By Brittany Hutson
The Great Recession may be over but the 14.8 million of people out of work could care less. College graduates of the last two years were met with dismal expectations, as many received their degrees only to have to join the ranks of the unemployed soon thereafter.
Fortunately, for the graduating class of 2011, the job outlook seems to be positive. The Job Outlook 2011 Fall Preview, a survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), says that employers expect to hire 13.5 percent more grads from the upcoming class than they hired from the Class of 2010.
This should mean good news for students of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, many of which are concluding their career fair season. Florida A&M University’s career center director Dr. Delores Dean says 102 companies attended their September career fair and all were hiring. This number is a slight increase in the number of companies that attended last year, she said. At Howard University, Dr. Joan Browne, director of the Center for Career Education, Development & Research (CEDAR) Center said the university typically holds a two-day fair because of high company demand. She said 143 companies registered for their recent fair.
The number of companies jetting to university campuses may be holding steady but the outcome of the recruitment process tells a different story. In 2007, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund released a study that concluded there was a disproportionate number of gradates hired from HBCUs in contrast to predominately white institutions. The study found that out of 31 college students that were hired, only four were HBCU graduates. Unfortunately, this disparity still exists few years later.
“The problem is that many corporations and many Americans for that matter don’t know what HBCUs are and are not aware of the contributions these institutions are making to society and to individuals,” said Dr. Marybeth Gasman, an associate professor in higher education at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Companies need to understand the proven track record that HBCUs have in terms of preparing students with confidence and well-rounded skills that can be used in the workplace.”
At the time of the study’s release, the TMCF president explained that the disparity was due to the number of on campus visits made by recruiters; for budgetary reasons, most companies only visited one to 10 schools. Browne, who said that the number of on site-interviews have scaled back, agreed that the success of a company’s recruitment efforts is dependent on the number of visits they make to campus. “Companies that do more than just participate in a career fair and are involved with the campus weekly, monthly or quarterly will become recognizable to students and when the company is hiring, students will be breaking the down the doors to try and get in,” she said.
Besides additional campus visits, to attract the best students companies have to develop relationships with department heads, but this is another budget constraint. “Every company can’t go to the department head at every campus so the challenge becomes what are your level of resources internally; what is your commitment to targeting this talent at HBCUs; what are your organization’s needs and what schools can meet those needs,” said Daniel Moss, vice president of business development for HBCU Connect, LLC.
Moss suggests companies be more creative in the outlets they use to search for HBCU students, particularly, by going into niche sites and programs within the African American community. Diversity in corporate America is still an issue despite continuous research that stresses the value in recruiting and retaining talented African Americans. While the immediate result of a student graduating without a job is unemployment, this is only temporary. The companies who are still behind the curve in attracting diverse prospects will ultimately be left behind in a country where more than 50 percent of the population will be non-white by 2050.
