News

Seniors brave cold job market in frozen economy

In print | April 2, 2009

Swarthmore seniors looking for employment after graduation are facing a job market much less friendly than those of years past, due to the economic downturn. According to Erin Massey, Associate Director of Career Services, “there are less positions available out there.” However, Massey emphasized that her office “doesn’t have a pessimistic outlook.”

“It’s not a catastrophe. People are going to be employed,” said Dianne Seo ’09, a Career Peer Advisor in the Career Services office. Echoing her tone, Massey explained that finding a job in the current economy is certainly possible, but that the process is more time consuming than in previous years. “We usually say that looking for a full-time job as a senior is like taking another credit. This year it might be like taking another credit and a half,” she said.

“If you’re a senior, you’d like to be a sophomore,” said Mark Kuperberg, professor of economics, who thought that the job market will likely have improved by the time the class of 2011 graduates. Calling unemployment a “lagging indicator,” he pointed out that the unemployment rate might continue to increase even after the economy as a whole begins to rebound. This means that, even if the March 15 prediction of Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, that the current recession will come to an end this year proves accurate, finding a job will probably remain difficult for some time into the future.

Cristian Nunez ’09, a Career Peer Advisor, recognized the need for students to cover all the bases in their job search. While saying that students shouldn’t be scared off by the difficult market, he emphasized the need to recognize that hard times make careful preparation, important in any economic climate, essential. Students “shouldn’t get anxious, but they should be better prepared than they might have been in years past,” Nunez said. Programs offered by Career Services, such as mock interviews and resumé help, could be a part of this preparation.

“The economy is in bad shape,” Nunez said. But students can hurt their prospects further by not spending enough time preparing their resumé, practicing their interview skills, and networking to find job opportunities. Many open positions are never advertised, according to Nunez, and companies find potential applicants by asking their current employees for recommendations.

In a down economy, with less positions being offered and companies hiring more slowly, it is increasingly important to find these positions through contacts inside a particular profession. Nunez pointed to the online Alumni Directory, operated by Alumni Relations, as a good way to find people within a certain profession that can give advice about open positions, application strategy, and general career advice, “because they know more than we do,” he said.

Other resources offered by Career Services can help students become more appealing applicants, and the Swarthmore community has been using them on a more frequent basis. Mock interviews are particularly important, according to Nunez, because many students find that it takes a few tries to become comfortable in the interview setting, and a real job interview, which often takes a substantial amount of work to find, is no place to work out beginner mistakes. According to Massey, students are attending conferences and help sessions “in record numbers.”

Some students were able to find employment before the true seriousness of the economic crisis had sunk in. Alison Flamm ’09 was offered a position with a consulting firm in November. “The offer thankfully still stands, although I won’t be expecting to start work until January,” she said in an e-mail.

While Flamm said that she was “fortunate in that I found something more or less like what I was looking for,” she said that she had to be “more flexible on my start date” than she had anticipated.

Many job-seekers are also expanding their search field, looking for jobs in all areas that their talents can be applied, even if this requires abandoning a “narrow” view of a student’s career options, according to Massey. “We’ve found that students might have an interest … but that field isn’t working out for them, so they’ve broadened their scope a little bit more, which is great, not necessarily that they’re giving up on opportunities that haven’t come around yet, but they’re saying ‘I’m really interested in making sure I use these skills that I have, what other areas can I use them in,’” she said. In Massey’s opinion, “Swarthmore students in general are open to different things,” a quality that helps give them greater flexibility when looking for employment.

On their part, Career Services is increasing attempts to find job opportunities for students. “We’re doing more in terms of reaching out and contacting employers [about jobs] … in that sense there’s been an effect on what we’re doing,” Seo said.

While the pressure of looking for employment has certainly been compounded by the increased competition in the current job market, in Seo’s experience, most seniors have been able to find something. “I haven’t heard many complaints from students that they can’t get a job,” she said.

For students of any year, uncertainty about the economy and the job market abounds. “The great depression lasted ten years, so who knows?” Kuperberg said.