Career Opportunities

ILR Conference Center

ILR graduates work in every region of the United States and around the world. Recent graduates have taken positions in the general business, high-tech, financial services, manufacturing, and not-for-profit sectors. Their job titles range from Recruiter, HR Manager, Labor Relations Specialist, and Senior Consultant in the corporate world, to Field Examiner with the NLRB. Because ILR alumni hold senior and influential positions in numerous businesses and labor organizations, the strength of the program is well known around the country, and even the world, so Cornell ILR graduate students are in great demand.
ILR's Office of Career Services (OCS) is particularly effective at helping MILR students find human resources positions, and also works closely with students interested in other areas to identify job leads. Graduate students in the MPS, MS, and PhD programs work closely with their professors to find employment, and are encouraged to use OCS services. The staff in OCS can also facilitate networking with ILR alumni, an excellent resource.

The OCS offers a full schedule of programs and informative workshops, and provides individualized assistance including resume preparation, practice interviews, developing career networks, create a job-search strategy, and evaluating offers. The office hosts a corporate career fair each fall, and a social-justice career fair each spring in conjunction with ILR's Union Days activities.

Summer internships can help hone skills, clarify the specific work and identify the kind of organization students will choose for their careers. Most masters students earn between $800 and $1,275 a week during a summer internship. Many students eventually accept full-time offers from their summer internship sponsors. (For example, 29% of 2004 MILR graduates took this opportunity.)

The Office of Career Services manages an active on-campus recruiting program that brings representatives from many of the country's foremost human resources programs to campus. The Cornell TRAK system is available to all ILR students. Interviews for both full-time and summer internship positions are held during the fall and spring semesters. Many students (85% of 2004 MILR graduates) accept positions before graduation. In 2004 the average starting salary was $65,857.  Students accepting positions in the corporate sector had an average starting salary of $69,520 and in the labor and government sectors, the average was $40, 120.  The average signing bonus in the corporate sector was $6,594.  (See the OCS website for more facts and figures.)