Dammit, and me still eighteen years from graduation...
> Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group is offering $5,000 signing bonuses to
> undergrads for the first time -- with an extra $2,000 if the student
> accepts the offer within 10 days.
They really consider $5000 a lot? I mean, considering it's blood money...
> Travelers Group Inc.'s Salomon Smith Barney unit is flying students by
> the hundreds to its New York headquarters for all-expense-paid weekends.
Darn, I missed out being born 10 years too late and 50 IQ points too
little.
> Most of the college seniors being courted aggressively have never held
> more than a summer job.
Guilty as charged, your honor.
> "Their managers don't understand why, if you're offering $42,000 to a
> 22-year-old, you can't find anybody. That's inconceivable to them."
I just love that quote. Okay, full article follows...
Companies Go All Out to Woo
This Year's College Graduates
By CARL QUINTANILLA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 4, 1998
Oliver Omidvar, who graduates this month from the University of
California-Los Angeles, has spent the past semester in a deluxe
recruiting frenzy.
Bear Stearns & Co. took him to a fancy dinner at Trader Vic's and urged
him to work for the investment bank after graduation. Coopers & Lybrand
LLP made a similar pitch, treating him to a weekend at the city's Regal
Biltmore Hotel. Last month, Jeffries & Co. whisked Mr. Omidvar and 100
other students in black limousines to the House of Blues, where they
danced to the retro sounds of Super Diamond, a Neil Diamond cover band,
and partied until 4 a.m.
At age 20, too young to order a beer, Mr. Omidvar lined up 10 job
offers. He says of the corporate recruiters who have been wooing him:
"If I had wanted a drink, they would have happily gotten one for me."
Heated Competition
This spring, 1.2 million college seniors will graduate with bachelor's
degrees into the strongest U.S. job market in more than a decade.
Competition is so heated that companies are going after young undergrads
with tough hiring tactics normally reserved for M.B.A.s and law
students.
Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group is offering $5,000 signing bonuses to
undergrads for the first time -- with an extra $2,000 if the student
accepts the offer within 10 days. Travelers Group Inc.'s Salomon Smith
Barney unit is flying students by the hundreds to its New York
headquarters for all-expense-paid weekends.
At Four Seasons Hotels Inc., president John Smith is going on campus
visits personally. Some companies are making "exploding offers" -- as
in, "I'm offering you a job, but you have to accept it in the next 48
hours."
"It has happened overnight," says Pamela Hamilton, director of
university relations for Dell Computer Corp. "All of a sudden -- wham --
you need the same intensity to hire undergrads as you do M.B.A.s. And
that has never been the case."
Most of the college seniors being courted aggressively have never held
more than a summer job. Courtney Meltzer, a 21-year-old business
graduate from the University of Colorado-Boulder, was flown by Salomon
Smith Barney to New York this spring for the company's "Super Saturday"
-- an all-day recruitment event at the giant investment bank. After
dining at the chic Tribeca Grill, Salomon's recruiters took Ms. Meltzer
to Cheetah, a downtown club where they "ordered champagne beyond
belief," she says.
It worked. "It was impressive," says the lifelong Colorado resident, who
graduated last month. "It had much more of an effect than if they had
taken me out in Colorado." Salomon gave Ms. Meltzer a $6,000 signing
bonus, $40,000 starting salary and projected first-year bonus of between
$17,500 and $27,000.
Tough Game
The recruiting game is getting tougher, in part, because so many
companies are expanding. Nearly 32% of employers plan to increase their
payrolls in the third quarter, according to a Manpower Inc. survey
released last week. With the market for experienced workers already
extremely tight, a growing number of those hires are coming fresh out of
college.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, THIS Is a Job Market
National unemployment rate (April): 4.3%
Last time unemployment was lower: Feb. 1970 (4.2%)
Lowest unemployment rate in the nation: Columbia, S.C.(1.3%)
Highest unemployment rate: Merced, Calif. (19.0%)
Companies saying job candidate has 'upper hand' in negotiating salary
and benefits: 63%
Companies saying the employer has upper hand: 13%
Average number of job offers for male college undergraduates this year: 2.65
Average number of job offers for female college undergrads: 2.53
Companies saying there is a shortage of qualified job candidates: 88%
Workers who say they would change jobs for 'slightly higher pay': 40%
Average bonus given to employees at Cambridge Technology Partners Inc.
who refer new hires: $2,500
Total bonuses paid out under the program this year: $570,000
Employees hired as a result of program this year: 230
Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Marra Peters & Partners, Hanigan
Consulting Group, William M. Mercer Inc., Robert Half International
Inc., Cambridge Technology Partners Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Business Machines Corp. increased its college hiring to
3,000 students this year, up from 2,000 in 1997. To draw the younger
crowd, IBM set up recruiting tents in Daytona Beach and Panama City,
Fla., over spring break, where it gave away prizes and built a 20-ton
sand sculpture in the shape of a ThinkPad.
The market for undergraduates "is as intense as anybody's ever seen it,"
says Dave Ferrell, IBM's manager of university recruiting, who adds the
spring break event drew 500 resumes.
Some big recruiters are getting outmuscled. Despite handing out hefty
signing bonuses, Deloitte & Touche's consulting business fell about 20
hires short of its college hiring quota this year of 600 students.
'Calling Earlier'
Others are even having trouble getting face time. Towers Perrin, a
consulting firm, called Stanford University last summer to schedule
student interviews -- only to find the school was booked through April.
The consulting firm eventually scheduled interviews at a hotel near
campus. "This year, we're calling earlier," says Mary Giannini, national
campus recruiting manager.
"A lot of recruiters just aren't making their numbers," says Maury
Hanigan of Hanigan Consulting Group, a New York-based consulting firm
that specializes in campus recruiting. "Their managers don't understand
why, if you're offering $42,000 to a 22-year-old, you can't find
anybody. That's inconceivable to them."
Recruiters say there is a downside to the hiring frenzy: Some
undergraduates don't have the sophistication and resources to play their
part in the recruiting minuet.
Dell Computer, for instance, which doubled its undergrad hiring this
year, is now paying in advance for students' trips to headquarters after
discovering that undergrads rarely have enough money to pay for the trip
out-of-pocket. Another problem: rental-car companies won't rent to
people under 25 years old. So Dell has had to arrange transportation to
and from the airport. Some students have been so unfamiliar with
business travel they have inadvertently racked up $30 in hotel phone
bills. Others have gotten stuck at the airport with no cash.
"They just aren't as savvy," Dell's Ms. Hamilton says. "They don't know
what a response date is. They don't know what the recruiting game is.
You make them an offer and they say, 'Thank you very much, but I still
have to call my mom.' "
Erin Rice, a business grad from Trinity University in San Antonio
recently accepted a financial-analyst position with Enron Corp., the big
Houston energy company. The 22-year-old navigated multiple rounds of
interviews and snagged a $4,000 signing bonus.
But before accepting the position, she called her mother to make sure
the job was right. "I know it sounds kind of juvenile," says Ms. Rice,
who starts work in August. "But my parents know what's best for me."
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
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