Chicago-area women adjusting caps and gowns are also holding their breath that the nation’s slowing unemployment rate means their job searches will soon take off.
“I’ve been looking for a job the whole school year and it’s just now picking up,” says Priya Patel, a finance major from the University of Illinois at Chicago. “I know the economy is picking up and I’ve been seeing more jobs opening up, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to land one of them.”
Patel’s experience mirrors thousands of American women graduating from college this spring and looking for work.
Five years ago, career service offices on Chicago campuses and across the country hummed with energy and excitement. For every lucrative job landed by a graduating senior, whoops and cheers could be heard in the hallways.
But the celebrating fell flat when the economy’s bubble burst. For the past two years, prospects for graduates have been bleak. Companies that once doled out jobs like candy to trick-or-treaters held back on hiring and even laid off employees.
Many graduates who held college degrees in professional fields have been forced to wait tables just to make ends meet.
“It’s been worse than it was during the economic downturn of the early 1990s,” said Vicky Lovell, study director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
That downward economic spiral has changed in recent months, according to economists who study jobless figures and career counselors helping students find jobs.
Tenuous, but improving, market
“The job market is getting much better for graduates this year,” said Kris Ihle, a career counselor at Northwestern University. “It’s still a tenuous market but it’s better than a year ago.”
Women who went into their job search expecting six-month or longer waits before landing a job may find work within a few months, some observers say, and even sooner if they are willing to deviate from their degree.
Jessica Mayle, 21-year-old from Houston graduating from Northwestern University with a journalism degree, expected a long and painful job-search process when she started looking six months ago. But within weeks she landed a six-month copy-editing internship at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She starts in August.
“You feel a lot of pressure to find something especially when you’re competing against so many good candidates,” she said.
Misty Dennis, 27, who graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago is hoping her internship at Sotheby’s leads to the career she wants, working at a museum or art gallery.
Dennis was a floral designer and held a variety of jobs before going back to college and says she doesn’t want to return to that kind of employment.
“I went to school to get a degree and [to] stop jumping around from job to job. I’m still hopeful, but I also understand the reality with the economy being the way it is,” she said, adding the economic downturn also has led to funding cuts in the art world, making jobs even more difficult to find.
Internships are key
Counselors and economists say graduates need to work harder than ever if they expect to find work in the current, competitive market. Doing an internship is the best way to gain experience.
But new grads also need to take the extra effort to present themselves professionally, says Andres Garza, director of the Office of Career Services at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
An interview may go well, he said, “But if the employer follows up on your answering machine to a message that is inappropriate, they may have second thoughts.” The same goes for e-mail addresses that “go too far,” he said.
And the interview isn’t just about answering questions, it’s about doing your homework, says Barbara Pachter, author of “When the Little Things Count” (Marlowe & Company).
“They’ve got to realize that the resume only gets them the interview. It’s the interview that gets the a job,” she said.
That means no giggling at the end of sentences–a habit many women succumb to when they’re nervous–no cell-phone use, no verbal upspeak or sing-song language. “It all shows you are uncomfortable and it takes away from your credibility,” she said.
And though dressing appropriately for a job interview or job fair seems like a no-brainer to those already in the work force, college students may not realize its importance.
Experience, professionalism sought
Economists say the competition for jobs even in the improving economy is tough and an employer is likely to go with candidates who have experience and present themselves in a professional way.
Heather Boushey, an economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., points to statistics that show more jobs opening to older workers than younger job-seekers.
“Employment has increased 100 percent for folks 55 and older during the past year,” she said, adding, “Younger workers are having a harder time getting hired.”
The reason is two-fold. Older workers are staying in the workplace longer. And employers are taking the easy way out, she says. “It’s easier to hire someone who has experience in the work force, even if you have to pay them more. They can jump right in and do the job,” she said.
Patel says that fact is becoming painfully clear. “I’m seeing a lot of jobs opening for senior financial analysts and positions that require years of experience that I don’t have,” she said.
The answer, say the experts, is to be patient, flexible and assertive. “If I’ve seen one change in recent years, it’s that women have become more assertive in their job hunt,” said Joe Reaves, of Loyola University’s Career Center. “They’re networking, going to job-fairs and cold-calling companies. Given the economy, it’s become required that they do it.”
Meanwhile, the National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that almost 3 out of 5 employers expect the job market for the class of 2004 to be only “fair.”
The group’s annual survey found that despite improving economic indicators not everyone plans to increase the number of new grads they will hire. More than a quarter of employers say they will hire fewer graduates than last year, according to the group’s 2004 Job Outlook.
