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Grads Expect To Get Jobs And Professional Training, But Data Doesn't Totally Agree

This article is more than 9 years old.

This year's college seniors were still in high school when the Great Recession officially ended, and they have the positive attitude to prove it.

An annual survey by consulting giant Accenture of more than 1,000 students from the soon-to-graduate class of 2014, and a similar number from the graduating classes of 2012 and 2013, found that optimism about job prospects--the unifying factor among many surveys of college seniors this year--abounds.

But that sunny outlook might not be encouraged by data. Though 84% of 2014 grads expect to find a job in their chosen field, just 67% of graduates from the previous two classes are working in their preferred industry. Eleven percent of students graduating later this month have already landed job offers, down from 16% at this time last year.

"It’s a pretty optimistic class with pretty high expectations of themselves and their employers," said Katherine LaVelle, managing director of Accenture Strategy, Talent & Organization.

LaVelle suggests this buoyant sense about the future could be the result of better planning and a change in how career prep is being approached on college campuses. Three quarters of this year's graduating college seniors took the number of jobs available in their field into account when considering a major, and many companies, particularly in tech, are now working with universities to develop programming and curricula that ensure a ready pipeline of on-campus talent when the time to hire comes.

The biggest disconnect highlighted in the survey isn't between college seniors and reality. Instead, it's the prevalent expectation that companies will train new hires for particular roles that contradicts the real world experiences of the classes of 2012 and 2013.

A staggering 80% of 2014 graduates expect to be formally trained by their first employer, while more than half of those who graduated in the past two years report receiving no training in their first position.

But major companies have been hiring college graduates for entry-level positions years, and LaVelle says it's not the nature of the jobs or the outlook on training that's changed--the issue has been financial.

"I definitely see a disconnect between budget decisions and operational needs within companies. From 2009 to 2012 there was severe constriction around training spend."

The first thing to go? Training for entry-level employees.

It's a move that might have saved companies pennies but has cost them in talent. Accenture's research found that training and development programs can be a major asset to companies competing to recruit top talent on campus.

LaVelle says that now that companies are back in "growth mode" managers are openly acknowledging that cutting back on training for those at the entry-level was a mistake that's having lasting repercussions, and more traditional 6-8 week corporate training and onboarding programs are on the rise once again.

"Our message to employers is that you’re not going to get the perfect employee walking through your door on the day you hire them," says LaVelle. "You’re going to have to train them. You really need to hire based on potential not just immediate qualifications."

Follow me on Twitter @KathrynDill.