College students struggle with tight job market

Recruitment is off 25 to 40%, career counselors say.

If UCI student Sarah Estacio hadn't started her job search two years ago, she could have been in trouble.

Amid what college officials say are 25 to 40 percent declines in campus recruiting activity, Estacio, 22, has managed to find herself among the fortunate ones who will have a job when they graduate this year.

She has interned for Target for the past two years, first in the company's management training program and then in its human resources division. She is the president of the Alliance of Business Students at UCI, an umbrella organization that coordinates the activities of nine business student clubs on campus. She is also the leading peer counselor at UCI's career consulting and advising program.

Target offered her a full-time position in human resources three weeks ago, and even with her resume, she said she feels lucky.

"I feel I am in a better place because I had so much internship experience and such a deep background in that company," Estacio said.

Estacio tried applying for other jobs "to see what's out there," but found very little that was promising. Meanwhile, she's watched corporate sponsorships for career-related activities at her on-campus club fall by half and many of her business-oriented friends struggle to find jobs.

"I've had friends who have had job offers and had them rescinded prior to their start date," Estacio said.

Jim Case, director of the Cal State Fullerton Career Center, said job hunts for new college graduates these days are "pretty challenging," with employers in a wait-and-see mode. Student traffic in his office in the past few months has increased 15 to 20 percent, he said, as students "have gotten the message that there is a difficult market."

The biggest issue he's seen, however, hasn't been with the students who are just graduating: "What I've noticed is there are clearly more people in the pipeline that are being laid off or afraid of being laid off," Case said.

Sean Salomon, 22, a graduate of Chapman University last year, knows that experience all too well.

Salomon filled his resume with impressive internships as a public relations major interested in entertainment marketing. While in college, he interned at the House of Blues' corporate offices in Hollywood, the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana, and The Militia Group, a record label.

Then he interned for smartpunk.com, an online music store, and after graduation he was hired as its head of marketing.

"What was cool about it was I dealt with everybody in the entire industry," Salomon said.

But in October, the company eliminated his position. He didn't fall into self-pity, saying he's "just one of the many music industry professionals that were just cut from their jobs."

Instead, he's been sending out at least two – sometimes as many as 10 – resumes a day.

"I'm just trying the blanket theory," he said, guessing he's sent out more than 100 resumes so far.

Yet he's only received about 10 calls back for interviews – and only one of those was for a full-time position. In the meantime, he's been interning part-time at an ad agency, but that's unpaid.

"They're not even doing paid internships because of the economy," Salomon said. "It would be even worse if I had no experience. If I had nothing on my resume, I would be probably trying to do three internships at once."

Kathryn Van Ness, director of UCI's Career Center, said she's seen two primary reactions from young job seekers facing the difficult market.

"I think they're responding with, 'I need to step it up,' or they're putting their head in the sand," she said.

Although he's not really burying his head in the sand, Mark Wolf, who graduated from Chapman in December, has been taking the tight job market in stride.

Helping him is the fact that his dad, the former dean of a psychology master's program at Ryokan College in Los Angeles, is out of a job, too. The younger Wolf said they've been enjoying the down economy together.

"He's like, 'What're you doing? Want to see a movie?' " Wolf said with a smile. "We go see matinees, because neither of us do anything."

Even with full-time internships at the Irvine Co. and marketing firm Brower, Miller and Cole, Wolf said he faces a tough search when he decides to give up movie-going.

"I think the hardest thing for anyone out of college is we don't have the experience they want," he said. "The only positive is they can pay you a lot less because you'll take anything."

Case pointed out another positive that he sees for his students.

"The demographics are in their favor in the long run, even if in the shorter term there are some challenges," he said. "There may not be as many jobs now, but very soon that's going to turn around."

Some tips for young job-seekers:

• Have a focused resume.Adapt every resume to each company you are applying to, placing emphasis on the experience most applicable to the job you are seeking. Being "open to anything" tends to show a lack of focus.

• Be aggressive, and don't get down. UCI Career Center director Kathryn Van Ness takes issue with TV reports that make it seem like there are no jobs out there at all: "We're in Orange County. Orange County is still a good hiring region." Cal State Fullerton Career Center director Jim Case said: "The student needs to understand that it's a tough market, but people are still being hired. Persistence is the key."

• Get work experience.Internships are currency for entry-level applicants; get as much of it as you can. Van Ness said 80 percent of UCI students who intern with a company receive a full-time offer from that company upon graduation. "It's a great test-drive for the student and the employer," Van Ness said.