With less than a month left until the UB class of 2010's commencement ceremony, many students are still hunting for jobs they anticipated to have by now.
According to CareerBuilder's Annual Job Forecast, many recent college graduates may have to face the extremely competitive job market blindly, with little improvements from last year's difficult employment history.
In 2007 the number of employers hiring recent college graduates at entry-level jobs was at a high of 79 percent.
As the country proceeded into a recession this number dropped to 43 percent in 2009. The Career Builder survey, which was conducted from February 10 to March 2, 2010, among 2,778 hiring managers and human resource professionals lists a one percent increase from the 2009 statistics, stating 44 percent of employers are planning to hire recent college graduates.
While this raise is relatively nominal, the 11 percent increase of employers who said they would be offering higher starting salaries than the year before in 2009, has improved to a16 percent increase this year.
Additionally, the 2010 CareerBuilder's Annual Job Forecast finds that 33 percent of employers plan to offer recent college graduates starting salaries that are under $30,000, 30 percent of employer's offers will range between $30,000-$40,000, 19 percent will propose $40,000-$50,000 and another 19 percent will offer $50,000 and up.
Unfortunately, the competition for these jobs is still at an all time high.
Almost-graduates like Justine Arkontaky, a senior health and human services major, thought they'd done more than enough to prepare themselves and build their resumes to a point at which they'd have little difficulty landing a job quickly. Yet after a number of rejections, they are realizing otherwise, and may have to put the start to their careers on hold a bit longer than expected.
"It's pretty obvious that those people who do not plan to go to graduate school right away aren't taking a year off to travel, or weren't just blessed with an automatic job post-graduation are all kind of struggling to get a job," Arkontaky said. "I feel like I spend all my time sending out my resume only to hear nothing back. It's hard and worries me a bit, and while I keep making improvements, I have to keep reminding myself that the economy is down and places simply aren't really hiring at entry-levels…that's not something I'm at fault for and there's not much I can do."
What professionals such as senior career advisor of CareerBuilder.com, Mike Erwin suggest to those who will soon be college graduates hunting in the job market is to get internships and pertinent part-time jobs, volunteer, do class work and to be involved in school organizations, Greek life and/or sports.
"I think [recent graduates] really have to have an open mind. They go to school for four years and are coming out with this dream job idea in their heads, and in this economy they aren't very realistic to start out with," Erwin said. "[Recent graduates] need to use every tool available to them and really network whether it be with parents, social groups, etc. They need to be open to taking whatever they can find in the realm of what they are looking to get into. They need to find something that will be in their field, though."
Erwin feels as though the amount of challenges that recent graduates are facing is probably about the same as there were last year.
"The challenge is standing out from your competition," Erwin said. "Really highlight the things you did in college and emphasize anything that's going to make you stand out [to employers.]"
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