According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “State universities have become the favorite of companies recruiting new hires because their big student populations and focus on teaching practical skills gives the companies more bang for their recruiting buck.”
In an economy where everyone’s cutting back, a one-stop shopping spot at a larger-than-life university could be just what recruiters need to cut costs, streamline their hiring efforts, and save time.
The Wall Street Journal surveyed top corporate recruiters and found that the top three school picks were Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all large state schools.
The survey also set out to determine which majors and schools best prepare students for well-paying, satisfying jobs. Along with PayScale and Cambria Consulting, the WSJ investigated the factors that made certain schools recruiter hotspots, and other not. The schools were then ranked according to which schools attracted the most corporate recruiters, overall and according to major.
For example, the University of Michigan (no. 6) was so popular among Google recruiters that the company decided to open new sales and operations offices in nearby Ann Arbor. The same thing goes for Carnegie Mellon University (no. 10 overall and no. 1 for computer science)—Google opened an office in Pittsburgh, making it convenient to hire computer science graduates from CMU.
So what about the Ivy League schools? The Ivies didn’t rank as high as larger state schools for a number of reasons. One reason is because of their size: Fewer students create less of a draw for recruiters. Also, at Harvard, for example, more than 55% of graduate go on to get doctoral degrees, instead of entering the workforce. Furthermore, while they may not have ranked high overall, many did rank well for particular majors. Harvard ranked no. 4 in business and economics; Stanford ranked no. 11 in engineering and no. 16 in business and economics.
1. Pennsylvania State University
2. Texas A&M University
3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
4. Purdue University
5. Arizona State University
6. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
7. Georgia Institute of Technology
8. University of Maryland, College Park
9. University of Florida
10. Carnegie Mellon University
11. Brigham Young University
12. Ohio State University
13. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
14. Cornell University
15. University of California, Berkeley
16. University of Wisconsin, Madison
17. University of California, Los Angeles
18. Texas Tech
19. (tied) North Carolina State University
19. (tied) University of Virginia
21. Rutgers University, New Brunswick
22. University of Notre Dame
23. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
24. University of Southern California
25. (tie) Washington State University
25. (tie) University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Read the full article: Why Recruiters Favor Large State Schools
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