The job outlook for college seniors continues to improve, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a nonprofit group based in Bethlehem, Pa.

For the second year in a row, surveyed employers predicted an increase in college-graduate hiring. Employers predicted they would hire 13.1% more graduates from the college class of 2005 than the class of 2004, the study said. In addition, 61% of employers said they planned to increase their hiring, compared with 51% who said they planned to do so last year.

In the recent survey, 23% of employers said they planned to maintain their college hiring levels, while just 16% planned to hire fewer new college graduates. In the year-earlier survey, 21% planned to maintain hiring levels, while 28% planned a decrease.

“This year it does seem more positive,” says Andrea Koncz, employment information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. “Things are starting to pick up.”

With more jobs out there, employers are finding they will have to compete for the best candidates. In the current survey, employers predicted their biggest challenge for recruiting this academic year would be competition, followed by finding the right candidates, and attracting students to a specific industry or location.

In the year-earlier survey, the biggest foreseen challenge was finding the right candidate, followed by budget constraints and not having enough positions available.

About 70% of employers said they planned to increase starting salaries for new college graduates, up from 49%. Of those planning to raise salaries, the average increase was 3.7%, compared with 3.4% in the year-earlier period.

The list of employers’ 10 most sought-after majors changed little from past surveys, continuing to favor students with specific business skills, rather than a liberal-arts background. The five most “in demand” majors were accounting; electrical engineering; mechanical engineering; business administration and management; and, economics and finance.

In the year-earlier survey, those same majors were the top five but in a different order, with mechanical engineering rather than accounting taking the top slot. This doesn’t mean companies don’t want to hire liberal arts majors, but rather that companies don’t tend to specifically target, say, history majors, as much in their recruitment plans, Ms. Koncz says.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, one of the companies that participated in the survey, says it plans to increase its new college-graduate hiring this year by roughly 8%.

The firm doesn’t track new college graduate hires specifically, but says that it plans to hire about 7,000 people, most of them new college graduates, into its entry-level management-training program, up from 6,500 last year.

“We’re definitely seeing the recruitment market has become more competitive,” says Marie Artim, assistant vice president of recruiting. She adds that the firm doesn’t target specific majors but rather looks for qualities in students such as leadership ability.

For Natalie Monos, a senior in Management Information Systems, an information-technology degree at Ohio University, the job search was short and sweet.

Between late September and mid-November, the 21-year-old Ms. Monos estimates she interviewed with 14 or 15 companies. She accepted a job with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago after receiving three offers and turning down three second-round interviews.

“I think this year there have been a lot more offers,” she says. “Almost all of my friends that are business majors have already accepted positions.”