What Employers Want From New Grads

May 5, 2008 at 6:42 am | In entry-level |

College graduation is coming up soon. Seniors from my Alma Mater will be walking on Saturday. It sure is hard to believe it’s been an entire year since I took that stroll across the stage. The new grads from the class of 2008 are sure to bring new skills and dynamics to the workforce. Some seniors may have jobs lined up, while some are still looking, and others may be waiting for six months or so.

I bring this up because CollegeGrad.com, which is the leader in entry-level job searches on the Internet, recently released a study of what employers are looking for in these new hires. Some of the results may surprise you.

The results are as follows:

#1- The student’s major (44 %)
#2- The student’s interviewing skills (18%)
#3- The student’s internship/ experience (17%)
#4- The college the student graduates from (10%)
#5- Other miscellaneous classifications (5%)
#6- The student’s GPA (4%)
#7- The student’s personal appearance (1%)
#8- The student’s computer skills (1%)

Major being the number one qualification makes sense. If you don’t have much experience, it’s all about the degree. Also, today’s workforce is very major specific orientated- whether it’s engineering, accounting, teaching, etc.

The relatively low percentage of employers looking for the college the student graduates from and the GPA kind of surprises me. We are always told to work hard in high school so we can get into a top college, and then work hard in college to have a top GPA. I think the GPA only matters if it is too low. Maybe it makes sense to go to the state college, rather than the private school that will leave you $50,000 in debt when you leave.