Trevaughn Wright-Reynolds, a senior at Colby College in Maine, expected a lengthy job search when he returned to campus in August. “I wasn’t sure how much interest I was going to get,” he said. “I didn’t know what to think of the job market.”
It didn’t take him long to find out. By September, he was in the final round of interviews with several suitors, and on Oct. 1, Wright-Reynolds accepted a position with a proprietary trading company in Chicago. “I didn’t think I would get an offer this quickly,” he said.
For many college students, the pandemic’s arrival last year did more than disrupt their studies, threaten their health and shut down campus life. It also closed off the usual paths that lead from the classroom to jobs after graduation. On-campus recruiting visits were abandoned, and the coronavirus-induced recession made companies pull back from hiring.
But this year, seniors and recent graduates are in great demand as white-collar employers staff up, with some job seekers receiving multiple offers. University placement office directors and corporate human resources executives report that hiring is running well above last year’s levels and in some cases surpasses pre-pandemic activity in 2019.
“The current market is great for employment,” said Lisa Noble, director of employer partnerships and emerging pathways at Colby. “There was a lot of trepidation for companies in 2020. People wanted to see how things would work out and were stalling.” Since June 1, Noble has had discussions with 428 employers, compared with 273 in the same period last year.
Much of the recruiting is taking place virtually, as are job fairs and even many internships. But the reliance on virtual platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams for interviews, job offers and eventually welcoming new hires aboard hasn’t dimmed enthusiasm among employers.
“The appetite for college labor is strong right now, whether it’s student positions, or part time, all the way through entry-level jobs,” said Jennifer Neef, director of the Career Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
That appetite at this stage of the pandemic — when overall U.S. employment remains more than 5 million jobs below the level in early 2020 — underscores the long-standing economic premium for those with a college education over holders of just a high school diploma.
The unemployment rate for all workers with a college degree stood at 2.8% in August, compared with 6% for high school graduates with no college. Among workers ages 22-27, the jobless rate in June was 6.2% for those with at least a bachelor’s degree and 9.6% for those without one, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
“We’ve seen a bifurcation in the labor market recovery,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “College graduates were less affected by job losses and have seen a faster rebound, while people with high school diplomas or less witnessed a much more serious decline in employment opportunities during the COVID crisis.”
What’s more, the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus has been a onetwo punch for those lacking a college degree, hitting the sectors they depend on the most, like restaurants and bars, hotels and retail businesses. By contrast, whitecollar employers are thriving.
Office work also can be done remotely, a key advantage over face-to-face jobs dealing with consumers that frequently employ less-educated workers. In many cases, the new hires will rarely set foot at corporate headquarters, with orientation and full-time work mostly taking place online.
And the courtship rituals of recruiters haven’t changed, even if everything is done over the internet.
“It’s back to business as usual,” said Wendy Dziorney, global university hiring leader at HP Inc. The company plans to hire 315 graduates of the Class of 2021 in the United States, compared with 126 from the Class of 2020 and 210 in the Class of 2019.
Fall marks the peak of the recruiting season on campus, with interviews and full-time offers for seniors, and internships beckon for many sophomores and juniors.
“October is our busiest month,” said Jennifer Newbill, director of university recruitment at Dell Technologies. Her company has extended full-time offers to more than 1,300 graduates this year, up 60% from 2020.
Recruiters of students in the hottest majors — including engineering, computer sciences, accounting and economics — find themselves butting up against one another for the same candidates.
The rise in campus hiring means more choices for some current students as well as belated help for the pandemic-hit Class of 2020, said Annette McLaughlin, director of the Office of Career Services at Fordham University.
“Activity is up significantly from last year and is about 10% higher than it was before the pandemic,” she said. “It’s likely that students will get multiple offers and they will have to choose.”
Wright-Reynolds, the Colby senior, is studying statistics with a minor in computer sciences. A native of Medford, Massachusetts, he will start at the trading firm in Chicago in August.
“This was a great opportunity, and I couldn’t go wrong in accepting it,” he said. “I feel like a weight is off my shoulders. I have a lot more time to enjoy senior year.”