College Graduates - Why Employers Want To Work With You

Hiring Recent College Graduates Explained

I like to hire recent college graduates and, besides Ann, nobody at KAS Placement is a former recruiter. Working with recent college graduates is fun and you can mold them to think like the team. Well, that is if they agree with your philosophy. I contacted a New York state college about a week before I am writing this and just today I received an email from somebody in the career services department. The email read:

"What major?"

I looked at the email is disbelief. What major? Here was my response:

"I want someone who can describe why they studied what they did - a resume doesn't really matter to me. I want people who are creative, passionate, friendly, intelligent, driven. We don't have cubicles where I work, nor will we ever. We don't have managers, we have teachers. We don't have titles, we have goals. So, to answer your question, it doesn't matter. I want the students who can make the company and themselves money..."

I figure that many companies are concerned with what the students studied. I can understand if it is an accounting or financial analysis position, though I don't see any other career that a regular college student can't thrive in. Here is the problem with many colleges as I am currently speaking with one about helping teach a class. Colleges have books that are outdated and, for the most part, (NYU, Columbia and DeVry aside) the students are taught outdated and very impertinent subjects. For instance, most business programs teach an entire course on supply chain management. Last time I checked, I have not come across a large factory in New York City. Also, supply chain management can be taught in an hour. The entire premise is to find the "kinks" (I forget the formal industry title) in a supply chain and alleviate the problem. If you want to work in a factory and end up getting hired by a huge soda company, they pretty much have this covered. My bet, and I'm going out on a limb, is that Cisco probably has protocol if the output of one of their factories is not meeting demand. Oh, did I mention that most of these plants are also in China?

Additionally, the marketing these young students are taught is old, antiquated and would be laughed by by a board of true marketing professionals. I remember a young student who read a blog post of mine (how he found it, I'll never know), but he asked if doing SWOT analysis very frequently is the best way to go. I remember being taught the acronym and remember thinking to myself that, again this could be taught in an hour.

Therefore, I don't care what their major is. How are you supposed to judge a college graduated by a major which they had to choose at the age of 17. I had a lot more hobbies and concerns at that age instead of what I want to do in 10 years. I studied accounting later which was helpful, but for the first two years I chose business management. The reason I did so is that business management is probably the easiest major in most schools. I would love a recent college graduate to come out and say that to me. That would mean that he or she is willing to take risks. I would rather hear that than listen to why somebody wanted to build bridges for the ten years he or she spent planning before even applying then they switched to something entirely different.