College graduates still struggle as campus hiring picks up Accelerated Learning Resources

College graduates still struggle as campus hiring picks up

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Anthony Huerta, 22, spends several hours a day looking for work. In he extra time, he is creating a Web-based company that hopes to promote local businesses, music, art and sports in Ventura.

Photo by Stephen Osman

Anthony Huerta, 22, looks at a monitor displaying his website. Huerta is creating a Web-based company that hopes to promote local businesses, music, art and sports in Ventura.

When Anthony Huerta left Buena High School five years ago for UC San Diego, he took with him a 4.2 grade point average and a reputation as a guy who was going places.

“People knew me as a smart kid,” he said. “They called me El Presidente.”

Little did he know the American economy was on the verge of hardship unlike anything seen since the Great Depression.

Huerta entered college at a time when the national unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. When he left, it was 9.5 percent. That cold reality has been an awakening for many young people struggling to enter the labor force.

A year has passed since Huerta graduated from college and he is one of those people, still job hunting a year after graduating. He has lost some confidence, but not his ambition. For the moment, he tries not to think about his stalled career as he sits behind a computer in the bedroom of his mother’s house scanning job sites.

“I’m not the only one,” he said. “I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve been out of school for a year and they’re barely getting a job, and if it is, it’s part-time that doesn’t pay much.”

College grads can at least take comfort in knowing that with a bachelor’s or graduate degree, they have a better chance of getting a job than without it. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.5 percent of those with a college degree were unemployed in May, compared with a 9.5 percent for people without one.

And with the Great Recession officially over, companies appear to be returning to campuses in search of new hires. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, companies say they plan to hire 19.3 percent more graduates this year than they did in 2010. A hiring increase of that size hasn’t been seen since 2007 — the year the recession began.

The leap departs from what employers projected earlier this year when they said they planned to hire 13.5 percent more new graduates than last year.

In the western region, college hiring is likewise expected to increase 19.3 percent this year, with 2,772 new hires. The northeastern U.S. is the most promising region, with hiring expected to rise 25.6 percent.

Most hiring is occurring in construction, utilities, oil and gas extraction, manufacturing and engineering, according to the report. Government jobs have the worst outlook, with most respondents cutting hiring.

Skills in demand include a graduate’s ability to verbally communicate, solve problems, organize, and process and analyze information.

Area colleges report such mixed recruitment activity that a clear picture does not emerge.

At California Lutheran University, there was a 70 percent increase in the number of employers recruiting on campus from 2010 to 2011. During the same period, full-time job postings fell 15 percent, which came as a surprise to CLU Career Services Assistant Director Cynthia Smith.

“Not sure the reason for that, but we continue to post new opportunities on a daily basis,” she said.

Mayan White, who just graduated from CLU with a bachelor’s degree in English, was able to land a job as an editorial assistant at Sage Publications in Thousand Oaks.

She applied for an internship position at Sage while she still was in school. About two weeks into that position, her boss asked her if she’d be interested in a permanent position.

White credits CLU’s career services office with helping her find work. She admits she was nervous, knowing how tough it is to find a job nowadays.

“I can say it was a big relief to graduate knowing that I had a job lined up,” she said. “I feel like I must be in a pretty small percentage of people to graduate with a job.”

At Pepperdine University, the number of recruiters on campus this year was 68, a drop from last year when recruiters numbered in the 80s, said Seaver College Career Center Director Amy Adams.

“It’s been steadily declining the last couple years,” she said. “That’s a trend that’s been talked about a lot in the industry.”

Adams said it’s because companies report decreased recruiting and marketing budgets at a time when more jobs and internships are available.

“They just have to be more conservative with the time out on campuses,” she said.

Pepperdine students are finding that internships are increasingly more important to employers.

“Employers that are looking for that first job out of college are expecting at least one internship if not two or three,” Adams said. “So what we’re finding is internships on campus, those are your entry-level jobs.”

A spokeswoman for CSU Channel Islands said the school’s career services office did not have recruitment data available.

CSUCI graduate student Michael Winkler is hoping his internship at City of Hope, a cancer center in Los Angeles, will turn into a full-time job when he graduates in September.

The 32-year-old returned to school to study biotechnology after spending half a year looking for jobs. He was left unemployed when the Pasadena biotechnology company he was working for closed in 2009 because of the economic downturn. That out-of-work experience still is in the forefront of his mind.

“I’m still conscious about it, that nothing is set,” he said. “Even with the advanced degree. Just being aware of what’s going on through local news, I know that it’s still going to be competitive.”

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