of new hires, increase knowledge transfer, and enhance leadership development.

Cultural intelligence may be the most important individual area of change for organizations that want to bolster their recruitment and retention of culturally diverse individuals.

It is important for employers to consider the language they use because language can be loaded and have different meanings for different people.

The UNO Campus Career Council supports students in achieving their career ambitions through shared knowledge of best practices and industry training.

Most career services offices plan to hold both in-person and virtual career fairs this fall, but many employers expect to hold their own virtual events.

This fall, the majority of employers will be hosting their own virtual recruiting events, such as Zoom sessions, virtual tours, and virtual career fairs.

The final overall average starting salary for the college Class of 2020 landed at $55,260—2.5% above the final average starting salary for the Class of 2019.

Career services offices can help students develop their professionalism and navigate situations when “professional standards” may fuel and foster bias.

What value can a master’s degree have over a bachelor’s degree? For certain majors, the differential in starting salaries is substantial.

College career services offices have changed the ways they engage employers and students from historically marginalized groups during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The biggest challenge with “professionalism” is ensuring that all candidates and employees understand what it means within the context of the organization and their specific job function.

In response to the ongoing COVID19 pandemic, employers are most commonly offering a hybrid internship program this summer.

The College Autism Network helped create a curriculum to help career services professionals better converse about autism and support autistic students.

Employers that recruit and hire students with autism can overcome barriers by being proactive in seeking resources and information about this student population.

Part of the mission of UNH CaPS is to help employers establish or enhance employers’ work around diversity and inclusion by providing them with resources, consultation, and recognition.

Many employers that shifted their internship programs to virtual during the pandemic plan to make virtual assignments part of their internship programs in the future.

While the COVID-19 pandemic caused many adjustments to the ways career services offices operate, they did not make substantial changes to their employer relations strategy.

Talent acquisition professionals provide insight and ideas on topics around internships, such as converting interns to FTEs, internship duration, and more.

The shift to the virtual space has allowed for collection of career fair data that may have been out of reach with the traditional format.

The University of Nebraska at Kearney’s College of Business & Technology Career Center verifies internships to ensure they meet key criteria for their students.

To address and better understand racial injustice and the needs of historically marginalized groups, career centers are providing more professional development for their staff.

starting salary; compensation; master’s degree; doctoral degree; advanced degree; first destination; Class of 2020; Salary Survey

At this early juncture in NACE’s current quick poll, it seems that there is still progress for employers to make in addressing racial injustice and the needs of historically marginalized groups.

Instead of pausing its college recruiting operations during the pandemic, NCR shifted its focus from on-campus to on-screen engagement, while always putting the students first.

With student populations becoming more diverse, career centers need to change and adapt to their needs and be inclusive as they develop resources, opportunities, and programming.

Recruiting, onboarding, and retaining employees are not one-size-fits-all processes and there are challenges throughout. This is especially true for neurodiverse students.

URR functions and career services operations have received increased funding and resources to address racial injustice and the needs of historically marginalized groups, just at different paces.

In response to the climate of racial injustice, Dell expanded its definition of recent graduate talent to engage underrepresented minorities.

To get the best results when recruiting and hiring neurodiverse candidates, employers need to be flexible, supportive, and willing to make accommodations.

Virtual recruiting provides a better job-search experience for historically marginalized populations than in-person recruiting, according to results of the NACE 2021 Student Survey.

Does salary matter to graduates from the college Class of 2021? No … and yes, according to students responding to NACE’s 2021 Student Survey.

As NI went through increasingly rapid changes due to shifts in the market, it became clear that significant adjustments were needed to its programs and strategies.

When creating programs, resources, and services for marginalized students, Stanford starts with identifying issues and needs through focus groups, research, and outcomes.

Class of 2020 graduates got fewer jobs than any other class since NACE first began reporting on employment trends with the Class of 2014.

Employers plan to hire 26.6% more new graduates from the Class of 2022 than they did from the Class of 2021, which is in line with job opening trends in general.

College students want their employers to provide financial and insurance benefits, according to results of the NACE 2021 Student Survey.

