Late October is always a fun time of year, between Halloween, colorful landscapes and the World Series. And even though the Red Sox are busy making plans for the upcoming winter instead of facing the Phillies in the ultimate contest (not that I’m bitter), it’s been a blast watching the fall classic unfold – especially this year, with the election, the economy and everything else clamoring for our attention. Baseball is just what the doctor ordered! Rain, not so much. But I digress.

On that note, recruiting – like baseball – has its own “power hitters,” and we’ve been taking a close look at select industry verticals and how the players are stacking up with Gen Y. Last month, we drilled down into oil and gas companies. This week, employers in the technology industry are on deck – specifically those companies that are actively seeking entry-level talent through Experience.

Looking at technology employers, specifically focusing on entry-level opportunity applications, five companies in particular – Dell, Motorola, Cisco, Microsoft and Intel – are above average and at the top with their success with apply rates on Experience.com. The technology industry on a whole is batting with nine applies for every job found through search results.

Even with the cold economic climate, technology is hot. As independent surveys indicate and our own data validate, tech-minded job seekers must take notice that employers in this space are hiring. Case in point: last week I dissected entry-level placements in 2008, and the technology industry scored a close third in the number of jobs started by recent graduates. In “The Job Function Search Spectrum,” we found that the IT/systems job function was popular in job searches. Even my “Hot Cities” post identified San Francisco and its pool of technology companies as top post-graduation destination for young talent.

On the flip side, to attract major league entry-level candidates, technology industry employers need to move beyond only offering compensation packages. Like a good sports franchise reaching out to top athletes, recruiters will be successful when they meet Gen Y on their terms. And it’s not that hard – consider using internships as extended interviews, facilitating job shadowing and/or information interviews, leveraging  your commitment (or embracing a commitment!) to “being green” and emphasizing other work/life benefits such working from home, volunteering for social causes, etc.

For the fourth year in a row, Experience took the pulse of Gen Y as they set out to find their first jobs after graduating from college. Our 2008 Job Placement Survey, which ran this past summer from mid May through September, polled close to 650 young professionals about the jobs they landed after graduation. We covered everything from job functions to industries and from salary range to reasons for taking the job in the first place. Given our current economic climate, and especially considering a related independent study also released recently, we’ve found some pretty interesting things.

Looking at the outcomes of job offers extended so far in 2008, we found that the top 10 industries that placed candidates – seen above with relative percentages – represented nearly 60 percent of all industries. With some slight adjustments, three of this year’s top five hiring industries (Education, Finance/Banking and Accounting) were also in the top five in our 2007 Job Placement Survey. In 2008, we’ve seen an increase in placement in the Technology and Healthcare verticals, as well as jobs at Non-Profits and in Government.

When it comes to the roles that they play, new hires in 2008 topped the job functions list with Engineering at close to 9 percent. Following were Teaching/Education (8.3 percent), Accounting/Auditing (6 percent), Finance (5.9 percent) and Sales (5.2 percent). Analysts also appeared in the top 10, as did marketers, researchers, consultants and administrative staffers. Compared to last year, 2008’s job functions signal a pretty drastic change, as the top two functions – engineering and accounting – each dropped in half, from 18.8 percent and 12 percent respectively.

So what does all of this tell us? Well, let me put it to you this way: of the 650 Gen Y’ers polled, nearly a fifth of them took jobs in education. A good number 20-somethings are teachers or hold related job roles in education. While it’s pretty much a given that finance/banking jobs no longer rule the sphere, our respondents’ job placements have validated macroeconomic trends – and as a result, they’ve actively pursued jobs outside the finance and accounting industries and are looking into other sectors.

As I mentioned in my Job Function Search Spectrum post from a few weeks back, employers in 2008 (and for the foreseeable future) should consider positioning their companies and their entry-level opportunities to a larger, more diverse Gen Y audience.

