News > February 7, 2008

By Elliot Engstrom | News editor

Employers plan to increase entry level hiring by 11.8 percent in 2008, according to CollegeGrad.com. The increase is the largest projected increase in entry-level hiring since 2005. According to Collegegrad.com, 60 percent of their top entry level employers anticipate hiring more college graduates in 2008 than in 2007. 21 percent plan to hire the same number and 19 percent will hire fewer.“This is an impressive number of openings for 2008,” Collegegrad.com President Brian Krueger said in a Jan. 31 article from WorldatWork.org. CollegeGrad.com is an entry-level job Web site for college graduates.

They recently announced their list of what they consider the top 500 entry level employers for 2008. Enterprise Rent-A-Car tops the list, with plans to hire 8,500 new college graduates. Also near the top of the list are such companies as Americorps, Walgreen Company, the Internal Revenue Service and Progressive Insurance, each with 4,000 or more projected entry level hires for 2008. At the bottom of the list with ten projected hires each are Cleary Gottlieb, Grainger, Larson Design Group, and Melick-Tully and Associates.The list represents over 165,000 jobs that will be available to this year’s graduating class.

The list boasts several companies that were present in previous years, such as Lowe’s and Liberty Mutual Group, and also many newcomers to the list, including EMC and FactSet.

The increase is good for seniors at the university, many of whom have big ambitions for their future careers. However, seniors are not popping the cork on the champagne yet.

Many realize that to be competitive in today’s job market, one must often continue schooling after completing undergraduate studies.

“While an increase in jobs available for college graduates is enticing, the fact still remains that most of us are going to need to pursue advanced degrees in order to truly be competitive in our fields,” said senior Rob Daniels. “I’m guessing the number of big-time law firms looking to hire first-year college graduates is fairly low.”

The university’s Office of Career Services has seen an increase in the number of organizations looking for university graduates. “The Office of Career Services experienced a 13 percent increase in the number of organizations recruiting on campus last semester,” said Director of Career Services William Currin. “It is too early to project with any degree of accuracy the year end percentage of actual hires which this activity will yield. An additional complicating question relative to projecting the job market is the impact of a possible recession which could occur later this year.”

For the entire list of CollegeGrad.com’s top entry level employers for 2008, students can visit www.collegegrad.com/topemployers.

The site features the 500 top entry level employers, along with how many projected hires each company has for 2008.