Best Fields for 2012 Grads Are Accounting, Finance, Engineering, and Computer Science

As the economy continues to slowly improve, so do the prospects for entry-level job candidates who are expected to benefit from companies’ need to rebuild “bench strength” after cutting millions of workers during the recession. However, while this year’s crop of 1.7 million college graduates should fare slightly better than last year’s, the job market will remain fiercely competitive, according to a new outlook from global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

The college graduates who are likely to have the most success are those with the flexibility to go wherever the jobs are and those seeking positions in the occupations expected to see the most growth over the next decade. Among the top fields are accounting and finance, engineering, computer science, sales and marketing, elementary education, and health care and social services. Continue Reading

Survey: Professional-Level Hiring Expected to Increase in First Quarter of 2012; Executives See Rise in Recruiting Challenges

Employers expect to increase hiring for professional-level positions in the first quarter, but they have concerns about finding qualified candidates for these roles, a new Robert Half survey shows. A net 10 percent of executives interviewed for the Robert Half Professional Employment Report plan to add full-time staff in the first three months of the year, up three points from the fourth-quarter forecast. However, the number of respondents who report recruiting challenges also is on the rise: 67 percent of executives said it is at least somewhat challenging to find skilled employees today, up from 59 percent last quarter and 42 percent in the third quarter.

Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they are at least somewhat confident in their organizations’ ability to grow in the first quarter. Continue Reading

CFOs Plan Modest Hiring in First Quarter

Survey Finds Most Active Hiring Projected at Largest Companies
The job market in accounting and finance is holding steady, suggests a new survey. Nine percent of chief financial officers (CFOs) interviewed plan to add full-time employees and 8 percent expect to decrease the size of their staff, according to the Robert Half International Financial Hiring Index. Eighty-two percent of executives said they would make no changes to the size of their teams.
In a sign of the current economic climate, the percentage of firms anticipating personnel reductions is at its highest point in the past three years. However, the number of companies expecting to hire is above the average over that same period, reflecting an ongoing need for skilled professionals.
Large companies, in particular, plan to add staff in key specialty areas. Eighteen percent of respondents at firms with 1,000 or more employees expect to hire in the first quarter, compared to 8 percent who anticipate decreasing staff levels.

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Accounting and Finance Internships With Ernst & Young

Posted on Friday, November 28, 2008
Happy Black Friday! May you not get in a fist fight over a discounted video game system or flat screen TV. Today is the official start of the holiday shopping season, and legend has it that it is also the first day of the year that major retailers “go into the black.” For those of you not familiar with accounting terminology, that means that they finally become profitable. Whether or not this is true depends on the retailer, but you have to wonder why a store wouldn’t just open up for November and December and sit dormant the rest of the year if it’s really that bad. Today, instead of looking at jobs in retail, we’re going to go the other way and look at a major accounting firm, Ernst & Young. They might not be the first company that you think of on Black Friday, but you can be sure that they spend a lot of time analyzing the results. And, of course, they hire a ton of interns. Continue reading about Ernst & Young…
Article by Willy Franzen of One Day, One Internship and One Day, One Job

Jobs in Finance at the Entry-Level

For a nice list of entry-level finance jobs you need look no further than collegerecruiter.com, and click on a few of the links provided there. The job title, position and position type are all listed, and if you have a profile created on the website (hint, hint) applying for said jobs is as easy as a simple click to the “apply to job” link. What is nice is that on each job-listing page there are “tools and resources.” Not all of them are entirely useful, but I clicked on one such link and it provided professional educational seminars. This could be useful if you want to get more out of your entry-level finance job, by pairing it with a seminar or two. It’s always worthwhile to continue learning and perfecting your level of expertise, or in this case, future level of expertise. Just thought I’d put that out there.
There is another online website that is actually a career bank and lists all sorts of entry-level finance jobs. You can search by state and by type of job, and by company and the site also has the fun tool we all love so much–the salary wizard. Again with the education theme, the site provides a professional education center, articles on writing job-winning entry-level finance resumes, and this new tool called the salary survey. It lists the typical salary by gender, employer size, marital status and a ton of other factors. It‚Äôs a bit more specific than the typical salary wizard and a lot more fun.
Tools of the finance trade:

http://entry.level.finance.jobs.careerbank.com/

http://www.collegerecruiter.com/pages/entry-level-finance-jobs.php