InformationWeek

One might guess that they were all students, forging new friendships and starting to unwind near the end of a long semester. But that wasn't the case, says Carnegie Mellon professor Richard Florida, who happened upon the scene. The group in T-shirts was visiting the Pittsburgh campus from Trilogy Software Inc. and wanted to recruit Carnegie Mellon's best and brightest students. By day's end, they had signed up the barefoot student.

Times have changed for IT recruitment of college graduates. With final exams, graduation ceremonies, and a celebratory party or two behind them, most IT graduates from the class of 2000 are preparing to hit the job market. And with demand for IT workers growing at an explosive rate, many companies are getting creative and aggressive in their efforts to lure young IT talent.

New graduates with IT-related majors are in the driver's seat and are willing to hold out for jobs that offer challenge, excitement, and a relaxed and comfortable working atmosphere. "Recruiters used to come on campus in three-piece suits," says Florida. "But saying 'I'm Mr. Stodgy Corporation' doesn't cut it in the new economy."

The nationwide shortage of skilled high-tech workers, combined with a low unemployment rate and an inadequate number of students graduating with IT majors, has produced unprecedented competition for these young professionals, say recruiters. "This is the best time to be an IT graduate," says Jeff Daniel, CEO of CollegeHire.com, a recruitment firm that specializes in supplying companies with recent graduates. "There's so much demand out there. The graduates have all the chips in their hands."

Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, agrees. "There are lots of great opportunities for the class of 2000," he says. "I would be surprised if there are any computer-science seniors who are looking for jobs. It's a seller's market."

The association documented the strong demand for IT workers in a study released in April called "Bridging the Gap: Information Technology Skills for the New Millennium." There are about 10 million private-sector IT workers in the United States, but companies will be looking to hire an additional 1.6 million workers by January, according to the study. Of those 1.6 million, about 850,000 jobs will go unfilled due to the lack of qualified, trained IT workers, the ITAA says.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that within several years, the need for IT workers will increase by more than a third. "The explosion in IT and the growth of the Internet have dramatically increased the need for IT workers," says Miller. "What has changed little is the supply side. Our educational institutions and other training programs haven't been able to keep up. In addition, because of the overall downturn in the economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the marketplace was sending signals that IT skills might not be as much in demand in the late 1990s."

Smart companies are getting innovative in their recruiting efforts. Some are developing relationships with potential workers while they're still in high school, finding them through referrals from fellow students or career centers within schools. Companies sometimes offer high-school students training opportunities, college scholarships, and summer jobs, and maintain communications when they go to college. When students graduate from college, they may be more likely to work for a familiar company where they feel comfortable and have developed established working relationships.

Although Cora Estrada wasn't recruited as a high-school student, familiarity influenced her decision to go to work at Epiphany Inc. when she graduated from college. The 23-year-old computer-science graduate from the University of California at Berkeley accepted a job as a software engineer in Java programming. She had been an intern at the business-to-business software company in San Mateo, Calif., and chose to work there full-time over two offers from Sun Microsystems.

The pregraduation experience also paid off handsomely for Estrada. Because she had established seniority at the firm, she was offered a generous starting salary of $76,000, plus stock options. While Epiphany's compensation package sweetened the deal, Estrada says, "I chose Epiphany mainly for the people. The people are extremely intelligent, and I like them."

As the balance of power has shifted strongly in favor of IT workers within the past few years, many companies have abandoned the "exploding offer" tactic, which imposes a two-to-four-week deadline for graduating students to sign on or lose the job. And astute companies also keep in regular contact with prospective hires throughout the recruitment process. "Recruiters now know that just because students have signed offer letters doesn't mean they're going to work for the company," says CollegeHire.com's Daniel. "They're a new hire only when they show up at the office."

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