Realities of job market test new college grads
Many scrambling to find employment
By Diane E. Lewis, Globe Staff, 6/22/03
Just a few weeks ago, they were facing the future with blind optimism, confident that a job would turn up someplace soon. Now, members of the class of 2003 are finding that it's a lot tougher in the real world than they'd anticipated.
Full-time employment has yet to materialize for students who delayed their job search. Others are banking on the relationships they built while on internships to help them find permanent work. Still others are the envy of their peers: They've got jobs.
Casey Schreiner hasn't landed a job yet, but since graduating from Boston University in May he's garnered a coveted interview with a manager at ''Malcolm in the Middle,'' the Fox television show about a dysfunctional American family - an opportunity Schreiner attributes to the internship he had on the sitcom last year.
Schreiner is relying on the money he saved while working at various jobs, including his internship, to help him get established in Los Angeles. A TV buff who studied the genre in college, he hopes to land entry level work on the staff of a sitcom within the next six months. He credits the new friends he made on the set of ''Malcolm in the Middle,'' with keeping him abreast of hiring decisions and encouraging him to move west.
But Schreiner, 22, of Berlin, Conn., doesn't have a contingency plan.
''I think not having a contingency plan will make me work extra hard to try and get something that works for me,'' he said in a telephone interview.
One reason some students aren't too anxious: They can always count on mom and dad. Those are the findings of MonsterTrak, the online college career service. In a recent study, it reported that 61 percent of the class of 2003 expected to return to their parents' homes after graduating from college.
Kendra Levasseur had few worries when she graduated from Northeastern University this month. The 23-year-old had majored in communication studies, with a minor in business. She didn't have a job, but she'd had one interview already and, in the weeks before graduation, seemed certain she would get results. Like Schreiner, she was banking on work experience to help her land work in public relations, sales, or advertising.
When reached by telephone at her family's home in Maine recently, Levasseur was still looking. ''I've been to a couple of interviews,'' she said. ''I'm hoping the job I want will come through.''
She's not alone. MonsterTrak found that 53 percent of the nation's new college grads didn't expect to find work when they graduated, up from 23 percent in 2001.
''The current job market is certainly not what this year's graduating class envisioned when they started as freshmen during the dot-com boom,'' said Jeff Taylor, founder and chairman of Maynard-based Monster. ''But it's not as disheartening as some might think.''
Researchers at the national staffing firm, Manpower, would probably agree. They recently polled 16,000 employers around the country about hiring intentions for the third quarter. Of those surveyed, 65 percent were expecting no change in hiring and 20 percent were expecting to increase payrolls by adding staff in the third quarter, suggesting that the bloodletting from downsizings, mergers, and restructurings may be declining. In all, 9 percent of the employers said they would probably lay off staff.
Recruitment is expected to improve in Boston, according to Manpower spokesman Mark Spengler.
''Last quarter the staffing outlook was weak,'' he said. ''Eighteen percent of the employers surveyed forecast adding workers, and 22 percent anticipated reductions. A year ago, 15 percent thought increases were likely and 5 percent intended to cut back.''
The company's most recent poll shows that 20 percent of the Boston area companies surveyed expect to hire more workers. Seventy percent plan to maintain current hiring levels; 3 percent were uncertain. About 7 percent say they will reduce staff, down from 22 percent last quarter.
Manpower is predicting some employment opportunities in construction, durable goods, manufacturing, transportation or public utilities as well as the wholesale and retail trades and finance, insurance, and real estate. Hiring in nondurable goods is expected to stay the same. Meanwhile, education and public administration workers will see job cuts, its researchers said.
Taylor maintains that students who garnered practical work experience before actively looking for permanent work are more likely to find jobs. According to the MonsterTrak survey, however, 70 percent of students agreed that real work experience and internships were the best way to land viable employment, but only 46 percent had interned while in college.
Roy Lydon, who graduated from Babson College in Wellesley this spring, can attest to the power of work experience. Lydon, who concentrated on management information systems in school, credits last year's internship at Raytheon Co. in Lexington with helping him land a coveted job with the company's Corporate IT Leadership Development Program. He starts the job on June 30.
Lydon, 21, of Norwood, was among more than 1,000 candidates who vied for 10 positions nationwide. Only three undergraduates made the final round and were offered jobs, he said. ''It was scary going up against people with credentials that I did not have,'' said Lydon, who competed against applicants with MBA degrees. ''But it was all about starting the job search early and getting internships. You really can't do that in your senior year. You need to have an internship at the end of sophomore year and you should have one at the end of junior year.''
Lydon cautioned his peers against relying too heavily on the resume and on grade point average to help them find work. ''The resume only says so much about who you are as a person,'' he said. ''To be quite honest, if it had been a matter of comparing paper with paper, I would have been blown away by some of the candidates' resumes.
''A lot of people don't have jobs,'' Lydon continued. ''I would have been one of them if I didn't have internships. I think a lot of kids feel Mom and Dad will take care of them. I couldn't afford to have that attitude. I knew I'd have to pay my way from now on. So, I never really imagined not getting a job.''
Neither did Rajkumar Sheth. Sheth, a native of India, has landed a job at EMC as a finance professional in the company's three-year Finance Training Program in Hopkinton. ''I've been fortunate,'' said Sheth, who found his job after extensive networking and searching the Babson College online career site for job leads.
''Not as many companies are as willing to sponsor international students this year,'' he said, adding that many of his friends are still looking for jobs. ''I had a window of opportunity, but it took a lot more than it would have four years ago. It meant exhausting every resource you had - your college, your professors, friends, strangers - everyone. And even after I exhausted every resource in the book and networked, I had to work hard.''
Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com.
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