Job-placement tracking on upswing

DIAMOND IN ROUGH: Rhode Island College graduate Alyse Duarte, pictured above, started at Providence Diamond Co. as an intern, before becoming a full-time employee. Above, she works with her boss, Brandon Salomon. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON
DIAMOND IN ROUGH: Rhode Island College graduate Alyse Duarte, pictured above, started at Providence Diamond Co. as an intern, before becoming a full-time employee. Above, she works with her boss, Brandon Salomon. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON

Ten of Rhode Island’s 11 colleges track the percentage of students who get jobs soon after graduating, but most use that data as an informational tool, not a selling point.
For example, Bryant University markets its student outcomes aggressively, while Roger Williams University and Providence College promote anecdotally.
No matter the approaches for individual schools, however, the statistics generated are more sought after by parents and students than ever. It’s true for Brown University, which posts online a 65 percent rate of employment for its graduates and 22 percent participating in graduate or professional studies, said James Miller, dean of admission.
“In our publications, we have sections devoted to ‘Life after Brown,’ which are relatively new,” he said. “For a whole variety of absolutely understandable reasons, both parents and kids are very concerned about outcomes. People want to make sure it’s an investment where their sons or daughters will have some options and career choices.”
Alyse Duarte, 22, of Cumberland, graduated from Rhode Island College this year with a degree in general management. Interning with the Providence Diamond Co. of Cranston turned into a full-time job.
“That’s the big thing about going to school: having a job after graduation,” Duarte said. “It’s everyone’s goal, I think, so they can pay off their [school] loans.”
For the schools surveyed by email and through interviews with Providence Business News, deriving meaningful context from these numbers can be a challenge. Knowing the response rate upon which the percentages are based, for instance, is critical, but only Bryant, the University of Rhode Island and RWU provided that information to PBN.
In fact, whatever the methods and time-frames used, there is little to compare in schools nationwide that collect and distribute “first destination undergraduate employment outcomes” – the first job a graduate gets with that associate or bachelor’s degree, says Edwin W. Koc, director of Strategic and Foundation Research at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. But an updating of voluntary national standards through NACE may standardize approaches to the data.
As of January, the Bethlehem, Pa.-based organization established voluntary guidelines for reporting this information: what data should be collected, the time period for gathering it, when and how to report the data, he said. Annually, not just full- and part-time jobs are counted, but also volunteer, military service and continuing education, and if the job search is active. “Schools had all different data-collection methods … it was just a hodgepodge of information, so it’s very difficult to compare one school to another or understand if the data is meaningful,” Koc said.
According to the Higher Education Act of 2008, if schools collect this data, they are supposed to make it available to anyone who asks. How they do that is not specified. But schools can use it as a marketing tool if they choose, Koc added.
Rhode Island’s institutions of higher education primarily use direct contact with students through surveys as collection tools. Some, like RWU, do use independent data that is verifiable, like information on LinkedIn, since the new NACE guidelines allow it, said Robbin Beauchamp, director of the RWU Career Center.
But what’s collected varies widely.
For instance, while Brown tracks full-time employment, graduate studies and “other endeavors,” Johnson & Wales University is the lone college in the state not to track job placement following graduation. The school instead performs “career progression studies” that look at outcomes further along the career path. The school’s focus is to “prepare graduates for careers, not just the first job,” said spokeswoman Madeline Parmenter.
One school – the Rhode Island School of Design – lumps all the data into a single statistic, including “full-time, part-time and freelance work, grad school, fellowships, residencies, and other artistic opportunities.” Those outcomes register 96 percent for 2012, the most recent year available, said Jaime Marland, director of media relations at RISD.
“We talk about engagement versus placement, as there are a variety of post-graduate opportunities for art and design students that do not fit into the ‘placement’ box,” she said.
So, what do the numbers mean and how are they used once colleges and universities survey students? That depends.
At Bryant, of the 71 percent of the class of 2013 who responded to surveys, 98 percent in 2013 were employed or in graduate school, said Elizabeth O’Neil, executive director of university relations.
A NACE member, Bryant embraces the new guidelines as a means of informing prospective students and their families about the success in leading graduates to employment within six months of graduating, added Judith Clare, director of Bryant’s Amica Center for Career Education. Bryant markets this information any way it can: through social media, print media, emailed newsletters, targeted marketing and its website, and believes in doing so, O’Neil said. Throughout its history, Bryant programs have been “marketplace driven,” she said.
At RWU, with 63 percent of the class of 2012 responding (the most recent year data was available), 97.6 percent were either employed full time or part time, enrolled in graduate school, or engaged in military or volunteer service, said RWU Director of Public Affairs Brian E. Clark.
So far, however, RWU’s marketing strategy has been focused “less on specific outcomes data and instead on a more personal, anecdote-based approach to telling the Roger Williams story,” Clark said. The reason is, in part, that the 2012 high-response rate is new, the result of follow-up work by the school’s career center, and because the information remains self-reported, he said.
But RWU has hired CSO Research, one of a variety of available vendors, to compile a report based on surveys done four times between commencement and the following year, said Beauchamp. Salve Regina University is exploring that step as well.
Salve Regina only uses its current data internally, and that would not change if the school decided to use CSO Research tools, said Michael Wisnewski, director of career development.
At URI and RIC, changes are underway to improve tracking.
URI found 55 percent of 2013 graduates were employed full time and 26 percent were pursuing graduate degrees full or part time, although the figures are based on a 13 percent response rate. The school has recently merged two offices: Experiential Learning and Community Engagement, and Career Services and Employer Relations, said Linda A. Acciardo, URI’s director of marketing and communications.
At RIC, the Career Development Center, and Office of Institutional Research and Planning surveyed graduates six months after graduation from 2010 to 2012, said Laura Hart, director of college communications and marketing.
This data consistently showed, on average, 85 percent of RIC alumni were employed full or part time after graduation, said Hart, and 77 percent of them reported that their employers were located in Rhode Island. But with NACE standards in place, RIC will revamp its survey, reaching out to graduates 12 months after graduation, she said.
“We want to make sure the information we’re getting is the best information, the most comprehensive,” she said. •

No posts to display