Competing for the top grads
From Hopkinton-based EMC Corp., which will hire 500 nationwide from the college class of 2006, to Milford-based Waters Corp., seeking out a dozen top college students for its R & D efforts, area companies are beefing up their recruiting efforts on campuses.
"We all want the top 5 percent of the students in the graduating class," says Nina Rock, human resource manager for R & D at Waters. "So we need to make our presence known on campus."Yvonne Harrison, career development director at WPI in Worcester, says many of her college’s 700 to 800 graduates for 2006 actually garnered job offers last summer or fall in what is the best graduate hiring market she has seen since 2000. Service sector companies, manufacturers, defense contractors and even retailers are showing increased interest in WPI grads, who will make an average of $55,000 a year to start.
Harrison and her colleagues at area campuses say companies have been "coming back strong" in their college recruiting efforts over the past two years, bolstering participation in job fairs, student projects and intern programs. Graduates are not only enjoying multiple job offers and competitive salaries, Harrison says, but are being enticed with something she hasn’t seen in a while – sign-on and relocation bonuses. One company, which she declined to name, is offering a $5,000 bonus to graduates who sign up within a week’s time.
At the College of the Holy Cross, Director of Career Planning John Winters notes a 38 percent increase in employer participation in the spring corporate fair on campus. On-campus visits by companies were up by 13 percent, with some 50 companies participating in various recruiting programs there. Companies seeking out Holy Cross’ 700 graduates this year represent a wide variety of industries, he says, from accounting heavy hitters to finance and high-tech. "It’s a great year to be a graduate," Winters says.
Over at Clark University, Director of Career Services David McDonough says EMC has been actively posting a number of positions, alongside IBM and other high-tech employer and biotech firms. He says graduates with technology and computer science degrees are the No. 1 sought-after hirees, followed by biology majors as the local biotech industry continues to rebound.
Erin Motameni, vice president of human resources at EMC, says her company is still in the process of hiring 300 to 350 grads in Massachusetts. EMC representatives visit 45 to 50 campuses around the country, Motameni says.
Betty Smith, manager of university recruiting at Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Co., with facilities in Littleton and Marlboro, says the computer giant is looking to hire 800 students nationwide. It has long had strong relationships with Mass. colleges like MIT and UMass and is seeing more competition this year for skilled grads, she says.
Waters’ campus recruiting efforts are more recent. Rock says the company began cultivating a more formal strategic relationship with colleges over the past year or so, attending job fairs and getting involved in sponsoring student programs in an effort to establish more name recognition and credibility among students.
Waters is currently seeking four graduates for full-time hires and eight coop or intern students, Rock says. Overall, she says, Waters has very little turnover, but the company made a conscious decision to strengthen its relationship with colleges in order to "seed" its future workforce.
Micky Baca can be reached at mbaca@wbjournal.com
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