Graduation cap.
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I’ve got some great news for the bold, brave Class of 2021: There are plenty of jobs out there for new college graduates.
This hasn’t been an easy year for any of us, least of all for this spring’s new crop of college graduates. They spent much of the last year learning remotely, socializing with precautions, missing out on many traditional college experiences. They are a committed, hard-working group; students who knew that the best way to prepare for success post-pandemic was to stay engaged and on-track with their studies. They’re earning their degrees thanks to a remarkable level of dedication and perseverance, and, across the country, many of them aren’t able to have the traditional commencement experience they might have hoped for.
But despite the year we’ve been through, despite the nagging persistence of the pandemic and the painful economic downturn from which we’re still not recovered, all signs suggest that employers are eager to hire this remarkable new group of college grads.
Indeed, employers anticipate hiring 7.2 percent more new college graduates from the Class of 2021 than they did from the Class of 2020, according to a recent report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. That compares very well to a fall report, when employers predicted hiring slightly fewer college grads.
Even better, nearly 30 percent of employers surveyed for the same report said they’ll hire more college grads this year, almost double the proportion of employers who said that in the fall.
We’re seeing this trend come alive at Pace University, where our Career Services team works hard to place our students in internships and our graduates in jobs.
A year ago, as the pandemic spread across the United States, we saw a real slowdown in job postings, reports Phyllis Mooney, our remarkable executive director of Career Services. But there was soon an increase in certain critical sectors, like healthcare, technology, and the supply chain, she says. Now the economy is opening back up, and Mooney sees job listings rolling in.
In fact, just since March 1, Mooney and her team have posted 6,048 full-time jobs. There were opportunities available in healthcare and in human resources, in software engineering and in sales, in web development and in accounting.
In the same time period, we’ve had more than 150 employers participate in career fairs at Pace—all of them looking to hire our new graduates. All four Big Four accounting firms have been recruiting our students, plus major banks, area healthcare providers, and all sorts of other firms.
The resilience the Class of 2021 has displayed this year will serve them well as they hunt for all those available jobs. These graduates know how to be flexible, to make the most of what’s available to them, and they know how to be creative about finding new opportunities as the world changes around them. They have a wonderful perspective on this last 13 or 14 months, the lessons they’ve learned and the approaches that helped them thrive, that will make for strong, compelling answers to interview questions and demonstrate to employers their skills in critical thinking and lifelong learning.
Our Career Services team also posted 1,967 internships, which are a key part of our education model and also integral to future career success. In fact, NACE recently reported that the internship conversion rate among employers they surveyed—that is, the rate of interns getting job offers from those same employers—has increased by nearly 20 percent. Currently, that rate is at 66.4 percent, up from 55.5 percent a year earlier. The study also found that the acceptance rate didn’t budge—interns were accepting job offers just as frequently as a year ago—which means that the increase is entirely attributable to employers extending more offers to interns.
Mooney and her team expect the offer rate to rise—more and more, they believe, successful internships will lead to job offers. Even in a tech-enabled and often remote world, they see networking remain key to job hunts, with about 80 percent of offers resulting from a human connection (even if via Zoom). So they continue to advocate for the advantages of internships and the importance of leveraging any networking opportunities available.
They also note that diversity, equity, and inclusion are moving to the forefront of the hiring process, becoming priorities throughout organizations, not just in their HR offices. With more than 80 percent of employers implementing DEI recruitment efforts, it can be another opportunity for students to make connections, build networks, and find jobs.
The bottom line is that while it’s been a hard year, and we’re not yet fully out of the woods, the world is opening up, and so are employment opportunities—for all our students. Class of 2021, you’ve made it through college in some of the toughest possible circumstances. Now employers are ready and eager to hire you.
