Recruiting and Interviewing Benchmarks

UIUC Interviewing/Recruiting Summary 2005-2006

(Recruitment and Graduation Benchmarks 2006-2007)
(Recruitment and Graduation Benchmarks 2004-2005)
(Recruitment and Graduation Benchmarks 2003-2004)

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• Recruitment at UIUC
• Graduation Plans - UIUC Senior Survey 2006
• Use of Career Services
• Summary
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D

The Recruitment and Graduation Benchmarks is a report produced annually by the Career Services Network at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Career Services Network is comprised of career services offices and affiliates at the University. In 1954, placement and career services became an official function of the University of Illinois with the adoption of a policy statement by the Board of Trustees that recognized the desirability of offering a coordinated service to facilitate the placement of its students and alumni in positions so that the maximum value of its education program may be realized both by graduates and by employers. A basic tenant of this policy is that the service is primarily an activity of the University as a whole and, secondarily, that of its constituent parts (May 15, 1954). Thus, the University affirmed its desire to maintain specific career services for students yet supported a coordinated effort of service to students, alumni, and employers. The tradition continues today. This report not only summarizes the work of individual career services offices but it also provides a summary of the efforts campus wide.

According to its mission adopted May 21, 2001, the Career Services Network serves as a gateway for students to experiential education, post-graduation employment, and advanced degree work. The Network is a connecting and coordinating body that addresses policy and practice in matters of career service, employment, and post-graduate opportunities. One of the purposes of the Network is to document the work of the various career offices on campus in their efforts to effectively and efficiently serve students, employers, and the university community.

The Recruitment and Graduation Benchmarks report is a compilation and summary of information collected each year from career services offices that have significant recruiting activities. The data is gathered each summer from the preceding academic year and the report is distributed in the fall. In addition, the report includes information provided by graduating seniors on the Chancellors Senior Survey on the Undergraduate Experience regarding their plans post-graduation. The Benchmarks report has a long history with some data tracing back to 1988-89. Special thanks to the many career services offices that contribute to this report and to John Ory, Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, which administers the Chancellors Senior Survey.

Recruitment at UIUC

Career services offices are asked to report on full-time employment recruiting, internship/coop recruiting, and career fair participation for the previous academic year. They provide data on the number of student interviews, interview schedules, employer contacts, job/internship postings, and student participants. Campus-wide totals and data for each of these areas by career services office may be found in charts in Appendix A.

The number of student interviews continued to increase this past year with 29,895 interviews, a smaller percentage increase though than last year. While student interviews still have not reached the level of 2000-01, the increase shows a steady upswing from the low in 2002-03.

In addition, the number of interview schedules (4,731) on campus continued to increase. In fact, the number of interviews is the largest ever recorded by the Career Services Network (records available since 1988-89). The numbers indicate that employers interviewed an average of 6+ students per schedule. On-campus recruiting is clearly rebounding to new highs with several career services offices reporting there are more interviewing opportunities than students willing to take them.

Student participation in campus recruiting efforts also continued to increase (18.1%) during the past year (table below). There was a significant decline in 2003-04 with an increase last year of 77%. From a low of 14,789 students in 2003-04, student participation has increased 109% in two years. The increase in student participation may be due to the enhanced efforts by career services offices to promote their services to students and to a wider range of students from freshmen to seniors. Career services offices continued to show steady increases in student participation (details may be found in Appendix A).

This past year the number of employers was 6,258 (an increase of 35.7% from last year), the highest number of contacts ever recorded with career services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (See chart below.) The employer contact numbers are not unique thus one employer may have multiple relations with several career services offices, which is a desired goal of the Career Services Network. See Appendix A for details.

The number of job and internship vacancies posted with the career services offices increased 54.7% compared to 2004-05 after a significant decline last year. As noted last year, a primary reason for the significant decline was due to a change in how vacancies were reported, particularly by The Career Center and Education Career Services. (See last years report for details.) Several offices reported significant increases in internship and job vacancies including Engineering, Library and Information Sciences, and The Career Center.

