RIT Office of Cooperative Education and Career Services

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Fall Statistics

The fall quarter saw a very active recruiting season on the RIT campus, including our largest Career Fair to date. Here are some statistics you may find interesting.

Fall Career Fair:
247 companies, with 662 representatives
2272 students and 271 alumni
86 employes interviewed 1207 students the following day

Other Recruiting Activity:
69 companies conducted on-campus interviews
817 co-op jobs were posted
1076 full-time jobs were posted

Co-op Placement:
1198 students reported co-op placement at 615 companies
Students co-oped in 35 states and the following countries:


- Australia
- Barbados
- Belgium
- Canada
- Germany
- Hong Kong
- India
- Japan
- Kazakstan
- Korea
- Taiwan, Republic of China
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom

Mentor Program

We’re currently recruiting employers, alumni, and friends of RIT - including Parents - to participate in our Career Mentor Program for 2008/09. Career Mentors are paired one-on-one with students for a six-month mentoring relationship, to assist with job search strategies, professional development, and personal growth. Through monthly discussions and a variety of activities, mentor volunteers share their experiences, career knowledge, and industry expertise with a student interested in their field.

This year’s program will run from January – June 2009. If you would like to assist a student by providing your professional insights, general career guidance and enthusiasm for what you do, please consider volunteering to become a career mentor. If you are interested, please email Kris Stehler, kwsoce@rit.edu, and we’ll follow up with additional information.

Focus: Federal Hiring

Federal Government Hiring During an Economic Downturn
By John Palguta, Vice President of Policy and Research,
The Partnership for Public Service

Since a number of major U.S. employers are reducing their hiring plans or even putting them on indefinite hold during the economic downturn, will the federal government also be cutting back or putting its hiring efforts on hold? While predicting the future is an inexact science, the odds are the correct answer to that question is no. It’s true that there is a large and growing federal deficit and federal agency budgets will be tight going forward under any scenario, but the federal government will still need to rely upon a cadre of talented employees to effectively address some of the underlying causes of the downturn. In fact, it’s precisely because of the nature of the multiple challenges facing the nation that the federal government may need to actually increase its hiring plans to a modest extent as it prepares to help meet those challenges.

President-elect Barack Obama has outlined in broad strokes some ambitious goals for the federal government. He has also been clear in his respect for the public service. And, since there is typically a modest increase in turnover with any change in Administrations, there may even be an slight overall increase in hiring over the next four years compared to the last four years. During FY 2004 through 2007, for example, the federal government made over 381,000 new hires into full-time, permanent positions. A reasonably safe bet is that the federal government will need to hire at least that many new employees and probably more during CY 2009 through 2012. One note of caution, there may be intense competition for many federal openings over the next few years and the federal government does focus on hiring the best candidates for the jobs to be filled. However, if one is good enough, there will be some exciting employment opportunities in the federal government for new college graduates during this time.

Federal hiring remains strong

Despite the recent economic downturn, and projected hiring restrictions, the federal government continues to seek students for both co-op/internship positions, and full-time positions upon graduation. According to an article in the New York Daily News, unemployment has been rising, and the economy is tight, but the nation's biggest employer is hiring.

The federal government, which employs about 2 million workers, is facing a labor squeeze as baby boomers retire. Nearly one third of federal employees will reach retirement age by the end of 2012, including 58% of those now in supervisory roles, according to the Office of Personnel Management. "There is a great crisis in the federal work force," said Max Stier, president of Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that tries to bring young talent and retired private sector workers into the federal workforce.

According to a survey conducted by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, there are 100,000 unique government jobs currently available, which should be good news to the nation's 8.5 million unemployed workers, a number that grew 861,000 in May. In New York, the state Department of Labor said the private sector lost over 10,000 jobs in the last two months, but gained 30,000 government jobs.

That was consistent with the nationwide picture, where private companies shed 286,000 workers in the first three months of 2008 while the government added 76,800 jobs. Within the city, there are 55,000 federal employees.

RIT is committed to assisting the government with its recruiting needs, through on-campus recruiting, and our upcoming Federal and Public Service Career Fair, to be held on January 21, 2009.

Includes Information From NY Daily News online, Joshua Cinelli, 6/20/08

Economic Outlook
"Shrinking Job Market: The Next Crisis?"
Gallup Poll News Service (10/02/08) Jacobe, Dennis

Employee perceptions of the job market dropped considerably in September, marking the biggest monthly fall so far this year. The trend suggests that the economy lost even more than the projected 100,000 jobs, which would send the unemployment rate above 6.1 percent. Gallup's Net New Hiring Activity measure found that U.S. workers' perceptions of the job market at their places of employment, which had already declined in August, was down much more in September. The Net New Hiring Activity measure, based on interviews with more than 9,000 employees, found that the percentage of employees saying their companies are hiring fell to 34.8 percent, the lowest level of the year, while the percentage of companies letting people go rose to 19.2 percent, the highest level of the year. The Gallup findings suggest that the next crisis to hit America will be joblessness. The survey found that net new hiring activity fell in all U.S. regions in September, with the sharpest dec lines in the East and the Midwest. Despite all the talk that the exporting business in the United States has remained strong, the slowing overseas economies will likely continue to cause the situation to deteriorate in the months ahead, particularly in the Midwest. Although net new hiring activity also fell in the South in September, it remains the best job market in the United States.

Job Outlook 2009: College Hiring Flat for Class of 2009
National Association of Colleges and Employers

Current projected hiring for the Class of 2009 shows very little growth over the hiring levels for the Class of 2008, but no expected decline. This projection is based on a recent poll of Job Outlook participants who were asked to re-evaluate the hiring projections they provided in August in light of recent developments that suggest the general economy may be facing a significant downturn. In the August poll, approximately one-third of respondents said they were re-assessing their projection of college hires downward. Now, among respondents to the current poll, 52 percent of respondents currently project that they will be hiring fewer graduates during the 2009 recruiting season than they hired from the Class of 2008; 34 percent still anticipate hiring more graduates, and 14 percent expect to hire the same as they hired in 2008. The decreased expectation for college hiring that occurred between August and October was broadly felt across industries. Only government as a sector saw a significant increase in hiring expectations, while manufacturing and professional services remain essentially flat during the period of economic turmoil. All other industry categories decreased their hiring expectations for the Class of 2009.

Student Profile

Nikeisha Black at Bath & Body Works
Major: Packaging Science
Year: Senior
City: New York, NY
Title: Packaging Development Intern

What do you do?
Member of Packaging Development Team. I worked on new innovations, working with suppliers to execute merchants (marketing) and design team's visions; Created specifications.
How did you find your job? I found this job on the RIT Job Zone website
Any advice? Don't ONLY rely on career fairs because you never know what's out there. There are many companies that miss the career fair and is still looking for co-ops, so do your research.