By By Jenna Duncan, News Staff
Financial aid isn’t the only thing that has been affected by the current economic downturn.
While many graduating seniors now look to find their first full-time job, Career Services is hosting March Career Madness Month, holding events all month to help seniors make post-graduate plans, Director of Career Services Maria Stein said.
The series of events range from salary negotiation to how to handle the stress of searching for a job. There are an additional two events tonight:’ ‘ Students can meet with one of 12 participating companies to find out what potential employers think of their resume at ‘Resumania,’ and find out how to use Facebook and other networking tools to find jobs at ‘Using LinkedIn to Find a Job.’
‘We decided we needed to do more programming aimed toward graduating students to help them have more support and information on job searching and options after school,’ Stein said.
The program was introduced because of the recession, and a study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) that predicted employers will hire 22 percent fewer graduates from the class of 2009 than last year, Stein said.
Because of this, Stein stressed the importance of networking, which these events encourage. Stein said most jobs are never officially posted, and positions are obtained because of connections, which is becoming more frequent in this economy.
‘Open positions are few and far between, so networking is even more important,’ she said.
Also, Stein said it was important to bring in outside sources who are experts to relay the information to students, so many of the events included panels of employers.
‘I can say the same things, but [students] will listen more if it’s from an employer,’ she said.
Though the last event is April 7, the programming may be continued next year depending on the state of the economy, she said.
‘If the economy is continuing in the same vein as now, we will probably look at similar programming,’ Stein said. ‘We’re going to look at what feedback we’ve gotten and we’re going to continue to help students.’