A summary table of recruiting activity from career services offices reporting for 2005-06, including employer relationships, interview schedules, student interviews, internship/job vacancies posted, and student participation may be found in Appendix A. In addition, individual career office details for each category of recruiting activity (full-time employment, internship/coop opportunities, and career fair participation) is available.

The above chart shows recruiting trends from 1997-2006. Student participation has increased significantly the past two years. This is probably due to career services involving more first-year students and sophomores in their career fairs and services. Student participation in recruitment activities is the highest ever reported with nearly 31,000 student contacts reported by career services offices (data only available since 1997-98). As noted earlier, on-campus recruiting with actual schedules is the highest in the history of reported recruiting at UIUC. In addition, relationships with employers are at an all-time high (6,258) with another significant increase over last year. Campus-wide recruitment activity for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1988 through 2006 is reported in Appendix B. Recruiting activities are a significant activity of the career services offices and benchmark data shows the importance of this work in serving students and employers.

Graduation Plans - UIUC Senior Survey 2005

The Chancellors Senior Survey on the Undergraduate Experience 2006 is administered each spring to graduating seniors by the Center for Teaching Excellence (John Ory, Director). In addition to questions about their undergraduate experiences, seniors are asked about their post-graduation plans. Of the 4,722 seniors sent the Survey, 2,212 responded, approximately a 47% response rate. See Appendix C for representation data. A full summary of 2006 post-graduation plans by college may be found in Appendix D. Following is a general summary of the results from respondents regarding their post-graduation plans.

In the 2006 survey, 53% of the seniors planned to work, 35% planned to continue their studies, and 12% were uncertain or had other plans. In 2005 seniors answered similarly with 52% planning to work, 36% continuing their studies, and 12% were uncertain or indicated other plans. (See pie chart on next page.)

Of the survey respondents, 25.3% had confirmed employment, compared to 20.7% and 17.0% in the previous two years. This still does not meet the 26.4% and 30.8% confirmed employment in 2001 and 2000, respectively.

Following are the most popular occupations indicated by the graduates of the class of 2006 compared to the class of 2005:

Engineering again is the most popular occupation. Management/trainee showed an increase for 2006 graduates as 6.9% indicated this as the type of occupation compared to 5.6% from the class of 2005. Business Operations and Agriculture, Farming, Fishing, and Forestry occupations appeared in the top 12 this year.

Slightly fewer graduates (22.6%) had confirmed plans for graduate and professional school compared to the last two years (23.0%).

Below are the top graduate and professional degree programs in which 2006 graduates planned to enroll, compared to the classes of 2005 and 2004 (as reported by the seniors in each of the graduating classes). While law and engineering exchanged positions this year, medicine and accounting/finance continued to be the 3rd and 4th most often cited graduate programs. Veterinary medicine and sciences jumped to the 5th most mentioned graduate degree program compared to 12th and 14th in previous years. Dentistry and dental sciences appeared on the list this year, which coincides with an increase in dentistry noted nationally.

Following are the other pursuits indicated by the 2006 graduates compared to 2005 graduates:

A larger number than last year indicated that they plan to pursue a graduate degree, but will work in the meantime. Interestingly, 17.6% of the seniors said that their other pursuit would be self-employment, a category that did not even make the top six one year ago. Lesser percentages of the students plan internships and volunteer service than last year, perhaps, an indication of the improving job market.

Graduating seniors with confirmed employment are asked to name their future employer on the Senior Survey. Following are the results for the past 4 years:

The Armed Forces, Caterpillar, and Deloitte and Touche continued to be among the top five employers although the US Armed Forces was named more times. Motorola returned as a top employer in 2006 with Accenture and JP Morgan tied for the 5th position. Teach for America continues to be a top employer but with less commitments than a year ago. Interestingly, two retail employers appeared on the top 10 this year, Sears and Target (a return for Sears from 2003). The University of Illinois was again on the list.

This was the second year that career services offices were asked to identify the names of the top five employers

• that hired their graduates and number of hires (if available), and
• in regards to recruiting activity (interviewing, job postings, and resume referral) in their career office.

