Education: Taking a Course in Go-Getting

Students hustle as company recruiters return to campus

Kathleen Whittemore, 21, a senior majoring in international relations at U.C.L.A., has launched a campaign that requires preparation, precision and luck: looking for a job. Like many other ambitious college seniors, she has bought a dress-for-success wardrobe, worked as an unpaid intern, and attended seminars on resume writing and interviewing. She signs up for the maximum three interviews with company recruiters allowed students each week, and then seeks additional appointments by getting to the U.C.L.A. placement office by 5:30 or 6 a.m. to see if any fellow students have canceled. Says she: "I'm finding if I'm not one of the first five in the door, I'm not getting anything." She has interviewed with 23 companies, including Mobil and Procter & Gamble. Her score so far: two rejections and 13 invitations for second interviews.

Whittemore is confident she will find a job. Reason: 1984 promises to be a good year on the employment front, after a two-year decline in campus recruiting marked by the lowest activity since World War II. At U.C.L.A. and most other campuses, corporations are again scouting for talent. Northwestern University's Endicott report on national employment trends for college graduates is predicting a 20% increase in job opportunities for the class of '84. The annual survey has found that 65% of 260 sample companies plan to hire more college graduates this year and that 71% believe that business is going to improve. Hot majors continue to be engineering, accounting, sales and computer science. In the accounting field, 123 companies plan to take on about 4,500 graduates this year, a healthy rise from 111 companies and 3,500 jobs in 1983. Generally, there will be more graduates than job openings. Nonetheless, Stephen Johansson, director of career counseling and placement at Vermont's Middlebury College, notes, "The students seem a little more relaxed. Last year when we opened our doors in the morning we had to do so with a chair in one hand and a whip in the other to beat off the crowd of panicked seniors."

The University of Wisconsin-Madison campus is typical: corporate recruiting is up by 10% to 12% over last year. At some schools, oil companies and banks, which have done little hiring for two years, are back in the game. McDonald's is recruiting managers at the Ivy League's Brown University because of a need for "people who have high mental and physical energy levels." Even the Central Intelligence Agency has returned to campus, with 120 interested seniors showing up for a presentation at Stanford despite the impediment of 20 polite protesters.