Penn graduates fare better than most in job market

Penn students are faring better than their peers nationwide in finding jobs upon graduation.

Although preliminary data for the Class of 2011 will not be available until next month, Career Services Director Patricia Rose wrote in an email that compared to all college graduates nationwide, this year’s Penn graduates are “doing well.” She pointed out that campus recruiting was up over 10 percent, employer attendance at career days increased by more than 20 percent and job postings were up as well.

2011 College graduate Rachel Durkin is among those who have found a job. She will be working as an assistant buyer and planner for the department store Lord & Taylor after completing a 12-week paid training program.

Durkin credits On-Campus Recruiting for helping her successfully land a job. “Penn does a good job with OCR,” she said. “You can spend all your time sending out resumes, but OCR helps by actually getting your resume to someone who can provide you with work.”

A recent study by Rutgers University found that just 53 percent of undergraduate students who graduated between 2006 and 2010 are employed full-time. In contrast, 60 percent of Penn students across the four schools were able to find full-time employment directly after graduating, according to the Class of 2010 Career Plans Survey conducted by Penn Career Services.

Many students who didn’t join the work force opted for graduate school instead. The Rutgers survey found that 21 percent of college graduates attended graduate school.

That number is about the same for Penn students who graduated in 2010, roughly 20 percent of whom studied full-time after graduation.

2011 College graduate Scott Lee, who majored in biology, will be attending the University of California at Irvine to study cellular and molecular biology in hopes of working in the field of biomedical science one day.

“I want to pursue a career in biomedical science, probably going into the industry after receiving my PhD,” he said. “Jobs in the field are hard to come by for post-bacs without internships directly in their field of interest, so getting a PhD would help better my chances and better prepare me for the demands of the job.”

The Rutgers report also showed that not only have employment rates declined for new college graduates, but the starting salaries for the students who managed to find jobs have decreased as well.

For students graduating from four-year colleges in 2009 and 2010, the median starting salary was $27,000, compared to $30,000 for those who entered the work force in 2006 to 2008. The average salary for Penn students who graduated in 2010, on the other hand, was $55,068.

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