Top Degrees For Getting Hired In 2017

The workforce is an animal constantly on the move. It changes as the technology and skills needed to succeed in the world of business evolve, slowly and sometimes rapidly, over time.

With that in mind, young people entering college inevitably contemplate how the degree they earn might help them in the jobs market. Do their interests and the majors they gravitate towards provide a higher probability of a job after graduation?

To get a snapshot of which bachelor’s degrees provide a leg up with hiring managers, we looked to a recent report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), a Bethlehem, PA non-profit that links college career placement offices with employers. We folded the top ten degrees that employers told NACE they find appealing and expect to hire in the coming year into a neat slideshow, which you can view below.

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The source of the NACE data comes from a survey conducted this year of 169 NACE employer members – companies like Con Edison, Sears, Pfizer and others – on their hiring plans for the coming year. In it, the respondents declared what types of educational backgrounds were most attractive to them, among other attributes, in potential hires.

Among the top bachelor’s degrees deemed most attractive was business administration and management. Of all responding companies, 86 said they intended to hire graduates with such a degree. The same number of respondents declared they would consider graduates who had earned a degree in accounting attractive job candidates.

The number one most in-demand bachelor’s degree, according to the NACE survey, was that of finance. There were 87 respondents who claimed they would hire candidates who studied the concentration.

Computer science ranked fourth on the list of top degrees, which sees that major fall from the second-place position it held last year.

Of all the companies that responded to NACE’s survey and provided feedback on their upcoming hiring demands, more than 98% said they expected to hire job candidates with a bachelor’s degree in the coming year. Nearly 75.5% or respondents said they would be hiring candidates with Master’s degrees as well.

So which Master’s degrees are most in-demand among employers? NACE has some answers to that question as well. According to the information respondents provided, M.B.As are the most desirable hires in the coming year, with more than 26% or employers stating they intend to bring holders of that master’s degree on board. That was followed by those with Finance degrees (25%) and Accounting degrees (23.6%).

NACE has found that the demand for business-oriented master’s degree holders has seen an uptick since last year’s survey, in which science, technology, engineering and math-based degrees were most sought-after. For a full rundown of the master’s degrees employers are most attracted to, check out the list below.

1.    MBA: 26.4% will hire

2.    Finance: 25%

3.    Accounting: 23.6%

4.    Computer Science: 22.9%

5.    Information Sciences & Systems: 18.8%

6.    Computer Engineering: 18.1%

7.    Management Information Systems: 15.3%

8.    Marketing: 15.3%

9.    Electrical Engineering: 15.3%

10.  Mechanical Engineering: 15.3%

Source: Forbes.com