***Insert some interesting lead here because I suck at them. Greg, this is your punishment for dealing with people for this story yesterday.***

When most colleges and universities refer to graduate placement, they mean the graduates have either obtained full- or part-time employment, decided to further their education (usually through veterinary or graduate school) or have military obligations. It does not mean employment alone.

Graduate employment is not tracked before they graduate unless the students have informed their respective college that he or she has been hired somewhere. Therefore, any information a college may have about students being hired before graduation is a rough estimate based on student response.

The information about graduate placement that Iowa State publishes comes from a survey sent out to recent graduates six months after graduation. The information obtained from the graduates that responded is published in a report on the Iowa State Career Services page. The most current report available is from Fall 2011 to Summer 2012. The next one is expected to be published in early March.

Below is last year’s placement rate for the different colleges at Iowa State:

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: 81.7% (601 out of 736 respondents, 756 graduates)

College of Business: 84.0% (613 out of 730 respondents, 809 graduates)

College of Design: 79.6% (214 out of 269 respondents, 328 graduates)

College of Engineering: 76.7% (553 out of 721 respondents, 879 graduates)

College of Human Sciences: 70.8% (488 out of 689 respondents, 764 graduates)

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: 61.4% (664 out of 1,082 respondents, 1,274 graduates)

CyHire is a place students can go to find jobs and internships if they haven’t found placement. Not only does this site have links to various openings, it also has links to help with building your resume and other workshops to help students do well in their job search.

Students can also visit the career services department for their respective colleges. The contact information can either be found on the college’s website or under the main Career Services page.