The Most Desired College Degrees and Skills Employers Want in 2015

We all know that certain college majors have certain advantages in the job market, but which ones are desired most by employers?

The National Association of College and Employers surveyed companies and employers responding the the Job Outlook 2015 taken in November 2014 indicated that they planned to hire 8.3% more college graduates this year compared to last year.

The NACE is a non-profit group that links college placement offices with employers.

It surveyed more than one thousand companies that are part of their network and got responses from 162 companies from energy to retail.

American Express, Exxon Mobil, Merck, Procter & Gamble, and United Airlines are among the respondents.

The questionnaire in the Spring Update, taken between February 9 and March 23, 2015 asked emplyoers to rate the academic disciplines they target for their college hires.

One such discipline floated to the top, 72.1% of total respondents hiring are looking for someone with an engineering degree.

Next in line was business, with 68.2% of respondents looking for someone with that degree.

JodySieradzki pulled together this chart below using the numbers collected by the NACE:

discipline 1

Also surveyed was what skills employers value most in new hires.

Companies ranked critical thinking/problem solving as first, teamwork as second, and for someone to work in a professional manner with good work ethic as third in importance.

discipline 2