The list indicates that eight of the top organizations that hire and/or recruit at UIUC career services offices do so at more than one office: Deloitte (3), ADM (2), Caterpillar (2), IBM (2), Microsoft (2), Monsanto (2), University of Illinois (2), and US Department of Agriculture (2). Please note that this data is preliminary, based upon survey response immediately after graduation. Complete hiring numbers may be available from individual offices six months after graduation.

Use of Career Services (according to Graduating Seniors)

This was the second year the Chancellors Senior Survey asked students if they had used career services.

An astounding 74% of the graduating seniors for the class of 2006 responded that they had used career services, compared to 68% last year. This 6% increase demonstrates continued, strong usage of career services on campus. The table below reports results by the college of the graduating senior comparing the class of 2005 and the class of 2006. For graduating seniors in the Business College, 92% responded yes to the question (a 3% increase from last year) and 86% of the seniors in Engineering responded with a yes (a 13% increase from last year!).

Summary

Career services offices have shown an increase in student interviews, interview schedules, student participation, and employer relations during the 2005-06 academic year. Most significant is the increase in student participation and employer contacts. This increase is due to the extensive efforts by career services offices to serve a range of students and cultivate employer relations. These increased contacts with students and employers will reap benefits in the future. If the economy continues to recover and on-campus recruiting increases, as expected, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will be in a favorable position to capitalize on the enhanced opportunities for students and recruiting strategies of employers.

Post-graduation plans of 2006 graduating seniors are similar to the graduating classes of recent years. Confirmed employment was greater than the past two years, but still not as high as 2000-2001. As on-campus recruiting improves, it is expected that confirmed employment will increase for future graduates. Confirmed graduate/professional school plans remain about the same as previous years.

The number of graduating seniors indicating use of career services (74%) is significant and indicative of the value students have for career services at the University. This is the second year that senior survey data supports this broad use of career services. The widespread use of career services by students will strengthen student candidacy for employment and graduate/professional school, on-campus recruiting by employers, and post-graduation opportunities for students.

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

The Chancellors Senior Survey on the Undergraduate Experience at UIUC

In 1989, a task force appointed by the Chancellor created a questionnaire to be administered to all graduating seniors at UIUC. The results of the survey, the Chancellor said, will be useful in responding to requests for information on how our students feel about the educational experience they have had as undergraduates here and in identifying problems on campus which need our attention. The survey was administered in 1990 through 1993 and from 1996 to the present year.

Beginning in 1998 the Senior Survey has been administered electronically. In March 2005 an e-mail message regarding the Senior Survey was sent to all seniors on the May graduation list. The e-mail message from the Chancellor asked students to complete the survey posted on a university Web-site. Ten days following the initial e-mail message a follow-up message was sent reminding students to complete the survey. Survey respondents were entered into a lottery with a single prize of two free airline tickets valued at $500 each. Of these 4,722 seniors, 2,212, or approximately 47%, responded. Similar to past years, the respondents were roughly representative of the graduating class by gender, ethnic origin, and academic affiliation as indicated below.

Care should be taken in interpreting the results of the survey because the small number of respondents in some sub-categories makes the results statistically unreliable. This summary presents highlights of the data following the general order of the survey.

Appendix D

UIUC Senior Survey, conducted by Center for Teaching Excellence, John Ory, Director (reported by graduates)
Percentages do not equal 100% in some cases due to rounding and missing values.

UIUC Senior Survey, conducted by Center for Teaching Excellence, John Ory, Director (reported by graduates)
Percentages do not equal 100% in some cases due to rounding and missing values.

UIUC Senior Survey, conducted by Center for Teaching Excellence, John Ory, Director (reported by graduates)
Percentages do not equal 100% in some cases due to rounding and missing values.

UIUC Senior Survey, conducted by Center for Teaching Excellence, John Ory, Director (reported by graduates)
Percentages do not equal 100% in some cases due to rounding and missing values.

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