Expected Salaries for 2007 College Graduates

The graduating college seniors of 2007 face one of the best job markets in history and certainly the best since 2000. Employers and students both talk about greatly increased efforts by employers to land the candidates they most desire and the multiple job offers being received by many and perhaps most of the grads. Yet few employers are complaining like they did in 1999 and into 2000 that they are unable to hire the people they need to hire. They are complaining that it is difficult to hire those people, but generally they are able to hire them with the proper effort. And part of that effort is paying a salary which is competitive.
According to a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), 90 percent of college career service offices believe that the class of 2006-07 is graduating into a strong job market with 11 percent rating the market as being “excellent.” In comparison, only three percent rated the market as being excellent in last year’s survey. In addition, two-thirds of the schools reported that more employers recruited on their campuses, 82 percent reported increases in on-line job postings and the number of employers attending career / job fairs, and 87 percent reported that at least as many employers signed up for spring 2007 recruiting than did last year.

All of these healthy reports translate into higher salaries being paid to the class of 2006-07 with a whopping 26 out of 29 majors seeing increases:

• Marketing graduates were the big winners with an average 10.3 percent increase to $41,285.
• Business administration / management graduates saw a 7.5 percent increase to $44,048. The comsulting firms hiring these students paid even more: $51,050 on average.
• Economics (business / managerial) and finance grads were the most highly paid among the business disciplines with average offers at $53,449 and $47,877, respectively.
• Management information systems (MIS) / business data processing grads saw a 4.9 percent increase to $46,966.
• Computer science graduates made 2.5 percent more to $52,177.
• Engineers saw increases with chemical up 5.6 percent to $59,707, civil up 4.8 percent to $47,750, computer up 3.2 percent to $55,946, electrical up 1.6 percent to $54,915, and mechanical up 5.7 percent to $54,695.
• Accounting grads saw salaries up 2.7 percent to $47,421. That relatively small increase may be an indicator that the sector is cooling somewhat after years of phenomenal growth driven in large part by the Sarbanes-Oxley securities regulations and the additional reporting requirements that came about as a result.
• Liberal arts grads saw salary offers up an average of 1.2 percent to $31,333.

So no matter how you look at the market for this year’s college graduates, it is healthy and in most sectors fairly balanced. Many employers are having difficulty recruiting the people they want to hire at the prices they want to pay, but few are unable to recruit the people they want ot hire at competitive rates. Many and perhaps most students are receiving multiple offers for jobs in their chosen career paths. Few wish a return to the bizarre and unhealthy labor inbalances of the late 1990’s and this market although strong is no where close to the market in 1999. Thank goodness.