Newswise — Someone forgot to tell Liz Walker how challenging the job market is for new college grads.
After graduating from the University of Vermont in December, the Public Communications major from Hudson, N.H. promptly landed a job as an assistant in Ben & Jerry’s PR department at the company’s South Burlington, Vt. headquarters.
The highlight of her first seven months? Helping launch a new celebrity flavor: Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night Snack, which guests Ben and Jerry unveiled on Fallon’s hit NBC show in March following a jam-packed press conference in Manhattan.
Walker’s success highlights the current state of economic reality for this year’s crop of grads. There are more good jobs to be had than the conventional wisdom holds, but no one will mistake 2011 for the heyday of the mid 2000’s.
Statistics from the National Association of Colleges and Employers tell the story: job offers to class of ‘11 graduates were up 19 percent this year over last but followed a two-year period where they shrank 48 percent.
“We’ve seen improvement this year, but we had a big hole to dig out of,” says Pamela Gardner, director of Career Services at UVM.
Rising to compete
What that translates to, say UVM's Career Services staff and students alike, is opportunity – and lots of competition.
“There are a multitude of jobs right now but they are all extremely competitive,” says Keith Page, a UVM class of ’11 mechanical engineering major from Groton, Vt. who’s working as an engineer at Portmouth, N.H.-based SUBMEPP, an office of the Department of the Navy that provides engineering, planning and material procurement services for the United States submarine force.
“You have to be persistent, and eventually you’ll make the right connection,” says Page, who credits the university's strong engineering program for giving him a leg up at SUBMEPP.
UVM students are both recognizing the new opportunity and rising to the competitive challenge, Gardner says – partly by making more use of the Career Services office.
The number of mock interview sessions students requested from Career Services staff, for instance, rose from 17 in the spring of 2010 to 55 this past spring – reflecting the fact that more employers posted jobs on Career Services’ web site and attended jobs fairs at the university this year than in the recent past.
“Students are determined to get those interview slots, determined to turn them over, determined to get those jobs,” Gardner says.
“International everything”
A mock interview session with Career Services -- along with a resume-writing workshop offered by the office she took advtange of – helped UVM European Studies major Liz Whiting, from Hanover, Mass., land a position as a traveler’s support associate at Grand Circle Travel in Boston, an unconventional travel company that promotes cultural immersion and community bonding for adventurous seniors.
Whiting emerged a winner after a grueling group interview, followed by individual interviews with key staff. The mock session helped her become comfortable in a formal interview setting, she says.
Career Services also helped Whiting bring focus to her job search.
After she met with Career Services assistant director Mary Beth Barritt several times, a theme emerged. “Things kept coming up, like traveling and international everything,” Whiting says. “She kind of pointed out to me that she saw a pattern in all the things I was interested in … (and suggested) the types of jobs that would involve travel and international” opportunity.
Following Barritt’s lead, Whiting found the Grand Circle posting. She recently finished a four-week training and has settled into the job, where she provides customer support post-sale and pre-trip. After she establishes herself, she expects to be globe-trotting with the tours.
In the current climate, the best favor students can do for themselves, Gardner says, is to follow tried and true advice: start focusing their career aspirations and building experience during college by seeking internships – early on.
Walker is a case in point.
After switching her major to Public Communications in her sophomore year, Walker was only vaguely aware of what she wanted to do, but crystal clear that she needed an internship to start the focusing process.
She scoured the Internet for communications positions in Vermont, found an internship spot at Ben & Jerry’s, and, on a whim, applied for it. Only in the middle of the interview did she realize how interested she was. She calmed her nerves, made her case and got the position.
When Ben & Jerry's had a job opening a year after her internship ended, Walker’s experience and the relationships she had developed during six months at the company made her a natural choice.
“Today’s job search is about building professional networks,” Gardner says, which can happen through nearly any encounter, but especially via internships. “We can help coach (students) through figuring out what they want to do and to begin to build those relationships and get the experiences they need. It takes a community to build a career.”
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