College graduates have optimistic job outlook

Soon-to-be-graduated college students are an optimistic bunch when it comes to finding their first positions, according to a survey of 600 seniors.

With about a month left until graduation, 55 percent said they hadn’t yet begun searching for work. And nearly a third, 32 percent, expect it will take them only one to three months to land a job. Of the 45 percent who had started looking, 11 percent said they had a job lined up.

And which field are they scouting? For men, positions in technology and then business and finance were most sought, while women were most interested in health care, communications and marketing jobs.

The results are from a survey at 34 colleges and universities conducted April 1-7 by HotJobs, part of Internet portal Yahoo! Inc.

Survey: Communication needs work, many workers say

Are you managed well, with open, honest communication with your supervisor? Probably not, if a recent employee poll is any indication.

Only about one in four workers, 24 percent, said they were completely satisfied with their jobs, in a recent poll.

The biggest problems? Communications and relationships with company managers. Nearly a third, 28 percent, don’t approve of how their companies communicate with them and 23 percent said they didn’t believe their organizations listened to or cared about them.

“While unemployment is high and employed Americans are grateful to have a job, they still crave an environment where they feel valued by their leaders, as well as achieving a sense of personal accomplishment at the end of the day,” said Rick Garlick, director of consulting and strategic implementation for Maritz Research Inc., which conducted the poll.

Motley Fool: Name that company

I was born a century ago, when a fellow whose first and middle names were James Cash founded the Golden Rule Store in 1902 in a Wyoming mining town. I got my current name in 1913. I opened more than 1,000 stores in the 1920s and spread into suburbs after World War II. Today my business is divided between my 1,049 department stores throughout the United States, my 2,686 Eckerd drugstores, and my online and catalog operations. I’m one of America’s largest retailers, employing more than 200,000 people, and am the country’s largest general merchandise catalog seller. Who am I?