Employers report that they look at resumes for evidence the candidate has problem-solving skills, analytical skills, and the ability to work in a team.

Results from NACE’s First Destinations Survey for the Class of 2020 reveal that the gap in pay between men and women begins right out of college—at the start of the career.

Career services offices should provide programming and resources to help boost students’ proficiency in critical thinking, communication, and professionalism.

Recent research suggests that career development programs that focus on key levers of economic mobility may play a critical role in reducing or eliminating racial wealth gaps for their participants.

TAMU-CT is building employer engagement opportunities in partnership with faculty that are “a little less virtual,” but better meet the needs of its unique student population.

Reverse career fairs and reverse networking events can offer tremendous benefits, especially when held at small scale with specific program areas.

As was the case with bachelor’s level outcomes, the employment outcomes for graduates earning master’s degrees declined in 2020 in comparison with 2019.

The Carolina Cluster forged a new model for career readiness and designed and implemented programs to improve employment outcomes for graduates.

Average starting salary projections for the Class of 2022 range from an increase of 5.4% to a decrease of 14.8%.

Employee resource groups can be valuable tools for helping employers to bolster their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and to help with effective onboarding and retention.

When choosing between two otherwise equally qualified candidates, employers deem having internship experience—with the organization or within its industry—to be the most influential factors.

The State of Georgia’s reverse networking fair offered state agencies the opportunity to promote their career opportunities for college students to career services professionals.

GPA—once widely used to identify potential candidates for jobs—is now used by fewer than half of employers, according to the results of the Job Outlook 2022 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Dr. Julia Overton-Healy of St. John Fisher College suggests career services offices need to recalibrate their understanding of who their students are and make changes to accommodate them.

To best serve a total student body, it is incumbent upon career centers to evaluate exactly who is using their services and how they are promoting their services.

Last fall, VCU began offering its Interdisciplinary Career Readiness Skills minor, an 18-credit pathway for students to develop today’s most highly sought-after job skills.

Employers committed to building a pipeline of diverse talent must consider how to diversify the makeup of their internship program.

The Department of Homeland Security is amending its STEM Designated Degree Program List by adding 22 qualifying fields of study.

Despite greater recognition of their negative impacts on the workforce, lack of diversity and an abundance of unpaid internships remain issues, says Anjali Lalani.

It is difficult for students to be or perform their best when they are concerned about the reliability of their internet access and technology.

To prepare students for their transition to the workforce, career centers have to account for the standards of professionalism shifting over the past several years.

New graduates and their potential employers can agree on which skills are most important for job candidates, but differ on how proficient new graduates are in those abilities.

Cigna recently held a virtual event to increase awareness of HBCUs and spotlight the prominence and legacy of HBCUs in the Black community.

The increase in formal diversity recruiting efforts reported continues the growth—and recovery—in this area over the last decade.

After declines in offer and acceptance rates in recent years, both increased for Class of 2020 new college graduates.

The concept of recognizing feelings as real is a key step in developing emotional intelligence. The risk you run by not doing so is burnout.

There are many factors that contribute to the gender pay gap and severe consequences of long-term inequity in pay.

College hiring continues to surge as employers plan to hire 31.6% more new college graduates from the Class of 2022 than they hired from the Class of 2021.

Many employers plan to operate in a hybrid modality, blending in-person and remote work to give their employees and new hires the best of both worlds.

One of the barriers that prevents more employers from partnering with community colleges is a general lack of understanding about what these schools and their students can provide.

Cycle times during the recruiting process—from interview to offer and from offer to acceptance—have remained steady in recent years

NACE members share their ideas for fun, useful items that career centers can give to students during career fairs.

Auburn University’s high knowledge rates on its recent first-destination surveys is driven by the survey being part of a course all students are required to take.

A workshop at Notre Dame allows students to experience interviews from the perspective of both the interviewer and the interviewee, giving them valuable insight into the process.

Fall 2022 recruiting looks extremely positive as almost 90% of employers report that they will be hiring for both full-time and intern/co-op positions at that time.

With an eye toward the future of its workforce, Mohawk Industries provides its candidates and new college hires with development that extends beyond the internship.