Dive Brief:
- Employers in Connecticut seeking to hire entry-level talent may have a new direct line to recent college graduates. Powered by College Central Network, Inc. (CCN), the Connecticut Community Colleges Jobs Consortium website offers free registration for public and private employers to post unlimited job opportunities, CCN announced May 21.
- Even with campuses closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Connecticut's community college students and alumni will have access to job openings. Employers' postings will reach job seekers from eight community colleges, the group said.
- "Most job boards charge employers high fees and make promises to deliver qualified candidates," Antony Wormack, director of the Center for Job Placement at Naugatuck Valley Community College, said in a statement. "But only our Connecticut Community Colleges Jobs Consortium gives employers a direct path to our combined community colleges career centers and talent."
Dive Insight:
Employers that register on the Connecticut Community Colleges Jobs Consortium may have access to a diverse talent pool, according to research.
The Community College Review (CCR) compares the diversity of community colleges using student data and calculated diversity scores for each state and issues a report. For the 2020 school year, Connecticut community colleges earned a diversity score of 0.66, higher than the national average of 0.65. The underrepresented minority enrollment is at 47%, the majority Hispanic (16%) and black (13%) students, according to CCR.
Companies are also finding that the diversity of students in community colleges around the country can build talent pipelines for jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). For example, community colleges in the Central Florida STEM Alliance are using two federal grants to increase the number of underrepresented minority students who transfer to STEM bachelor's degree programs, according to reports by Education Dive, HR Dive's sister publication.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, creating job opportunities rather than internships is the priority for many employers, a April 28 report by Glassdoor found. There has been a greater decline in internship postings by companies on the platform than job opportunities since March 9, the company said. Internship hiring on Glassdoor in April 2020 decreased by 39% compared to April 2019. "While all industries have experienced declines since the coronavirus crisis, select industries are continuing to hire for thousands of intern positions," the report said.
Research also revealed that members of the college class of 2020 seeking entry-level positions are applying to more jobs and are more likely to stay engaged with recruiters. iCIMS, a cloud platform for recruiting, published a report April 29 based on a survey of 500 U.S. college seniors and 500 human resources or recruiting professionals, between March 10 and March 23. The class of 2020 grads were expected to apply to an average of 10 jobs before stay-at-home orders were instituted. But by mid-March, that number doubled to 20, the report said. Almost all of the job seekers surveyed (95%) said they expect to hear back from an employer in less than two weeks. More than half of the respondents (60%) said that timeliness is important to them.