A Whole New World…A Whole New Job Market

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s poor economy changes everything in terms of getting hired.

TROY — With companies struggling and more than 6
million Americans receiving unemployment benefits, college graduates are
confronting the worst job market in years. Overall, hiring of college
graduates this year is expected to be down 22 percent from the number
actually hired last year, according to a survey last month by the Bethlehem,
Pa.-based National Association of Colleges and Employers, which tracks
hiring trends on college campuses.

A separate NACE survey found that starting salaries for bachelor’s degree
candidates also have dipped, down 2.2 percent to $48,515 from $49,624 a year
ago.
Thomas Tarantelli, who directs RPI’s Career Development Center, said fewer
recruiters visited campus this year than last, and students who would have
gone through rounds of interviews instead have turned to such social
networking sites as Facebook to post their resumes and search for jobs.
“It’s an entirely different job market this year in terms of how students
are looking for jobs,” Tarantelli said.
Many are deciding to put off the job search altogether.
“More of our students are considering graduate school,” said Robert Soules,
who directs Becker Career Center at Union College in Schenectady. DelBelso
said applications to graduate school by seniors at Siena also were up.
Adam Finkle, who will graduate from Siena with a bachelor’s degree in
biology, wants to take a year off, working in the fields of biology and
ecology to help him decide on a focus for the doctorate he plans to pursue.
So far, his job search has yielded mixed results. Some positions carry
modest stipends that won’t cover his living expenses.
“I’m going to have to live off my income,” he said. “I’m responsible for
health insurance and car insurance, and I do have student loans.”
Work experience, through internships or so-called co-op programs in which
students work for a year for a prospective employer before they graduate, is
becoming more critical in finding a job, students and career counselors say.

It’s a way of differentiating their resumes from those of other students.
It’s also a way of discovering opportunities that might not at first seem
obvious.
Mallory Mason, a senior at Union, spent the summer before her senior year as
an intern at Goldman Sachs, an investment banking firm in New York City.
“They didn’t tell me they had a hiring freeze,” she said. “We just kept
being told they didn’t know if they could hire.”
She also applied to the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for an
internship, but that “didn’t work out for me.”
Now, as graduation approaches, PricewaterhouseCoopers has offered her a job
and she has accepted.
Mason expects that the auditing firm’s services will be in demand as banks
and other financial institutions face increased regulatory reporting
requirements, and that will make
her position “a more stable job.”

Some students are trying to distinguish themselves even before they reach
senior year.
“To me, a resume shouldn’t be something you’re trying to build. It should
reflect what you’ve done. Do things,” said Eric Allen, an RPI junior from
San Jose, Calif.
Allen was part of a recent two-session seminar on entrepreneurship conducted
by Robert Chernow, vice provost for entrepreneurship at RPI. The session,
titled “Planting Seeds for Success: Becoming More Marketable in a Tough
Economy,” was intended to encourage students to consider starting their own
companies, or at least to think like entrepreneurs.
“There’s a mindset that goes along with being an entrepreneur that no one
seems to grasp or talk about,” Chernow said. Entrepreneurs “are really good
at recognizing opportunities.”
Morrow, the 22-year-old RPI mechanical engineering major from Waldwick,
N.J., believes he has found an opportunity with his fledgling company.
He plans to produce small multi-tool devices for a niche market he has
identified. He already has presold 100 of the devices.
But he’s still interviewing for a full-time engineering position.
He says the job would provide a regular income and health benefits while he
builds his startup on the side.
In his area, entry-level salaries typically range from $45,000 to $60,000.
“Now, if you can find a job, it’s trending to the lower end of that,” Morrow
said. “Two years ago, I could have started at $55,000.”

As an undergraduate, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute senior Mike
Morrow launched his own company. Now, he’s looking for a job, but with few
responses to his dozens of carefully targeted resumes, Morrow’s startup may
become his full-time vocation. 
Edwin Koc, director of strategic and foundation research for NACE, said the
job outlook is particularly tough in this part of the country, thanks in
part to its dependence on the financial sector.
“The Northeast and the Far West are probably the worst off,” he said.
Emily Tracy, a 23-year-old from Utica, will receive her MBA this spring from
the University at Albany. She posted her resume online, but said that really
wasn’t effective.
She also mailed the resume to more than 50 companies, and fewer than five
even acknowledged receiving it, Tracy said.
Then, in the middle of March, she received an offer from UAlbany’s
University Auxiliary Services, which provides dining, bookstore and other
operations on campus. She won’t even have to move, Tracy said.
College career counselors are contacting employers who visited in previous
years, but not this year, to see what jobs they may have.
“We’ve identified 75 openings so far,” RPI’s Tarantelli said.
RPI and Union also are working with the Albany-based Center for Economic
Growth to encourage Capital Region employers to recruit on campus.
Deirdre Sweeney, director of career services for UAlbany’s School of
Business, said a group of upstate business schools teamed up for their first
ever joint job fair recently in Syracuse that attracted 32 employers. But
not all were hiring for full-time candidates.
“Some were looking for interns,” she said. “Some were just getting their
presence out there.”
Some jobs remain in demand.
“Health care — nurses, doctors, pharmacists — these professions seem to be
in pretty good shape,” said Union’s Soules.
Accounting and engineering also are doing well, said Siena’s DelBelso.
And two-year colleges that offer programs in such fields as nursing and
dental hygiene report a boom in applications. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, accounting salaries rose 2 percent to $48,377, and finance salaries were up
2.3 percent to $49,754.
“I had close to 300 applicants for 45 spots in dental hygiene this year,”
sadi Mary Claire Bauer, director of admissions at Hudson Valley Community
College in Troy. “Nursing had over 800 applications for 145 positions.”
But while those fields are holding up, others aren’t.
Hudson Valley’s job fair last year attracted 160 employers. This year, just
70 employers attended, said Gayle Martel, director of the school’s Center
for Careers and Employment.

At Siena College in Loudonville, Debra DelBelso, the career center director,
said the number of employer visits is unchanged from last year. But
“employers who had hired eight to 10 (students) are hiring two now,” she
said.

Graduating seniors aren’t the only ones turning to college career centers
for assistance.
Wes Dedrick, a 2000 Hudson Valley graduate who had been in auto sales,
contacted Sim Covington, assistant director of the school’s career center,
after that business began to struggle.
With Covington’s help, the 29-year-old Dedrick found a position with
telecommunications provider Time Warner Business Class, a job he called “a
really good fit.”

Overall, average starting salaries for graduates with a bachelor’s degree
have slipped from year-earlier levels, thanks to the recession. But some
fields, including engineering and business, had increases. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, engineering salaries rose 2.3 percent to $58,438 and chemical engineering
graduates did particularly well, with a 2.8 percent increase to $65,403.  Also, liberal arts graduates saw a 1 percent salary increase, on average, to$36,807, and computer
engineering graduates saw a 1.8 percent increase to $61,017. Yet not all fields had increases, where as
computer science salaries fell 3.6 percent to $57,693.  

The particular field and approach to getting hired are bigger factors than ever concerning the job market . In the world today, a degree is no longer any sort of guarantee for a career.