Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Web site posts top jobs for college graduates
By Tony Sapochetti
The Daily Vidette (Illinois State U.)
05/08/2006

(U-WIRE) NORMAL, Ill. — Accounting, teaching and consulting are a few of the jobs featured on careerbuilder.com's list for the top nine jobs for graduating seniors.

The jobs were selected based on the demand for that job, annual salary and rate of promotion. Many business-related jobs are featured, but education and engineering were also selected as jobs that would greatly benefit graduating students.

The list, ranked in descending order includes private accounting, entry-level management trainee, sales, design or construction engineering, financial and treasury analysis, public accounting, project engineering, teaching and consulting.

The article said the job market plans on hiring 14.5 percent more college graduates than last year, so students may also be getting higher salaries.

Gerald McKean, Illinois State University College of Business accounting department chair, said it is no surprise that two types of accounting are featured on the list, and said accounting has recently been featured on several different types of "best job" lists.

"The Bureau of Labor and cnnmoney.com in February listed the top five jobs and accounting was in that list," McKean said. "We are expecting above average growth in the field."

McKean said the demand for an accountant is especially high right now and said there are several jobs available because of the recent scandals with Enron and World-Com.

These events have sparked the implementation of new requirements in the field of accounting.

Since there are two types of accounting, McKean said there may be differences in why private accounting is number one while public accounting is lower on the list. He also explained why these jobs are considered good for recent graduates.

"Public accounting is a firm that sells its services to other companies while private accounting is if you work for a specific company," McKean said. "Either way, its very lucrative financially, has top paying jobs for recent graduates and there is plenty of room for advancement."

McKean said ISU is also well known for its accounting students, as they are nationally sought and have a high pass rate.

Josh Stevens, a senior accounting major, said it is interesting to see how careerbuilder.com rated the different accounting jobs

"I was surprised that public accounting is not higher than private," Stevens said.

"Private accounting may have more opportunities for a graduate to experience a wide scope of employment."

Though a majority of jobs listed were in the business field, other jobs such as teaching and counseling were also put on the list because of the opportunities for advancement they provide.

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