College Career Offices Provide Little Information on Nonprofit Jobs, Study Finds

By Cassie Moore

The nonprofit field is underrepresented in most college and university career-services offices, according to a study released by the Initiative for Nonprofit Sector Careers at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

The findings are based on data from print and online surveys completed by career-services offices at 400 four-year colleges and universities nationwide.

The study was paid for with a $75,000 grant from the Forbes Funds, a group that promotes effective nonprofit organization-management practices in the Pittsburgh region. The Forbes Funds is distributing the results of the study to college career offices and has been promoting nonprofit job opportunities in the Pittsburgh area, by sponsoring bus advertisements and career fairs.

Among the key findings in the report: Career fairs specifically focused on the nonprofit field are not common: Only 25 percent of survey respondents said they had offered these types of fairs in the past year.

One hundred and sixty-four respondents said that representatives from nonprofit employers accounted for 5 percent or fewer of the presenters at their workshops and other career programming. Public institutions were more likely than private ones to report lower nonprofit representation at their workshops and programs other than career fairs. More than half of public colleges and universities — 54 percent — said nonprofit organizations accounted for 5 percent or less of the employers represented at workshops and other programs; 41 percent of private institutions said the same.

Nonprofit employers are also sparsely represented in the job listings posted by career-services offices.One hundred and twenty-five respondents said that nonprofit positions accounted for 10 percent or less of their total job listings. Just over half of the respondents said that 10 percent or less of their office’s resources are devoted exclusively to the nonprofit field.

The study suggested that the dearth of nonprofit-related job information is leaving students in the dark: Some 289 respondents said that they thought college seniors understood the range of career options in the nonprofit world “not too well” or “not well at all.”

More than three out of four respondents said they think that students would like to have more information about nonprofit careers. However, 57 percent of respondents said that 10 percent or fewer of the seniors who came into their offices expressed an interest in working in the nonprofit field. Of the career-services professionals who thought that students would like more information about nonprofit jobs, 208 said that lack of staff time prevented them from offering programs that were designed to help students find jobs at charities.

One hundred and thirty-eight respondents blamed lack of funds, 57 said they had trouble identifying nonprofit employers, 105 said they had trouble attracting these employers to campus, and 68 said they lacked ideas for nonprofit-related programs.

The full report and an abstract of “Recruiting and Retaining the Next Generation of Nonprofit Sector Leadership” are available free at http://www.forbesfunds.org.