Some corporate recruiters walked away empty-handed from Cornell University this spring. All the graduates in a small, competitive degree program were hired months before commencement.

"We don't have enough students to meet the demand," said Karin Ash, director of career services in Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR). "It's difficult not being able to provide corporate recruiters with the talent they need, but it's very satisfying to have a 100 percent placement record."

The much-in-demand graduate is the holder of Cornell's Master of Industrial and Labor Relations, or MILR, degree. The professional degree program is designed for individuals entering the fields of industrial relations and human-resource management. Students take a set of required courses, such as labor and employment law and labor economics, while focusing on one of three areas: human resources and organizational behavior, public policy analysis, or collective bargaining and dispute resolution.

But like numerous hot career fields today, there are not sufficient numbers of qualified graduates to go around. This May, 125 employers, among them Citibank, J.P. Morgan, Chrysler, Sun Microsystems and Merck, visited campus in hopes of recruiting one of the 37 MILR graduates.

Ash said starting salaries for this year's MILR graduates ranged from $37,000 to $85,000, with an average signing bonus of $7,500. The placement rate for these grads, she said, has been at 100 percent for the past four years. "There's good pay and excellent employment opportunities with an MILR," she said.

So why then are so few students taking an interest in the program?

"I think HR has to do a better job of telling its story," said Beth Flynn, a human resource executive at General Mills, who earned a bachelor's degree from Cornell's ILR School in 1987. "Human resources is no longer just about issues related to payroll and benefits. It's partnering with the business; it's the ability to see the big picture, to be strategic concerning the entire people side of the business, to attract and retain talent through creative compensation programs, to develop employees for effective team management."

"Organizations are changing so rapidly. We look for graduates who have a bias for action, who can lead change and have the ability to resolve conflicts," Flynn said. "Students with the MILR degree have the skill and level of understanding of the workplace we want."

A current student in the MILR program, Cynthia Vogel, did a three week internship between semesters and then began interviewing for summer internships. "I interviewed with over 20 companies just for summer internships and I received five offers," she said. "The most surprising thing for me about the ILR program at Cornell was the demand by the employers for students. I had heard I could get a summer job, but I didn't realize that before we arrived on campus, recruiters were already asking for our resumes and that 60 companies were seeking summer interns."

Irina Konstantinovsky was heavily recruited for full-time work, collecting eight job offers in one semester before she decided to take the one presented by the consulting firm Towers Perrin. A former school teacher and native of Argentina, Konstantinovsky signed her deal nearly two months before earning her MILR degree last December.

Konstantinovsky said her interest in the MILR degree stemmed from her work in teacher training programs. "I was always very interested in training issues, but there were not a lot of career possibilities in the education field, so I began to explore the possibility of training and development with a human resources background and found the MILR degree."

Konstantinovsky saw the value of her MILR immediately upon entering the workplace. "The MILR degree has given me knowledge of human resources, but it's also enabled me to learn about change management and develop facilitation and other skills to better understand how people can grow and change in the marketplace."

Ash said she hopes enrollment in the MILR degree program will increase once word gets out that MILR degree holders are such hot commodities in the marketplace.