Student Loan Blog : job market

Gloomiest Job Outlook for New Grads in 25 Years

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:20:00 GMT

Recent college graduates face one of the worst job markets in years, making the prospect of finding a job that much more daunting at a time when America is experiencing the highest unemployment rate in a quarter century.

Landing a job may be even more difficult, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, since companies have indicated they plan to hire 22 percent fewer graduates this spring (“College Grads Face Worst Job Market in Years,” The Associated Press, March 31, 2009).

But that may not be the worst of the job shortage, says Sheila Curran, former head of career services at Duke University. Curran says that employers, particularly those that offer entry-level positions in April and May “just in time” to hire newly minted college graduates, may actually be looking to hire far fewer graduates than the survey indicates. However, the full extent of how much employers will pull back from hiring for these “just-in-time” positions — which account for 80 percent of jobs for new grads — may not be known until later this fall.

Despite a dismal job outlook for new graduates, career counselors say there are still some bright spots in certain industries.

Graduates looking for a job in the healthcare field are still in demand, and graduates looking for a career in finance may find jobs are still available, since small regional companies are stepping up their recruiting efforts on college campuses while larger firms in New York and elsewhere are downsizing, the Associated Press reports.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest potential employers for graduates this spring may be the federal government, which recently posted some 46,000 job openings on its website, including positions for budget analysts, historians, and firefighters.

Students Learning to Persevere as They Expand Their Networks

Career counselors say one good thing to come out of this tightened job market is that many students are being forced to develop better job-search skills than in years past when jobs were more readily available.

“In a sense it's like, ‘Welcome to the real world,’ and it’s not a bad thing,” said Elizabeth Alexander, manager of marketing and program evaluation for the career services center at the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Liberal Arts. “If you come out of college thinking, ‘I’m entitled to a great job,’ the first time you get laid off, it’s going to come as a great shock. Life is full of peaks and troughs.”

New graduates, who will likely change jobs three times within five years of graduation, are learning valuable job-search skills that will help them persevere later in their careers, suggests the Associated Press.

“Where we’re seeing a difference this year is [that students] have to do the right things over and over again,” said Teresa Olsen, associate director of career services at Colgate University. “It’s not just reaching out to two or three contacts. They have to keep coming back.”

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College Student Finance Guru Blogs His Way to Book Deal

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:04:00 GMT

Zac Bissonnette is living the blogger’s dream, getting paid to write for TheDailyBeast.com and AOL’s WalletPop.com, and now landing a book deal that may be just the ticket for helping him weather a dismal job market in one of the worst recessions in history (“Student Morphs Blog Into Book Deal,” Amherst Bulletin, Jan. 2, 2009).

Publishers Weekly recently announced that Bissonnette, a sophomore majoring in legal studies at the University of Massachusetts, is busy drafting a book for Portfolio, a publishing subsidiary of the Penguin Group, that will chronicle how parents and their children pay for college.

Scheduled for publication in 2010, the same year Bissonnette will graduate, the book will compare the value of a public versus a private college education, and, as Bissonnette explains, will critically examine what happens when students take on too much debt from student loans.

Bissonnette, who is paying his own way through college, says he began blogging in high school from a library computer.

Since then, his personal interest in finances has spiraled into a successful side business; after his blogs were picked up by WalletPop, for which he is now an editor, and The Daily Beast, he was featured on CNN’s “American Morning” for an editorial he wrote concerning President-elect Barack Obama’s economic policy and its effect on student loans.

He got his book deal shortly after his November CNN appearance. Bissonnette said, “I came up with this idea, got an agent, and he put this together.”

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Job Outlook for College Graduates Not Encouraging

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:20:00 GMT

Up-and-coming college graduates may soon face one of the toughest job markets in years as they encounter employers who are scaling back hiring and a job market flooded with hundreds of thousands of recently unemployed workforce veterans.

Just last month, the U.S. Department of Labor reported a 6.5 percent unemployment rate, the highest rate seen in 14 years. And a recent annual employment report revealed that corporations plan to scale back hiring graduates of all degree levels by 8 percent over last year (“Economy Chills Hiring Prospects for College Graduates, Report Says,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 18, 2008).

The “2008-2009 Recruiting Trends” report, conducted by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University, paints a very grim job outlook for college graduates, a dramatic change from only a few years ago.

“In two short years,” the report states, “we have moved from a zenith of exuberant and aggressive college hiring, through a period of cautious optimism, to a place of quiet desperation.”

In the CERI survey, hiring projections varied by company size, industry, and location. Of the 945 employers who responded to the survey, 49 percent said they expected to decrease their total hiring this year, while 29 percent said they would increase hiring, and 20 percent planned to hire at the same levels as last year.

The smallest employers — organizations with fewer than 54 employees — said they would increase hiring for bachelor’s degree graduates but by only one percent. The largest organizations, those with more than 3,700 employees, said they were planning to decrease hiring by about 9 percent.

With Limited Prospects, Students Should Start Job Searching Now

Defense and government organizations may be the hardest hit among larger employers, with expected 15-percent declines in hiring, while nonprofit organizations anticipate no change in hiring from the previous year.

The best job prospects for graduates are in the fields of technology and science, where oil and gas industry employers plan to hire 8 percent more bachelors degree graduates, and in the fields of medical manufacturing and healthcare, where employers say they will offer positions to 10 percent more associate degree graduates.

Many employers dealing with economic uncertainty are looking to hire new graduates as soon as possible, perhaps before things get worse, said Philip Gardner, director of CERI. Gardner advises students to start work on lining up a job at their first opportunity. “It’s going to get worse,” he said. “Spring is going to be very, very difficult for students to find work.”

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College Students May Be Sheltered From Down Economy, for Now

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:01:00 GMT

Regardless of how long the economy remains in crisis or whether or not this crisis becomes a recession, the effect on students will likely be minimal, at least in the short-term, says Fred Ruppel, economics professor at Eastern Kentucky University (“Student Body May Be Safe From Economic Crunch for Now,” The Eastern ProgressOnline, Nov. 6, 2008).

“Students should be well insulated,” Ruppel told The Eastern ProgressOnline, especially financially independent students who tend to finance their college education with student loans or rely on financial aid to pay for school. “The best place to be during a recession is in school.”

Ruppel points out, however, that students who rely heavily on their parents for financial support could be adversely affected by the downturn in the stock market, now that families’ portfolios may have taken a hit.

Jay Adkins, a sophomore at Eastern, still fears that the $700 million government bailout may be a sign that financing for education is in trouble. “If Freddie Mac and everything else is falling apart in the market, who knows if my student loans are going to be secure?”

Ruppel refutes Adkins’ concerns that the credit crisis will significantly impact student loans any time soon, but he says it may make getting a car loan more difficult for first-time buyers, which could be particularly problematic for students who rely on automobile transportation to get to school. “There’s less money for loans, with a lot more qualifications,” he said.

However, Ruppel does caution that the longer the economy falters, the more it will impact students and graduates. Whitnee Centers, a junior at Eastern, says while gas prices have declined, making her commute cheaper, less people are eating out, and, as a server, her tips are currently down 20 percent.

The economic crisis may have the greatest long-term impact on college graduates, Ruppel says. If the economy fails to create jobs, graduates may begin their professional career with bleak job prospects.

Adkins says, “If my parents know people who are getting laid off and are losing their jobs, who knows what jobs there will be available when I graduate?”

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