ON THE JOB

Eighty-one percent of college students think they will accomplish their career goals in 10 years or less, and 48 percent think they'll do so in five years or less, according to a survey released in January by Los Angeles-based JOBTRAK.COM, an online job site for students and alumni.

More than 1,000 students and recent alumni participated in the survey. One commented: "It is a fact that it takes time to succeed in life, and I think that two to five years should be enough."Few chief information officers think their chief executive officers are comfortable with information technology, according to a survey of 103 CIOs released last month by Transition Partners Co. of Reston, Va.

Twenty-three percent said their CEO's comfort with IT was high; 43 percent said it was adequate, and 6 percent said it was low.

Yet in a survey the consulting firm conducted among CEOs, 49 percent rated their own IT comfort level as high, 45 percent as adequate and 6 percent as low.

"The data ... suggest many CIOs lack respect for their CEOs' capabilities, and that can have a detrimental impact on development and implementation of IT strategy," said Managing Partner Tom Pettibone.U.S. employers are planning to give slightly higher pay raises this year than they had projected in July 2000, according to a survey released Jan. 23 by William M. Mercer Inc. of New York.

When the human resources consulting firm surveyed 2,439 firms in July, it found employers planned to increase base salaries by 3.9 percent to 4.4 percent. In an update of the annual survey, conducted in December 2000 among 645 firms nationwide, employers said they now expect to grant pay increases of 4.2 percent to 4.6 percent.

The biggest projected increase was for technical and professional employees. In July, these employees were projected to receive pay raises of 4.2 percent. The update increased that projection to 4.6 percent.

Only 15 percent of the surveyed employers said they expected to cut staff this year. Forty-four percent predicted no change, and 41 percent said they expected to increase staff.