Hiring surge brings recruiters to Bay Area campus job fairs

Originally published in San Jose Mercury News April 20, 2011

By Lisa M. Krieger

After years of gloom, college students are flocking to campus job fairs this month in what is shaping up to be the best job hunting season since the Class of 2008.

Universities all over the Bay Area report an increase in the number of recruiters seeking to fill entry-level jobs and internships — brightening prospects for students whose entire adult lives have been clouded by the Great Recession.

As commencement approaches, 148 recruiters are visiting UC Berkeley this week at a job fair so big that it was turned into a two-day event — for the first time since 2008. More than 1,500 students are expected to attend.

Earlier this month, Santa Clara University’s fair attracted 75 employers, up from 50 last year. At San Jose State, lines of students snaked through the Student Union hallways and the number of prospective employers jumped from 52 to 73 — so high that recruiters were turned away.

“The valley is heating up again,” said Lance Choy, director of Stanford University’s Career Development Center, which held its first Ph.D. Fair on Wednesday. Last week, Stanford hosted 128 companies at its undergraduate fair — and because it ran out of room, needed to create a waiting list.

“It’s been a tough couple years,” he said. “A lot of students struggled.”

With bold ideas, curious spirits and near-infinite reserves of energy, most college graduates are eager to launch their careers with feverish optimism.

But few groups suffered greater setbacks during the recession than the young. The jobless rate for new college graduates averaged 9.3 percent in 2010, double the figure for older graduates, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. (It was far higher, 17 percent, for 20- to 24-year-olds without degrees.)

As undergrads, students watched their elder classmates enter the worst job market in recent history — many forced to move back home with their parents, because of unemployment. Such a bleak start has lifelong implications; because most workers see their incomes increase slowly and steadily, a low starting salary can affect future earnings.

Now, a technology-led recovery is slowly spreading throughout the local economy, adding jobs in every sector except construction. The 150 biggest public companies in Silicon Valley had their most profitable year in history in 2010, bolstered by demand for new handheld gadgets.

Campus counselors caution students that Santa Clara County still has an unemployment rate of 10.3 percent — and because the job market remains very competitive, new grads should consider “starter jobs” that are not necessarily in their field, and build up their resumes with research assistant positions or part-time work.

“I was definitely scared,” said Santa Clara University senior Tasha Mistry, whose studies taught her how to apply computer-based data analysis to guide business strategies.

“I planned on graduating a year early — but my professor gave me the best advice, advising me to stay in school, due to the economy,” she said.

Now the 21-year-old Fremont native has, not one, but three job offers — all from top-tier companies: Kaiser Permanente, Cisco Systems and Adobe. Kaiser’s offer came through a successful internship, which she landed after an on-campus “resume review.” She met Cisco at a campus job fair last January, and though the San Jose networking giant didn’t have any openings then, she kept in touch. Adobe found her through the school’s career website, called BroncoLink.

Job listings on San Jose State’s SpartaJobs website jumped 59 percent to 1,831 listings compared to the same period last year.

Today’s graduating students are benefiting from a confluence of factors, said Tom Devlin, director of UC Berkeley’s Career Center and president of the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

“First, employers have greater confidence in the economy, and are now hiring for positions that they had been holding back,” he said. “Second, employers are recognizing that there is heightened competition to hire the best candidates.”

A recent survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that employers this year expect to hire at least 13 percent more new college graduates compared with 2010.

“We’ve grown by leaps and bounds every year so we just keep on hiring, and with a nice talent pool like this close by, it’s a plus for us,” said Dan St. Peter, a recruiter for TIBCO Software in Palo Alto who met students at the job fair Wednesday at UC Berkeley.

At Santa Clara and Stanford, recruiters are showing special interest in software engineers and startups are showing up to hunt for talent to fuel green businesses.

“But there seems to be hiring in other areas, as well. It’s nice to see the traditional fields of finance, consulting and marketing coming back,” Stanford’s Choy said. “Except for teaching or government, the overall market is looking pretty good.”

After happy deliberation, SCU student Mistry made her choice: Adobe. And because she doesn’t start until June 6, she has time to celebrate in Hawaii.

“It feels surreal. I didn’t think I’d get anything, after the way the market was,” she said. “I’m so excited to be able to support myself.”