New Survey Details What Top Employers Want Most

Hiring Criteria For College Grads

Milwaukee, WI - Which is more important to entry level employers the college you graduated from? Or what you majored in? According to a new study from CollegeGrad.com, the answer may surprise you.

The survey was conducted in conjunction with identifying the top entry level employers for 2002 that was just completed by CollegeGrad.com, the #1 entry level job site. The criteria that the employers ranked as most important are as follows:

The candidate's major
The candidate's communication skills
The candidate's internship/experience
The candidate's personal appearance
The candidate's computer skills
The candidate's GPA
The college the candidate graduated from
Other miscellaneous qualifications

As the chart shows, employers ranked a candidates major as a top priority. So having the right major for your career field is much more important than attending Harvard or Stanford.

Ranked second, communication skills are also seen as critical for success. No matter how strong the resume, no matter where you went to school, no matter what your GPA, if the candidate is not successful in communicating their background and experience, they will likely fail in the interviewing process.

Tom Tarantelli, Director of the Center Development Center of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said, "Great news not withstanding, students in the current market need to be flexible and seek out what makes them "unique." In other words it is more important than ever that students link their skills to employment opportunities and be able to answer the question: "why am I the best person for the job?"

Internships and other experience are ranked third and are an important differentiator both at the entry level and in the job market in general. This is even more important now that college graduates are now competing with additional experienced individuals due to recent layoffs.

Lastly, to round out the criteria rankings were personal appearance, GPA, computer skills, and what college the candidate graduated from.

"For students who are worrying that they didn't attend the right college or worrying that their GPA is not high enough, this survey shows that these are not what most employers are looking at first," stated Brian Krueger, President of CollegeGrad.com. "It's more important to have taken the right major and classes for your career at a local state school than to have majored in Philosophy at Harvard."

For more information on the survey results along with a list of over 250 of the Top Entry Level Employers, visit www.CollegeGrad.com.

About CollegeGrad.com:
CollegeGrad.com is consistently ranked the #1 entry level job site on the Internet and is a leader in the field of entry level job search. Brian Krueger is President of CollegeGrad.com and author of the best-selling book for entry level job search, College Grad Job Hunter.

Further information on this news story, including access to the original survey form, as well as additional quotes from employers and college career center directors, may be obtained from the Web site at: www.CollegeGrad.com/press.

CONTACT INFO: Kim McCormack, CollegeGrad.com, 414-321-9700 or contact us online.

NOTE: The information contained in these survey results may be reprinted in whole or in part as long as full attribution is given to CollegeGrad.com as the source of the information. This is an exception of our standard copyright policy for the material on this page only.

Brian Krueger is available for interviews with national TV, radio, magazines and newspapers as an industry expert on college/entry level hiring, as well as Internet job search.