The numbers don’t lie. Finance and banking opportunities for young talent are dwindling, and the market is only getting tighter for young grads. Though employers are most definitely feeling the pinch all around, the glut of entry-level workers represents tremendous opportunity to move beyond industry lines and hire the best candidates possible for their job functions. And in this competitive landscape, job seekers must consider branching out as well.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably caught the hint that the young vote is going to play a major role in the presidential election. Case in point: according to “An informed Gen Y may decide this election” from the Denver Post, youth turnout increased drastically in almost every state holding a primary or caucus on Super Tuesday – doubling, tripling and even quadrupling the turnouts in 2004. The paper argues young voters will have an even greater impact in the general election, because attempts to ‘get out the youth vote’ have finally been coupled with a real effort to ‘inform young voters.’

Between the economy, two wars, an energy crisis, global climate change and everything else we’ve become accustomed to hearing about over the past umpteen months, there’s a lot at stake for the millions of college students and young professionals who will be voting for the first time. Entry-level job creation, a key concern for college educated Gen Y’ers, will likely play a pivotal role at the polls – even if it doesn’t cut through the noise like the other headline-grabbing issues.

Yesterday Experience announced the results of our 2008 Jobs and Economics Survey, and with more than 12,900 respondents (from our opted-in student and alumni candidate base) it’s safe to say Gen Y voters are ‘engaged’ with this historic election. Of the 85 percent who said they’d be voting on November 4th, we found that…

• 80% of respondents said entry-level job creation will play a factor in how they’ll cast their votes
• 76% indicated midsize to large business stimulation was a voting concern
• 69% reported entrepreneurial activity was an influencer as well
• 60% have seen a decrease in employer activity in 2008 – including targeted job postings and on-campus recruiting

Gen Y also cited economic stimulation (58 percent), the energy crisis (50 percent), foreign policy and healthcare reform (39 percent each), education reform (37 percent) and unemployment (35 percent) as the most important issues for the next administration.

With a sharp focus on jobs and the economy, students and young professionals have concerns that mirror those of society at large. Social issues, while still important, are no longer top of mind like they once were. And that’s an easy explanation: young voters, like all voters, are not sheltered from the economic storm that’s significantly affecting just about everything nowadays. Employers seeking Gen Y talent in today’s business climate need to not just keep these concerns in mind, but consider reinforcing ‘stability’ in their messaging when at all possible.

And in case you’re curious: we gave our respondents the option to tell us which way they were leaning politically. Of those who opted to ‘vote’ (nearly 11,000 young voters), 62 percent said they would back Barack Obama and 21 percent said they would go for John McCain. The rest were either undecided (9 percent), voting for a third party candidate (2 percent) or simply chose not to say (6 percent).

As a marketer with a Bachelor of Science in television/radio, I often find myself curious when I hear colleagues, friends and even family ask just what exactly what does someone “do” with a communications degree?

Back in the day, as a Park School of Communications undergrad at Ithaca College, I “did” a whole lot. I managed the college radio station my senior year. I interned full-time in publicity and promotion at a major record label. And in addition to my academics, I participated in a number of other activities, covering everything from joining a creative advertising team to handling crisis PR, and from being a DJ to booking bands at music clubs.

All of this experience played a role in setting me on my career path. After a couple of years working professionally in radio, I ultimately earned a master’s in marketing communications and officially launched my marketing career. And though this is my story, it’s heartening to see that communication/media students and young professionals today are pursuing familiar roles.

In dissecting the Experience Network member base, our Gen Y candidates who have selected communication/media as a major in their personal profiles have indicated interest in a variety of job functions. PR and marketing – my bread and butter – account for nearly a third of the top dozen functions. Also in the mix are writing and event planning (at 10 percent each); creative/design/multimedia (9 percent); advertising and broadcasting (at 7 percent each); and sales (6 percent).

While it’s true that communications as a major isn’t always as clearly defined as accounting, computer science or engineering, it’s a major that produces candidates for all employers in all industry verticals. It’s also interesting to note, in looking at my post from last week, that marketing, HR, management and sales fall in both the top 12 communications job functions – but also the top 10 overall functions, as searched by Gen Y candidates over the last three months. Functions like PR and marketing align with what’s traditionally defined as communications. However, when looking at the communications majors who are interested in careers in HR, sales and so on, these candidates – with solid writing and verbal communications training  – might be fertile ground for positions that don’t typically align with their area of study.

Communications majors are everywhere. And in our current corporate climate, which frankly spotlights the significance of strategic communications as a business tenet, employers must continue to seek effective “communicators” as businesses navigate an evolving economic landscape.