Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
Job-hunting tips from the October 28, 2002 issue of
QuintZine.
Colleges and universities are seeing a
steady decline in students enrolling in computer
classes and pursuing careers in the technology industry,
reports Michelle Kessler in USA Today. A weak job market,
the changing nature of technology jobs and the technology
bust are reasons that students are tailing other career
options. According to the Information Technology Association
of America, the hiring of high-tech workers dropped 27 percent
in the past year. More than 334,000 tech and telecom workers
have lost jobs this year, according to employment firm
Challenger Gray & Christmas. But tech companies are worried
that shortages will arise in the next couple of years as fewer
and fewer students get computer-related degrees.
If you're employed but would like to go back to school,
there's a decent possibility your employer will pay for classes,
according to Knowledge@Wharton. Peter Cappelli, director
of Wharton's Center for Human Resources, found that virtually
all employers offer this benefit to some degree. Second,
employees do not pay for this benefit in the form of lower
wages. In fact, employers actually pay higher wages when
they also have this benefit, suggesting that the workers
must be more productive to compensate the company for
the higher salaries. Part of Cappelli's research, which
is summarized in a paper entitled, "Why Do Employers Pay for
College?" focused on industry-wide use of tuition
reimbursement. Among the biggest users are the hotel
industry and the business services industry (e.g.,
consulting firms). Also high were retail and wholesale
trade. Those industries that offer the lowest levels of
tuition reimbursement include food and tobacco, textile
and apparel, lumber and paper, and printing and publishing.
Other facts that Cappelli turned up in his research include:
Roughly 20 percent of graduate students are receiving some
financial assistance from their employers to attend schools;
roughly 6 percent of the much bigger pool of undergraduates
receive such aid as well.
If one looks only at adult students, 24 percent of adults
in post-secondary education programs of the kind that offered
credentials (e.g., degrees or certificates) were receiving
tuition assistance from an employer, and 53 percent were
either receiving tuition support or paid time off from work.
Financial assistance from employers is the most common
source of financial aid. The average level of employer-provided
assistance per recipient was equal to about a third of the
average annual cost paid by post-secondary students.
CareerBuilder recently uncovered some interesting facts about
hiring decisions after surveying 480 respondents who were
responsible for or involved in the hiring process:
Almost a third of the survey respondents involving
in the hiring process indicated that it required four
or more people to make the hiring decision.
For 58 percent of hiring managers, two to three people
were involving in making the decision to hire.
Nine out of 10 hiring managers felt that the right
balance of education and experience was the most important
criteria in evaluating candidates.
Fitting into a company's culture is important to 84 percent of
the respondents.
Seventy-eight percent of hiring managers indicated that they
spend both time and effort in screening resumes sent to them by HR.
Once screened, 55 percent felt the candidates provided by HR were
well-qualified; however, 17 percent disagreed about the level of quality.
According to the 2001 NACAC (National Association
for College Admission Counseling) Admission Trends Survey,
the percentage of schools that ranked these factors as
considerably important in admission decisions:
Colleges and universities are seeing a
steady decline in students enrolling in computer
classes and pursuing careers in the technology industry,
reports Michelle Kessler in USA Today. A weak job market,
the changing nature of technology jobs and the technology
bust are reasons that students are tailing other career
options. According to the Information Technology Association
of America, the hiring of high-tech workers dropped 27 percent
in the past year. More than 334,000 tech and telecom workers
have lost jobs this year, according to employment firm
Challenger Gray & Christmas. But tech companies are worried
that shortages will arise in the next couple of years as fewer
and fewer students get computer-related degrees.
