Daskin attributes the upbeat job climate to an overall healthy American economy. Add to that the aggressive recruiting being conducted by many consulting firms, where roughly half of Northwestern's industrial engineering grads go to work, and the news is good, to say the least. Like Birge at the University of Michigan, Daskin also notes the growing number of financial services businesses seeking to hire engineering grads as more firms turn their focus to information systems. Along those lines, Birge comments that systems integration is an ever-increasing focus for a lot of firms today. They're trying to build intelligence into the systems they already have.
IEs are well-prepared for that because they are trained to take a systems view.
Technological advancements in the logistics field are also driving a lot of employment, according to Birge. Roughly half of the job offers that come through are from co-op employers. As a result of five quarters of co-op experience, our students have a wealth of practical experience to draw from. When they join a company they are already contributing members. Louise Carrese is the co-op coordinator for industrial engineering at RIT and she couldn't agree more.