Graduating and looking for a job? There's good news for you.
A recent report by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University said the number of job opportunities for this year's graduating seniors is expected to increase 7 percent over last year.
Large businesses - corporations with more than 3,900 employees - will provide the majority of the new job opportunities, according to the report, which was released Nov. 15.
Kelley Bishop, executive director of career services and placement at Michigan State, said the report has been released annually for the past 37 years.
While other organizations conduct similar studies, Bishop called CERI's "the most thorough and comprehensive" because of the diversity of the employers CERI surveys, which range widely in terms of geographic location, size and industry.
CERI initially surveyed the employers that recruited at Michigan State, but then the institute partnered with MonsterTRAK four years ago to expand its sample pool. MonsterTRAK is a job and internship site geared toward current college students and recent graduates, and it now allows CERI to distribute surveys among the employers that use its Web site.
Bishop said about one out of three college students will end up working for a company with fewer than 100 employees, but he said these small businesses cannot recruit on campus because they lack the budget and personnel. MonsterTRAK's cooperation with CERI has increased the validity of their study by allowing them to reach this "hidden job market."
Barbara Peoples, senior associate director of Brown's Career Development Center, said she agreed with the report's findings, though she cautioned that there is still limited information about hiring opportunities. Still, she was optimistic about an improving job market for graduating students.
"We've had a really good recruiting year as far as companies that have come on campus and interviews that have been conducted," Peoples said. "We won't have outcomes until the beginning of second semester."
