Whether it’s off to graduate school or straight to a 9-to-5 gig, recent Pepperdine graduates are finding the post-college path toward career bliss a little bumpy with the current recession in the national economy.
By Faith Lynn
Staff Writer
The bubble has burst.
For more than a year now, America’s economy has experienced harder times than many students can remember. And such a sudden drop has made finding a job after graduation harder than it has ever been before.
“This year hiring is down something like 63 percent in the Western states,” said Kathie Kieran-Johnson, director of Seaver College’s Career Center.
And students are dealing with the hardship in different ways.
Some are braving the business world and doing fine, whereas others will accept any job offered to them, even if it isn’t what they envisioned themselves doing.
Some, like 2002 graduate Andre Nantkes, have joined the thousands of past graduates who found jobs in fields outside their majors.
Nantkes said he had a hard time finding what it was he wanted to do. When the business major graduated in April, he said he felt pressured to begin working right away because of the amount of debt he had accrued. Since his mother died while he was in college and his father is still getting settled in his new home, Nantkes was unable to rely on his family for support while trying to pay off his loans.
“I had to find a job right away and start paying off debt,” he said.
Looking for jobs primarily in the marketing sector, Nantkes had no luck. Although he went to up to four interviews a week, he said the companies were either looking for more experience or less experience. Finally, he resorted to part-time jobs in the hopes that he would advance to a full-time position, but still nothing panned out.
“There just wasn’t much out there,” he said.
In the middle of his job search, Nantkes said he decided to move down to San Diego to begin looking for work there and began to volunteer at a rescue mission one day a week. While battling the stress and pressure of looking for a job, Nantkes said he found that the day he spent at the mission was his favorite day of the week.
After he had been volunteering there for a while, the administration approached him with an offer for the position of Volunteer Coordinator. He said that even though he had no experience in the area, he was more than happy to accept the job and has been working for the mission for four months now.
“I really like helping people who really need it,” he said.
And finding a career you’re going to enjoy is a big part of the battle, according to fellow 2002 alumnus Dalton Saunders.
“I think the trick was finding something that you really like,” he said. “That’s what’s difficult. But I think if you want it enough, you’re going to do it.”
Compared to Nantkes, Saunders’ transition from college to career was fairly easy. A graduate in political science, Saunders spent the last four months of his senior year preparing his resume and attending interviewing seminars at the Career Center. Currently a financial planner for Independent Capital Management-Sun America Services, he said he has experienced none of the problems some of his classmates have.
“A job search is never easy,” Kieran-Johnson said.
But she said the resume and cover letter workshops the center offers definitely smooth the way for applicants. Keiran-Johnson added that she believed students who utilized the center started the job search with more ready-made contacts and skills than those who did not.
Saunders said he believes finding a job in a bad economy is that much harder because companies are laying off experienced professionals who are then fighting for jobs with students just out of college.
Luckily, Seth Haye didn’t have to do much fighting. He didn’t even have to leave Pepperdine. A 2002 graduate, Haye rose to his position through a year-and-a-half internship for Pepperdine and is currently the assistant director of Alumni Relations and Student Advancement. The position opened up just as he was graduating, so he gladly accepted the opportunity.
The economy had very little effect on his decision, he said, adding that he is glad he didn’t have to go through the difficult job search some of his classmates did.
“Some of my friends just got frustrated … they just decided to go to grad school,” Haye said.
Between them, he said, his friends have explored every option open to them after graduation — a few got jobs right away, a few sent out several resumes for positions they knew they were overqualified for and wouldn’t be happy in and some went to graduate school.
Like Kieran-Johnson, Haye believes research and careful preparation go a long way in the job search.
“Those who have connections survive, but those who don’t struggle,” he said.
Haye said a few of his friends were “having a really hard time” finding jobs in the recession. He said some of them had applied for lower-level positions and are competing with high school graduates for jobs.
If he did not have his present job, Haye said he thinks he would be doing something involving sales in the area of real estate or financial services. And even though that sector of the economy is still thriving, he said he was grateful to be allowed to continue in basically the same position he held as an intern. He said he plans to enter the Graziadio School of Business and Management next fall to work toward an MBA.
While Haye is taking time off before going to graduate school, many other recent grads are not.
According to Kieran-Johnson, many students are opting to go back to graduate school, hoping that the economy will be better by the time they are finished and that their additional training will make them even more qualified in their field.
“You definitely see increased enrollment in graduate school during a downtime in the economy,” she said. “It gives you the opportunity to stay out of a bad economy and improve your skills.”
Haye’s friend Jeff Hunter is one of those students who decided to go the grad school route. A first-year student at Pepperdine’s School of Law, the business major debated looking for a job, but finally decided “if I was going to go to graduate school, now was the time to do it.”
Hunter said he picked law school because “I thought (law) would open up more doors for me, even in business.”
Had he graduated three or four years earlier, Hunter said he probably would have gotten a job instead of going to graduate school, but he “just didn’t see the earning potential.”
Just a few years ago, graduates, especially those with a background in computers, “would have been picked up right away,” Hunter said. “(The market) has totally dried up.”
But he thinks that in a few years the job market will basically return to normal.
One of the most surprising aspects of the present market, Hunter said, was that he saw straight-A students struggling to find positions. He said he believes companies are just cutting down and, while still hiring, are reluctant to bring in a lot of “new blood” in this precarious time.
While some fields are more crowded than others, Kieran-Johnson said she has kept in contact with several graduates and that, for the most part, companies are “always impressed with Pepperdine students.”
October 24, 2002