Entry Level Hiring Up 2.4% in 2021
SEATTLE, March 1, 2021 – With an entire year of hiring uncertainty due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), you might expect that employers have simply stopped hiring entry level college grads.
And you would be wrong.
Hiring growth has slowed, but employers are still hiring. And more importantly, entry level hiring has fundamentally changed.
According to the results of a new entry level hiring survey of more than 400 large US employers, hiring of new college grads in 2021 is up 2.4% over the previous year’s downward adjusted actual hiring numbers. CollegeGrad.com released the results of its Top Entry Level Employers survey today, with more than 400 US-based employers making the list.
“The results of our survey show the amazing resiliency of entry level employers in meeting market demands,” said Brian Krueger, CEO of CollegeGrad.com. “Employers are shifting to virtual hiring, virtual onboarding and virtual work in the new paradigm of hiring and work.”
Enterprise Rent-A-Car again topped the survey results, with 5,505 projected entry level hires in 2021. “Transparent communication and simply doing the right thing were our keys to successfully navigating recruitment and hiring during a global pandemic,” said Marie Artim, VP of Talent Acquisition for Enterprise Holdings. “As the business rebounded, we reengaged our university partners and our candidates to promote opportunities to bring this incredible talent into our evolving and innovative business.”
The full survey results of the Top Entry Level Employers are now available online at CollegeGrad.com/topemployers. The list includes employer detail pages displaying projected entry level and intern hires for 2021 along with direct links to the careers page, college page and internship page at each employer’s website.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted last year’s graduating class in a way no one could have anticipated. “The class of 2020 entered a non-existent jobs market at the height of the pandemic and financial recession, and had to pivot their expectations quickly,” said Jessica Schaeffer, VP at LaSalle Network. “They also had to acclimate themselves to virtual interviewing, however, their pre-existing familiarity with technology and participating in e-learning through their colleges played in their favor. Colleges are partnering with even more external sources, whether it’s having guest speakers join virtual classrooms, hosting webinars, or offering career coaching sessions to help students be best equipped entering a stressed job market.”
College students are no longer taking their job searches for granted. “Entry level candidates are more grateful, now than ever before, to be receiving a phone call from an employer,” said Delaney Bradley, Internal Recruiting Manager at ALKU. “With there being so much unknown right now, candidates are fearful that they will not be graduating college having already accepted a full-time offer. Interviewing virtually has become the ‘norm’ for these students, so they seem to have adapted quickly.”
Some entry level employers are hiring significantly more graduates this year than last year. “Our recruiting team has streamlined to an entirely virtual recruiting and onboarding process while our company continues to work in a safe remote capacity,” said Kathy Kelly, VP, Recruitment at Carahsoft Technology. “We have rallied together to ensure that all new hires receive the same effective and efficient virtual training experience when they begin their careers at Carahsoft. Despite adversity, Carahsoft continued to scale in size in 2020 with an impressive addition of over 650 new employees.”
Krueger further noted, “Entry level hiring has significantly changed in the last 12 months. College students looking for internships and entry level jobs need to be ready to make the shift to online and virtual to be competitive for the jobs with employers who are actually hiring.”
About CollegeGrad.com
CollegeGrad.com is the #1 entry level job site on the Internet and is the leader in the field of entry level job search since 1995. Brian Krueger is CEO of CollegeGrad.com, author of the best-selling book College Grad Job Hunter, and former VP Global Talent Acquisition for Amazon. Brian is available for interviews and additional quotes upon request.
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