While encouraging overall, the report cited challenges agencies face in attracting recent college grads. It noted that students are apprehensive about "bureaucracy" and "red tape," concerns that agencies will need to actively address in their recruitment efforts.
The report also found that interest drops off among students that agencies often report needing the most — those with technical and scientific backgrounds. Students with those backgrounds reported the highest preference for career fairs than any other group — 52 percent.
The most popular source of job information is the Internet. Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com comprised 69 percent of responses about where students go online to find out about opportunities. USAJOBS was seldom mentioned, and lagged behind university career center websites and Facebook.com — both mentioned by 20 percent of respondents.
Also, salary expectations are high, with respondents expecting to earn starting salaries around $50,000, far ahead of most federal government entry-level salaries of $30,000 to $38,000.
