TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052091/0520202.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 114 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 46

What Do We Do Now?


Facing a dismal job market, the class of '91 tries interview
rehearsals, internships, even -- yikes! -- living at home

By SOPHFRONIA SCOTT -- Reported by Deborah Edler Brown/Los Angeles
and David M. Gross/Boston


    They're supposed to have the world at their feet,
America's new college graduates. With shining faces,
well-polished phrases and crisply pressed suits, they go in
search of that first job and, at least in the past several
years, have usually clinched it in short order. But not this
time. The math is cruel and inescapable: About 1.4 million
people will graduate from college and graduate schools this
year, and the U.S. has lost 2 million jobs in the recession.

    U.S. companies are feeling the pinch of hard times and are
cutting down on campus recruiting. A Michigan State University
survey on recruiting trends recently reported that job openings
for college graduates have dipped 10% in the 1990-91 academic
year after dropping 13% the year before,adding up to the
largest decline since the 1982-83 school year. Result: a flood
of rejection letters. "You never think about what you'll do
after college, and then we find there are no jobs for us," says
Virginia Kwong, a senior at the University of California at
Irvine. "Everyone is going through interview after interview."

    Not without practice. "Students can read the headlines,
and they know it's a tough market," says Bob Thirsk, director
of the University of Washington's placement center. Since
competing in that market requires far more than the perfect
resume, schools now offer workshops and seminars on job-search
skills, including videotaped mock interviews. Students are
flocking to the guidance sessions, but it's hard to find a job
that isn't there. The University of Chicago Graduate Business
School lets students bid for interviews through a computer, but
according to William Mankivsky, 26, the screen has little to
offer. Says he: "Every time we'd go to sign on, it would flash
that another company had canceled some or all of its interviews
due to restructuring or cutbacks."

    The field isn't much better for law school grads.
Third-year students at Harvard Law received a memo last October
alerting them to the dry prospects. "They're getting two or
three offers rather than the usual dozen," says Sarah Wald, dean
of students. "We're telling them to decide quickly ((on a job))
and sit out the market for a few years." One student received
a rejection letter that read simply: "You have an outstanding
record -- and I can do nothing more than congratulate you on
it."

    Even those with offers are being surprised. This month
Webster & Sheffield, a prestigious New York corporate law firm,
notified students whom it had already hired that the jobs were
not available after all. Another corporate firm, Jackson &
Walker of Dallas, received more acceptances than it expected and
tried to entice hires to wait a year before coming to work by
offering them $21,000 to do so.

    Experts such as L. Patrick Scheetz, Michigan State's
assistant director of career development, believe this crop of
graduates should find jobs in six months to a year as the
recession cools. Students who have already been on the hunt for
months are beginning to lower their expectations. "I don't know
anyone entering career positions," says Todd McGowan, 21, a
Southwest Missouri State graduate. Young job seekers are
increasingly settling for low- or no-pay internships just to get
a foot in the door, becoming cheap labor for companies that
can't or won't hire regular staff.

    Some grads target a territory. Atlanta, home of the 1996
Olympics, has become known as Hotlanta in younger circles. "If
I had talked about how great Atlanta was two years ago, people
would have laughed at me," says Beth Reimels, 21, a graduating
senior at Boston University who will head there in September
even though she has no job. "Now everyone is excited about
Hotlanta." Silicon Valley is still looking for engineers, and
the Northwest probably has the healthiest economy of any U.S.
region.

    Other grads, resigned to earning little or nothing for a
while, are heading for graduate school or such programs as the
Peace Corps and Teach for America, where they can at least do
meaningful work. The Peace Corps has received 51,500 inquiries
so far this year, 7,000 more than last year, and Teach for
America applications have risen from 2,500 to 3,100.

    Then there's the last-ditch option: going back home to Mom
and Dad. This generation hasn't been afraid to do so -- Census
reports show 75% of males 18 to 24 years old still live at home.
But people mostly want to be on their own around that age. "All
year long I swore that whatever I did, I wouldn't be living at
home," says Natasha Pustilnik, 21, a Vassar College senior.
Guess where she'll be this summer. "It's enormously
disappointing," says the jobless Russian major.

    No one thinks the Class of '91 faces long-term job
troubles. Their plight is purely a result of recession, and they
should easily survive a few months waiting tables or typing
memos until other employers start hiring again. Still, as they
fling their commencement caps skyward, the graduates will surely
be silently urging the economy to follow as fast as possible.