Santa Clara University

Outcomes: Life after SCU

Anne Oja, Assistant Director, Career Center

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Ever since the start of the Great Recession, we’ve all been inundated with bad economic news. Many of us have friends or family members who have been negatively impacted. We’ve certainly been made aware of the greater need for scholarships to keep our students here. But it’s not all doom and gloom! I’d like to point out some very positive outcomes for our students.

For the Class of 2011, 81% were employed full-time, attending graduate school, or participating in a service program, as measured by an OMC survey taken six months after graduation. While there is always some fluctuation from year to year, this is exactly the same percentage that was reported for the class of 2008, before the recession began.

If you’re interested in starting salaries and other statistics for SCU grads, visit the 2011 outcomes survey.

A large part of this success is that our students are well prepared for life after SCU. Here are comments from two employers who consistently hire our students.

When we take a closer look at where our graduates are working and in what jobs, we see the success of SCU as a liberal arts school in Silicon Valley. The easiest way to do this is to use LinkedIn, specifically the Contacts/Santa Clara University feature:

Let’s take a closer look at Cisco Systems, the largest employer of SCU talent. Based on a search of all members who attended SCU between 1970 and 2012, there are 643 alumni and student interns associated with Cisco. You might guess that 90% of them are engineers, but that is actually not the case. Out of the 643:

• 32% are in IT
• 14% are in Engineering
• 9% are engineers in related positions
• 45% are in other jobs (HR, Finance, Marketing, etc.)

The numbers are even more tilted towards non-engineering alumni at Google, another very “high tech” company, where 76% are in non-technical jobs. At Levi Strauss, 100% of our alumni working there hold non-technical jobs. So there are plenty of opportunities for all majors in Silicon Valley and the broader Bay Area.

What does the future hold for the Class of 2013?

According to Job Outlook 2013, a recent survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), employers expect to hire 13% more college graduates from this class than they did from the Class of 2012. Given the fiscal climate as this article is being written, perhaps this optimistic outlook needs to be tempered. Recruiting Trends 2012-2013 (published by Career Services and the Collegiate Employment Research Institute and copyrighted, © 2012-2013, by Michigan State University) includes this note of caution about “… large companies taking a wait and see approach until …Congressional decisions about sequestration.” The report does, however, mention strong demand for marketing, finance, human resources, and advertising, all great areas for our students.

Life after SCU looks pretty good!