printable versionReport: Students not as interested in or aware of federal jobs
BY MICHAEL PEÑA
Students at Stanford, which is participating in a nationwide initiative to encourage more students to consider public-service careers, generally expressed less interest in working for the federal government than those from five other universities serving as pilot sites for the outreach campaign, according to survey results released last week by Partnership for Public Service, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.
Whereas the combined average of the six universities showed that 20 percent of the students specified that they were "extremely interested" in working for the federal government, only 11 percent of Stanford's students expressed extreme interest. And whereas the combined average showed that 22 percent of all students answered that they were "very interested," 17 percent of Stanford's students gave that response.
The report also stated that 73 percent of Stanford's students indicated "too much bureaucracy" as a major reason for not wanting to work for the federal government, while 45 percent responded that they didn't know what careers are available. Across all the campuses, the averages were 53 and 43 percent, respectively.
Almost half of all the students surveyed said they were extremely or very interested in working for large private-sector companies, while 40 percent expressed those levels of interest in working for nonprofits. When asked what factors would make them want to work in the federal government, 84 percent of Stanford students said they would do so to work on "issues that interest me," while 76 percent said they would do so in order to "make a difference."
The survey was conducted over the past year and polled more than 3,000 college juniors and seniors. At Stanford, 291 students were surveyed—37 percent male and 63 percent female. Nearly half of the students were white, almost a quarter were Asian, 12 percent were Hispanic, 8 percent were African American and the remainder were identified as "other."
The responses from each of the universities were weighted when computing overall averages to account for the different sizes of the schools, according to the Partnership.
The organization is sponsoring the Call to Serve Recruitment Initiative, and the results of the survey—titled "Back to School: Rethinking Federal Recruiting on College Campuses"—will be used to help federal agencies improve the way they promote job opportunities to students. The pilot schools have been organizing special events and working to make more information about federal jobs available to faculty, administrators, career services staff and students.
At Stanford, the Call to Serve campaign is being coordinated by the Haas Center for Public Service in collaboration with the Office of the President, the Career Development Center, schools, and student and alumni organizations across campus. Past events have included speaking engagements featuring space shuttle Cmdr. Eileen Collins and astronaut and alumna Ellen Ochoa.
The other pilot schools are Clark Atlanta University, George Washington University, Louisiana State University, Ohio State University and the University of New Mexico. For a copy of the report, go to http://www.ourpublicservice.org/.