Job market bleak for new college grads
WHITEWATER — College graduates face perhaps the bleakest job market in years, according to recently released national reports.
Ashley Jones knows the frustration firsthand.
She’s applied for at least 40 jobs, but has scored only four interviews.
Still no job.
“I’m trying to stay positive,” Jones said. “But it’s going to be a heck of a time.”
Jones, 22, graduated Dec. 20 from UW-Whitewater with a bachelor’s degree in public relations. She didn’t expect to have a job right out of college, but she also didn’t expect to have such trouble.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said.
According to recent reports, opportunities exist but are limited.
Employers plan to hire about the same number of college graduates as last year, but they’re reassessing their hiring needs monthly rather than quarterly, according to a national survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
“Consequently, many of this year’s graduates will find fewer openings available to them and may have to consider different types of opportunities, industries and organizations than they planned,” Marilyn Mackes, executive director of the association, said in a news release.
Another national survey, this one conducted by researcher Phil Gardner at Michigan State University, found employers expect to hire 8 percent fewer college graduates than last year.
“In two short years, we have moved from a zenith of exuberant and aggressive college hiring, through a period of cautious optimism, to a place of quiet desperation,” Gardner wrote in the report. “The labor market is contracting sharply this year. The economic train wreck has piled up casualties. The voracious appetite for college labor has abated.”
Jones started sending applications to public relations and marketing firms in the Madison area in August—before her final semester of college even began. She thought getting a jump would be an advantage.
“I don’t know if getting started right away was good or not,” she said. “I have some friends who haven’t started at all, and neither one of us has a job.”
Jones said she’s since cast her job-application net a bit wider.
“Now, I’m basically just trying my foot in the door anywhere that’ll take me,” she said.
According to the Michigan State report, a few things are keeping the job market from being a complete disaster for new college graduates:
--Employers engaged in “global talent wars.”
--Companies looking to sustain their workforce pending the retirement of baby boomers.
--Small, fast-growing businesses.
“Students—freshmen to seniors—cannot be complacent during this time,” Gardner wrote.
Employers are looking for “the right mix of talent” to stem any losses from further “economic disruption,” he wrote.
Jones isn’t discouraged yet.
“I did just graduate Saturday,” she said. “It’s not like I’ve been out there a long time searching with nothing to do. I think I will be, come April or May, if I haven’t found anything by then.”
Jones said she knows landing a job is going to take a more concerted effort. And now that she’s no longer in school, she’ll have more time to devote to scouring the job postings—that is, when she’s not working one of her four part-time jobs.
“I don’t think graduates should be too saddened, yet,” she said. “There’s still time for them to get their foot out there.
“I’m hoping come January … we’ll see a bigger upturn (in hiring). But it’s always hard to say.”
According to the Michigan State report, spring college graduates will have an even tougher time finding work.
“For those students who have not initiated their job search or even framed their employment expectations, a call to urgency is warranted,” Gardner wrote.
“To land a job, students will have to work hard and remain steadfast through this bad year.”
Dec 30, 2008 at 8:09 p.m.
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Let me point out, health care is not always government programs. As with many other things, somewhere along the way, even if they are not government run, there are government funds that are filtered through on a different name.
Dec 30, 2008 at 12:33 a.m.
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That's the biggest problem with a recession. When the economy is in full scale down turn, very few businesses are hiring, and even more are cutting back. So not only do new grads have limited job openings out there, you also are competing with many more people who have been laid of recently. And most those people all ready have some experience which is huge to many employers.
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Health care, as some noted, seems to be a field that is pretty recession proof. OF COURSE government ALWAYS grows, so if you can get a government job, your always safe there. As they never will cut back no matter how bad things get!
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I really think it's a huge misconception that education and monetary success go hand and hand. If you have a passion, and gift for something, you can achieve great success in life without any formal education.
Dec 29, 2008 at 9:36 p.m.
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I'm a student at UW-Madison. I love the school and have learned a lot, but I harbor no illusions of grandeur upon graduating. Had I gone into a technical school and earned a degree in nursing I'd be much better off. Believe me, I have friends who are nurses who love to remind me everyday. Would I make more money? Definitely. I'll be graduating with a degree in History with a minor in African Studies. I wouldn't trade it for anything. The vast majority of friends of mine, with whom I attended public schools here in Janesville, cannot name three supreme court justices. They can tell me that WWI came before WWII, but have no idea where the Revolutionary War fits in. This disgusts me to no end.
Dec 29, 2008 at 9:29 p.m.
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metro..
