More college graduates eyeing start-ups

Copyright © 2000 Nando Media
Copyright © 2000 Scripps Howard News Service

(March 22, 2000 10:04 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com ) - Boys will be boy tycoons. Girls just want to have fun with risk capital, new markets, stock options and quick corporate advancement.

Today one out of four college kids and new graduates prefers to work for a start-up company, according to the online job listing service Jobtrack.com.

Nearly one in three wants to work for a Fortune 1000 company - still the favorite goal - but that interest has been falling steeply over the past two decades.

"With the explosion of the Internet and highly publicized success of thousands of start-up ventures, more and more graduating seniors are opting to take a chance," says Jobtrack co-founder Ken Ramberg.

What they see as a worst case scenario, says Ramberg, is coming away from a start-up failure with a lot of hands-on experience.

In the survey of 2,500 college students and recent graduates, 31 percent said they would prefer to work for a Fortune 1000 company, 27 percent said a mid-sized corporation and 26 percent said their ambition was to join a start-up.

In another sign that entrepreneurial spirit is thriving, almost one in six of this generation, or 16 percent, said they want to be self-employed.

Michelle Mesina, a college relations official at Cerner Corp., observed, "While the larger, established companies are still the biggest attraction, it's interesting to note that students are starting to look at smaller and mid-size companies where their value will be seen."

Some university career centers say they are seeing similar attitudes.

"I bet that in 1980, 69 percent of job seekers were focused on big companies. Entrepreneurial opportunities were rarely thought of, and start-ups were considered suspect and risky in terms of career growth," says Richard White, director of career services at Rutgers University.

"It's amazing how technology and the economy have turned the world of work and career expectations upside down."

Contact John Lang at LangJ@shns.com or http://www.shns.com.

By JOHN LANG