Like many graduating seniors, Kellie Corcoran has yet to
finalize her post-graduation plans.
Unlike some, though, she has enlisted the help of the UCLA
Career Center in her employment search as many companies use that
facility to interview and hire students.
Corcoran, a fourth-year psychobiology student, said she was
contacted by several companies recruiting on campus, including
Teach for America.
“Recruiters are serious about hiring UCLA students,”
she said.
Employers from Robinsons-May to the U.S. Department of State
have conducted individual interviews with UCLA students this year
for a total of about 6,000 interviews, said Kathy Sims, director of
the UCLA Career Center.
Sims said defense contractors and business-related companies
recruit most often on campus, but said there has been a recent
increase in the number of security and intelligence agencies, such
as the CIA, looking to hire students.
Susie Arellano-Reed, college relations manager for Enterprise
Rent-A-Car, said the company consistently recruits on the UCLA
campus.
“We are happy with the caliber of students that come out
of UCLA,” she said.
Sims said employers hold on-campus information sessions and
interviews, and post job opportunities on the UCLA Career
Center’s search engine, BruinView, which currently has about
9,000 job postings for UCLA students.
Will Koai, a third-year mathematics and applied science student
who attended two on-campus information sessions for the consulting
company Deloitte this year, said he found the sessions helpful
because they introduced him to new career opportunities that he
otherwise might not have discovered.
“There’s no way that on my own initiative I would
have researched consulting,” Koai said.
Though engineering or business-related degrees often attract
employers’ attention, Sims said both North and South campus
majors tend to receive the same amount of recruiter interest.
She said firms most often put down “any” when asked
which majors they are looking for in UCLA students.
But some UCLA graduates seek out recruiters, rather than waiting
for recruiters to contact them because they said it is easier to
pursue their future plans outside of the UCLA Career Center through
online career resources.
Still, Sims said many companies are actively pursuing UCLA
students.
“This is a good time to be a (graduating) student,”
she said.