RELAX: Senior can land good jobs with patience

In a recessed economy with a current hiring slow down, many college seniors and recent graduates are having difficulty finding the job of their dreams right after graduation.

But while the job market is weak to say the least, employment opportunities do exist, according to CreSaundra Sills, director of career development and placement.

“People have to look at more options and not be so selective,” Sills said.

According to the National Association for Colleges and Employment, the hiring rate for new college graduates in the Northeast is down 11 percent, compared with a 7.4 percent drop in the South, and 7.7 percent in the Midwest. Hiring is up 3.3 percent in the West, but Sills cautions that those numbers might be skewed because of several large companies based there that are doing a lot of hiring. Overall the national hiring average is down 5.5 percent, and the national unemployment rate currently stands at 6 percent, according to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The few jobs graduates are getting are what many would consider a jumping-off point, Sills said. While that job may not lead a student directly to his or her career path of choice, the job is more likely to be somehow related to the student’s field of interest. The job a student finds now is just that: a job, not a career.

“Basically I am just looking for anything right now to get some real world experience and then maybe go to grad school,” Mitch Novoa said, a senior finance major.

Sills also said that to find jobs, it is important for students to look at companies and regions of the country that they would not have considered before.

“I am more open to opportunities that I wouldn’t have been in the past,” Novoa said.

“Like in non-finance or just the finance field.”

Sills said the class of 2003 is “savvier than most.” The number of students attending workshops, signing up for on campus interviews and attending job fairs is higher than any class before, perhaps because they are in a state of panic over the grim reality of the current job market.

Katherine Tiernan, The Greyhound (Loyola College-Maryland)

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