Avoiding the Next Enron: Today's Crop of Soon-to-Be Grads Seeks Job Security.

By Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com.

You might think college students aren't looking much further into the future than next week's exam, or Friday's beer bash.

You would be wrong. This year, college grads are contemplating something quite different, say campus recruiters and researchers: their future 401(k)s.

As companies begin their next round of campus visits to recruit the undergraduate class of 2006, recruiters say it's clear that the bad news of the past few years -- from Sept. 11 and the tech crash to Enron, layoffs and worries about Social Security's demise -- have shaken this new crop of grads. More than any recruits in memory, they're asking employers for assurances of security, so they don't wind up at the next Enron. And in many cases, amid rising competition for educated workers and declining unemployment, they're getting it: Employers are tailoring pitches and programs to suit them, say recruiters at a dozen big companies, including Boeing, General Electric, Avaya and Intel.