Still months away from earning her degree, college senior Yujin Yi is working hard to land a job for after graduation.
Yi, 21, who will graduate in June from Northwestern University, knows she can’t limit her opportunities, so she’s using several strategies to help secure a job.
“Although I would love to go into marketing, those firms don’t start interviewing until March,” said Yi, a psychology and economics double major. “I didn’t want to close myself off to other job opportunities, so I began interviewing earlier with finance and education firms this past fall, and will interview with marketing firms in the spring.”
The Los Angeles native would prefer to work near her home, but to give her job search better odds, she won’t put limitations on location.
Yi is on the right track. She–and other members of the Class of 2004–are finding that flexibility is a necessity in a still-tight college labor market. Like Yi, they’re starting their searches early, interviewing outside their fields of choice and are looking at smaller markets in addition to big cities.
And, although hiring prospects for college graduates are looking up, it’s in comparison to what has been an especially dismal market during the past two years.
According to Phil Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University and author of “Recruiting Trends 2002-2003,” college seniors can expect a 6 percent to 9 percent increase in hiring over last year.
“It’s not going to be a `barn-burner’ of a college labor market–certainly not what we saw in the boom times of the late 1990s,” Gardner said. “But it’s also not going to be as bad as what began in the winter of 2001, when the dot-com market crashed and the college market crashed along with it, creating one of the worst labor market periods for grads that I’ve ever seen.”
Lois Meerdink, director of business career services for the College of Business at the University of Illinois in Urbana, reports seeing a gradual increase in the number of visits from corporate recruiters.
“Currently, our recruiting visits are up about 4 percent, and I have heard of comparable gains at other universities,” she said.
Even though more entry-level jobs may be opening up, this year’s graduating class is not only competing with each other but with graduates from previous years who still haven’t found a job, Gardner said.
To stand out, students must do their homework–and not just for their classes, experts agree.
“Students have to do the groundwork to know their field’s hiring practices and be fully prepared for the job application process,” said Lonnie Dunlap, director of University Career Services at Northwestern University.
“This means understanding the hiring strategies of the hiring company–which vary by industry and by size of employer–as well as having a resume and writing sample ready and being set to interview.”
And, just as it doesn’t usually work to take shortcuts with classroom homework, it doesn’t pay when it comes to the job search either.
“Today students are putting too much credence in posting resumes on the Internet,” said Lorn Coleman, director of the placement office, Northeastern Illinois University. “They think it’s a big safety deposit box for job offers–but it’s not, especially in this market. The old tried-and-true method of personal and professional networking still works the best.”
Doing your homework definitely means tapping your contacts. Gardner suggests that students make a list of people, from guest lecturers to relatives to alumni, who can help with job information. Informational interviews also are a good way to see what companies are looking for and what it takes to get hired.
Yi is hoping that her hard work pays off. Already, she says, exploring a wider field of job opportunities has helped her define what interests her.
“The upside to having such an unstable economy is that you can evaluate what’s best for you from a wider range of choices,” she said. “The situation really motivates me to work harder, try more things and find the most opportunities out of limited resources.”