If I'm not mistaken, he's still in school. I can't fathom the debt he's accumulated by now, though.
Dec 29, 2008 at 8:42 p.m.
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biggirl: i'm sorry that you took it as 'mocking' people of their age. in the case of the presidential elections, there was a multitude of things, not just age or race.
Dec 29, 2008 at 8:40 p.m.
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Congrats greengina! I truly commend you for getting your HSED and now having the goals of pursuing a PhD when things get better with the family! I don't like seeing people drop out of high school, but love that you have the support to pursue your education!
Also, I have a bachelor's degree in social work from UWW. Do I use it? Yes and no. I'm not too into the whole political aspect traditional social work jobs. I work in assisted living with adults with a variety of disabilities. I have been able to utilize my education to support them and 'use the system' to get them what they need. I am better able to communicate with them and their entire team because of my education. I wouldn't trade it for the world! I love working with my clientele for the past 12 years!
But, as many people know, assisted living has low pay, high stress, and crazy amounts of high burnout and turnover. So, to better able to support myself and family, I am in school in the healthcare field. I will complete my 2-year associate's degree in June 2010-- an associate's in Health Information Management (HIM).
Health Care is the way to go these days with an aging population and more diseases and illnesses being 'found out.' Basically, my HIM degree will allow me to work in such areas as medical billing and coding and other important paperwork types of areas. There are all kinds of facilities/clinics/agencies that will hire the health care professionals. It is also something that has the potential of being home-based.
Maybe it's not that places aren't hiring, it's more the degree and education that is obtained-- real life experience and the health care field.
Dec 29, 2008 at 12:38 p.m.
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Getting a job straight out of college has never been guaranteed. I worked for 15 years before going back to get an HSED and then going to college. I'll graduate from UWW next May, and I have to take time off to work before entering grad school for family health issues. Most of the jobs in my field are in the larger cities, but I would rather stay here in Janesville. This means I might have to do something other than what I'm trained to do. I have been looking for employment for 3 months now and jobs are available if I'm willing to relocate. If I had the option of going directly into grad school I would, because the pay is great if you can get the right program. My point is for new grads not to get discouraged, but to keep hope alive and don't lose sight of your dreams.
Dec 28, 2008 at 10:18 p.m.
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Or....you could just keep going to school. How long did the boy at U.W.W. go there before "graduating" (9 or 12 years??) By then any economic "downturn" we are having today would be long gone....
Dec 28, 2008 at 10:07 a.m.
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Keith: I'm so sorry about your situation. No one wants to talk about ageism, a form of discrimination that begins even in middle age. The younger workers cost less, and let's face it, we're an aged obsessed society. I saw this work itself out in the presidential election in which anyone could mock you based on age, no one on race. While I don't want the latter, and so approve, I'm not sure why our society is so permissive of mocking older people.
Dec 28, 2008 at 7:17 a.m.
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Bob, I like your comments about the self-help gurus. I'm waiting for that half hour infomercial or that Holiday Inn conference center seminar by one of these guys teaching attendees how they, too, can big bucks being a self help guru selling admission to Holiday Inn conference center seminars.
Dec 28, 2008 at 5:37 a.m.
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Welcome to my world. I went back to college part-time in the mid-1990s as an older adult. It was my goal to avoid destroying my body by being worked to death by hard physical labor in my older age. (If you do not know what I am talking about you have lived under a rock somewhere). Along the way I picked up more than one degree. My grade point average was above 3.5 all the way. My work experience is now over 40 years. The last time I called in sick was 10 years ago. Yet, even four years ago when I finished school, my applications and calls were ignored by countless employers (poetically some of them have gone under now). I can only conclude I was and have been a prelude to what younger students are facing now – call me the canary in the cool mine. I will defer from assuming in my case it is age discrimination, but that is a constant concern non-the-less, as our schizophrenic society is what it is – habitually hypocritical.
Remember also, colleges are now businesses as well. They have a product to sell – an education just for you. I will never regret going back to college. It was a goal of a life-time accomplished. Yet, my one caveat to anyone who may care, beware of unrealistic promises by anyone who wants your money - colleges included.
And lately, it is also amusing (perhaps pathetic) that a whole cadre of self-help gurus have emerged to help you find that good job, save your credit, and snap up a good house lost by some poor sucker who lost his job and had his life foreclosed on.
Well, the Army needs folks. That is what a bunch of us low income kids had to do in 1974 during that economic melt down.
Oh that’s right; we are not supposed to mention some of us have been through this before.
Bob Keith
cooldadiomedia.com
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