It’s getting down to the wire for McCormick senior P.J. Kennedy.

The biomedical engineering major interviewed for 15 jobs this year and was rejected from 13 of them, leaving him with no serious employment prospects.

“All the money is going out of the big companies,” he said. “It has been a rough year. I know plenty of people who are still biting their nails, just like I am.”

Texas Instruments announced Tuesday that it would cut 2,500 jobs, or 6 percent of its work force.

“Obviously, the economy has slowed down,” said Camille Luckenbaugh, an employment information manager with the National Association of Colleges and Employers. “It just seems to be affecting people across the board. There are definitely going to be employers that are not going to have as many openings.”

‘ANOTHER ROBUST YEAR’

Though the economy is showing signs of faltering, University Career Services is stepping up its student placement efforts.

Dianne Siekmann, Northwestern’s associate director for career services, said she constantly asks employers for feedback and visits them during the summer to encourage employers to recruit at NU.

“If there’s a recession and companies have to cut back on the number of students they hire, we really want to position ourselves to make sure we’re one of the schools they continue to come to,” she said. “During the good times, of course companies come to seek us out. But you can’t take that for granted.”

During the recession in the early 1990s, one-third fewer employers came to NU and college recruiting dropped 50 percent nationwide, Siekmann said.

But so far the warning signs of a recession have had no impact on attendance at NU job fairs, she said. About 250 companies come to NU’s four main job fairs each year.

Siekmann said she expects the same number of employers to come to campus next year even though they might hire fewer students.

“We’ve just had another robust year of employers coming to talk to our students,” Siekmann said. “Traditionally, companies like to maintain a presence on campus. If they stop coming, they’ve lost some ground with students.”

HIRING PREDICTIONS DROP

Nearly 46 percent of employers nationwide have scaled back fall hiring predictions for college graduates, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers that was released Thursday.

The study found that employers still plan to hire 18.8 percent more college graduates than they did last year, but that nearly half of the employers surveyed have reduced the number of new hires from their earlier August estimates.

In the Midwest, 53.1 percent of employers still plan to hire the same number of college graduates as they projected in the fall, while 42.2 percent plan to scale back those estimates, the study found. About 4.7 percent of Midwest companies in the survey planned to hire more college students than they had initially expected.

NU students most likely will not feel the effects of an economic slowdown until Fall Quarter, when the university hosts its first job fair of the year, Siekmann said.

Despite recession warnings, the job market remains competitive for college graduates, NACE’s Luckenbaugh said. Nearly 70 percent of employers still are offering signing bonuses, an indication that the market remains tight, she said.

“While people looking for a job this year might have to look a little bit harder than their friends last year, there’s still plenty of opportunity,” she said. “I’d still say it’s a good market out there for college graduates.”

Accenture, one of the heaviest recruiters of NU graduates, plans to stick with its goal of hiring 3,500 college students this year, a company spokesman said.

Weinberg senior Brad Erickson said he had no trouble finding a job this year. Erickson, who will work in the real estate investment department of Hilton Hotels in Hawaii, said most of his friends already have gotten work.

“A lot of the good companies came and recruited here,” he said. “A lot of people got really good offers, just like every other year at Northwestern. I don’t see the economy as being a problem.”

Although nearly half of the nation’s employers are cutting back on the number of college graduates they expect to hire, a small percentage of companies have raised hiring projections and are working to build relationships with universities.

MassMutual Financial Group plans to more than double the number of college students it hires this year – and especially hopes to build closer ties to NU and eight other “core” universities, said Ryan Courtemanche, a human resources specialist for the company.

The company, based in Springfield, Mass., plans to hire about 100 college students this year, up from 45 last year, Courtemanche said.

In the last year, Courtemanche said he had traveled to NU five times and had interviewed more than 15 students for jobs at the company. MassMutual has hired one NU student so far this year.

“We’re still looking to keep the engines moving forward,” he said. “College students are a market we didn’t tap before. They come with a fresh perspective.”

But after attending two NU job fairs and more than a dozen unsuccessful interviews, McCormick senior Kennedy blamed the economy for his job-seeking troubles and said he is now considering moving away from Chicago to find work.

“I’ve kind of just put myself in a place where I’m worried about graduating first,” he said. “I’ll just make sure I can live until someone will hire me.”