2003 Job Prospects Bleak for Graduates
By Conor O'Rourke
News Writer
With second semester and graduation only a few months away, Pomona College seniors are getting used to hearing a certain question from parents, teachers and friends: "what's next?" For Pomona College seniors the answer to this question is an increasingly difficult one and preferably avoided. Many simply wish not to think about it for reasons of their own personal indeciveness. However, many, like Jasper Turner '03, will let the current economy field that question. "I don't know where I'll be next year. I suppose it all depends on what the market is like," says Turner, a PPE economics major.
Turner's hopes for a career in finance may not fall into his lap like they might have a few years prior, however the outcome is not as depressing as most college students are led to believe. "I would call [the job market] promising," says Carl Martellino, director of Pomona's Career Development Office.
The numbers that first come to mind, however are the number of people are getting jobs. Pomona's numbers show a drop in grads going directly into full time employment, down from 32 percent in 2001 to 24 percent for 2002. Additionally, on-campus interviews dropped from a total of 518 to 330 for the same time period. Nonetheless, national studies show no marked decline in new employees to various major fields of the job market (including business, education, and psychology).
"What I'm stressing is that jobs are available. They won't be falling into your lap like they did in 1999, but there are opportunities out there," says Martellino. He goes on to give me a brief overview of the CDO's online resources, an extensive database that allows students to send resumes and cover letters directly to several thousand potential employers, and also contact over 1600 alumni for career guidance. Pomona's career reference library rivals only Harvard's in depth and through the efforts its six-member staff earned the California Career Development Association's top award for programming excellence.
Yet despite plentiful resources, Martellino notes that student appointments and visitations to the office are down from 1400 to just 1000 this past year. "With everything we hear on the news about how bad the job market is…it instills doubt in the students about whether or not they'll be able to find a job."
Martellino says that he sees the same defeatist attitude permeating through the East Coast campuses as well. Currently, a popular option for students is to go to graduate school and try to wait out the economic downturn while furthering their education. Indeed, the increased applications to graduate programs, especially in law (where less undergraduate preparation is required), have made it a more competitive option than it has been recently. "Pomona students are now forced to apply to more than just the top five programs," says Martellino and suggests that students interested in grad school now allow themselves more backup schools than they have in the past.
Students are also seeking alternative forms of employment or study. Applications for such organizations such as Peace Corps, the JET program (Japanese Exchange Teaching), Teach For America, and various fellowships are all up from last year. With careers in technology the only ones to show a marked decrease (over 25 percent drop in jobs), specialized schools like Harvey Mudd College are especially seeing this trend. Numbers from HMC's career services office show an 11 percent decrease in industry jobs while jobs with non-profit organizations and non-graduate school study opportunities is up by a similar percentage. "We had more non-profits at our career fair than we ever have before," says Karen McAndrew, director of career services at HMC. "I suppose many of them fill the void left by the consulting firms who can no longer afford to recruit."
In addition to a bearish market, recent scandals have hurt consulting and accounting firms tremendously and "the recruiting staffs are the first to be cut," says Martellino.
Despite an increasing unemployment rate that topped out at just over six percent this year, Martellino reminds students that it is all a matter of perspective. "Sure the unemployment is around 5.7 percent now but that is a lot better than it has been at other times," he says referring to the double digits it reached during the Reagan administration. "Students aren't getting nine or ten offers like they did in 1999, but all they need is just one good one."
Both Martellino and McAndrew suggest that students now just need to put a little bit more time into it. "It may have taken only two to four months of searching to find a job you liked a few years ago. Those opportunities are still available…..but now it takes about four to six months to get that first job," says Martellino. McAndrew advises that students now pay extra special attention to their preparation. "The fish aren't as hungry anymore, so students need to be that much more prepared and persistent."
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