Schools say campus recruiting is down, but not as deeply as you might think
Job recruiters are more active here than elsewhere
Philadelphia Business Journal - by Peter Key Staff Writer
Curt Hudson
Jessica Cunningham, a newly graduated paralegal from Community College of Philadelphia, has turned down offers from law firms so she could finish classes and complete her internship with Dan McElhatton’s campaign for district attorney.
View Larger Students graduating from area colleges this spring may be having a tougher time finding a job than their predecessors have in recent years, but they’re still better off than their counterparts in other parts of the country.
Career placement officials at the region’s two- and four-year schools say the number of companies recruiting on their campuses is the same as, or somewhat down from, previous years, and most of the companies that are recruiting are filling fewer jobs than they used to.
But they also say the situation for graduating students isn’t as dire as the news about the economy indicates and that although graduates have to work harder to find jobs, there are jobs out there.
“It’s definitely a little bit tighter than it has been in the last couple of years, however, we are trying to instill a sense of hope in the students and make them understand that it’s not hopeless,” said Corinne Snell, the executive director of the Center for Student Professional Development at Temple University’s Fox School of Business.
Nationally, the situation may not be hopeless, but it isn’t good.
A National Association of Colleges and Employers survey of the organization’s employer members conducted in February found that they expected to cut their hiring of new college graduates by 21.6 percent from last year.
The last time NACE’s employer members said they were going to hire fewer students than in the previous year was the spring of 2002, said Edwin Koc, the organization’s director for strategic and foundation research.
A NACE survey of students graduating this spring was equally grim. Only 40 percent of the students who responded said they had received a job offer and a little less than 20 percent said they had a job lined up after they graduate.
The last time NACE conducted the survey, in 2007, more than 70 percent of the students who responded said they had gotten a job offer and 51 percent said they had a job waiting for them after graduation.
“It’s a drastically different situation that college students are facing here in 2009 than they faced in 2007,” Koc said.
One way it’s different is that fewer companies are actively recruiting on college campuses.
Rich Makover, vice president of network marketing for 7Mainstreet of Philadelphia, has been visiting college campuses to hire sales people for the company, which runs an online community for businesses.
At Pennsylvania State University, he said, he encountered one other company. At Boston College and New York University, he didn’t encounter any others.
“It’s been very, very sparse recruiting, besides ourselves,” Makover said.
Locally, some colleges are reporting fewer companies’ visiting their campuses. For example, an event Philadelphia University holds for its graduating design students attracted 65 companies this year, down from 80 a year ago, said Trish Shafer, the director of the school’s career services center.
Other colleges, however, say the number of companies is fairly constant. West Chester University’s Spring Career Fair attracted 69 employers, just below its usual 70 to 75, according to Becky Ross, the director of West Chester’s Twardowski Career Development Center.
Chestnut Hill College’s March job fair also had somewhat less activity from employers as previous years, according to Nancy Dachille, its director of career services.
“But it doesn’t seem to be drastic to me,” Dachille said. “It seems just a little bit less.”
However, having the same number of employers isn’t the same as having the same number of jobs.
For instance, Snell said the number of employers visiting Temple’s Fox School is up slightly this year, but the number of jobs employers posted on FoxNet, the school’s online career management system, between last August and the end of April was down 5.2 percent from the number they posted between August 2007 and the end of April 2008.
Jobs in accounting, marketing and finance were the most plentiful on the system, Snell said.
“Accounting is definitely up there as far as the highest,” she said.
Paralegal jobs also are available, despite the layoffs at area law firms in recent months, said Jane Jacobs, an assistant professor of paralegal studies at Community College of Philadelphia.
Law firms are realizing that paralegals can do a lot of the work attorneys can do — and in some cases work that junior attorneys can’t do — “so they are retaining them and actually hiring more for entry-level positions,” she said.
Jessica Cunningham, who graduates from CCP’s paralegal program this month, said her problem in landing a job has been that the law firms that got back to her wanted her to start right away, which she couldn’t do because she was a full-time student.
The Lexington, Mass., resident has been working as an intern for Philadelphia district attorney candidate Dan McElhatton, which she thinks will boost her chances of getting hired.
“It’s a great way to kind of get your foot in the door,” she said.
Nursing graduates, who had previously benefited from a strong job market, are now having a harder time getting jobs, said Elaine Tagliareni, a professor in CCP’s department of nursing and the president of the National Nursing League, which sets national standards for nursing education.
The economy has caused some nurses who were thinking of retiring to keep working, some part-time nurses to shift to full time and some retired nurses to return to the workforce, she said.
The 10 students graduating from CCP’s automotive technology program, meanwhile, shouldn’t have a problem finding a job if they don’t have one already.
“Our students, being technicians, are at an advantage right now, because people are more likely to repair what they have rather than chuck it in the trash and buy something new,” said Daniel Reed, an assistant professor of automotive technology at CCP.
Although things don’t appear to be as bad for graduates here as in other places, they are bad enough that Campus Philly is taking action.
The nonprofit, which tries to get bright, young people to attend college in the region and settle here after they graduate, is holding an opportunity fair at St. Joseph’s University in June.
Jon Grabelle Herrmann, Campus Philly’s executive director, said the organization hopes that by then the economy will have recovered enough that some area companies that couldn’t recruit on campuses will be able to come to the event.
Campus Philly also is inviting graduate schools to the event, thinking that may convince some recent graduates who can’t find a job in the area to continue their education here.
And it’s encouraging area companies to consider offering what Herrmann called “professional internships” to students who have just graduated as a way of keeping them in the area until they can find jobs.
Jena joined the CSPD as the Assistant Director of Recruitment and Professional Development with over 4 years career services experience including a background in corporate recruiting. She is excited to work collaboratively with the Fox School students regarding career search strategies and hopes students gain some additional insight into the job search through “Opportunity Knocks”.
Kel is an undergrad majoring in Management Information Systems, graduating in 2010. He is very involved and hopes to share some of his experiences with other students. His goal is to motivate others to do their best. He believes that with a little inspiration you can get where you want to be. Through this blog, he wants to show you that opportunities are out there.