Students Prepare for Tough Job Market

Yasmin Yonis

University of Georgia students have not been exempt from the effects of the recession as recent graduates face record unemployment numbers in an economy that continues to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs each month.

Only 20 percent of recent graduates had job offers before graduation, a 30 percent decrease from 2007, according to a recent study by National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

The University’s Career Center offers employment help to current students and alumni through career and internship fairs, resume critiques, networking dinners and mock interview sessions.

“We have carried on with programs and advice that we think would be relevant for the market,” said Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication career advisor Cecil Bentley. “The market is tougher but the basics are still the same.”

Just as full-time, employment is becoming harder to find, internships have also become much more competitive.

Internship opportunities decreased by 21 percent compared to recent years according to NACE. Fewer openings, along with college graduates settling for internships as they look for jobs, have made it even harder for current students to gain job experience.

“It is a very competitive field and you have to make yourself look better somehow. There isn’t any better way than job experience,” said senior Caty Dickensheets, a newspaper major who has had five internships during her college career.

Graduating in December, Dickensheets is looking for public relations internships in Hong Kong.

Nervous that she would not find a job soon after graduating, Dickensheets began working in a restaurant in May to save money for potential gaps in employment.

Journalism students have not fared well in the economic recession. Only half of national graduates with degrees in journalism or mass communication found work in their field in 2008 as the media industry has taken a hard hit in this economic downturn.

Sophomore Lauren Powell said she chose to pursue a business major because of the higher prospect of getting a job in business rather than humanities.

“I have seen my parents struggle with the bills. So I didn’t want to work four years in college for something I didn’t like or [that] wouldn’t get me a job,” said Powell, who is a pre-finance major from Conyers. “Nurses and doctors are [guaranteed] jobs but business, especially finance, has taken a big hit.”

Engineering majors are faring better than the rest of their peers, even those in the popular medical and business fields, according to the NACE’s Summer 2009 Salary Survey.

Engineering disciplines accounted for four out of the top five starting salary offers, according to the survey.

Recent engineering graduates are more competitive in the overall market because the supply of graduates is not meeting the demand for their skills by employers.

Some students and alumni are settling for lower paying jobs or positions out of their fields. Others see graduate school as a way to become more competitive and wait out the recession.

“[Graduate] school is definitely an option. I do have hope that the economy will be on the upturn when I graduate,” junior Kenneth Love said.

The geography major hopes to pursue a career in geographic information system (GIS), which uses technology to map the topography of the earth, and said he is not as worried as his friends because GIS is a growing market.

“A lot of [my friends] are going to [graduate] school. They realize that they have to take whatever they can get,” Love said.