Seniors graduating this year face a brighter future than last year's college graduates. While it's too early to tell what the hiring situation would be for May graduates, job prospects are looking up for December graduates, according to Camille Franklin, the AU Career Center's director of career development.
The job market continues to improve, especially in areas of security, intelligence and government work, she said.
Franklin said exact numbers were not available, but if a workshop the Center held a few weeks ago on planning for graduate school is any indicator, the number of students planning to attend graduate school immediately after graduation has declined since last year.
"This is to be expected," Franklin said. "Typically when the job market is good, interest in grad school goes down among students."
Employers expect to hire about 13 percent more college graduates this coming year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers projected in a survey released in September. More than 60 percent of employers said they expected to hire more college graduates in the coming year than they had previously.
The best hiring will be in the service sector, which estimated an increase of 16 percent in college hiring, while manufacturers projected an increase of about 13 percent, according to this year's NACE survey. However, government and nonprofit organizations predicted hiring about 5 percent fewer college graduates. Numbers for 2005 are not available yet.
"This is a good indication that the job market for new college graduates is back on track," NACE Executive Director Marilyn Mackes said in a press release. "In Fall 2003, employers also projected an increase in college hiring, after a few years of cutbacks. The current survey's positive projections reinforce that college hiring is headed in the right direction."
For college graduates, personality and interpersonal skills are almost as vital as education for potential employers, the survey found.
The fastest-growing careers include entry-level management, accounting, sales, teaching, consulting, and software design and development, according to another NACE survey.
Franklin said it is important for seniors to begin searching for a job before graduating.
"The key is to start early, ideally six to nine months [ahead]," she said. "It is also very useful to network with AU alumni because they are very open to giving advice and aiding students in their search."
For AU seniors, the process of finding a job has been a mixed experience.
Agatha Tomasik, a senior in the School of Public Affairs, said she enjoys her internship doing research for the nonprofit Citizens Against Government Waste.
"I found it myself, not through the Career Center, so I'm hoping that the 'real world,' when I finally enter it, might be similar," said Tomasik, who plans to graduate in May. "I'm hoping to go to grad school after working a bit to find out what I really want to do with my life."
Tom Hyre, another senior in SPA who plans to graduate in May, is also unsure of his plans for the future.
"To tell you the truth, if I want to get out of here I have to make schoolwork my sole focus. Afterward there will probably be panic, and then temping," Hyre said. "The situation is not ameliorated by the fact that I have no idea whatsoever what I want to do."
Some seniors plan to focus on the job search next semester.
"I went to the job fair at Georgetown last week, but since I'm graduating in June, the whole job hunt hasn't really hit me yet," senior Ray Stankiewicz said. "My goal is to have one lined up by spring break."
Seniors have differing views about how helpful the Career Center is in the process.
"I have to get an internship for my major before I can graduate, so if I can parley that into some kind of job that would be nice. But I don't have a clue. The Career Center's primary purpose seems to be to tell me to look at their huge, overwhelming, and therefore virtually useless Web site," Hyre said.
However, Stankiewicz said the problem doesn't lie in the Career Center, but in the students.
"I don't think students utilize the Career Center. No one uses it the way they're supposed to. Now, I'm a complete hypocrite because I don't really either, but it does offer some useful services like the online job listings," he said.
Students can access the Career Center's Web site at www.american.edu/careercenter.
