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34
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Last week, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11. AIG
received an $85 billion emergency loan the Fed and Bank
of America bought out Merrill Lynch. Now the Bush
administration is asking Congress for $700 billion to
clean up the nation's financial system.
Things look bad. And in some sectors, theyare bad. It's
clear that students graduating this spring are entering a
more chaotic job market than their peers who gradu-
ated last year.
But students graduating from college in the next
few years have one huge force working in their
favor:their parents areretiring. TheBaby Boom-
,, ers make up 33 percent of the working popula-
Q tion, and according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, this demographic is going to
begin retiring in 2010. This means that
companies are goingto have to replen-
-' ish these previously filled positions,
' p 't s . and they're looking to use college
graduates as replacements.
In March, the National
tP Association of Colleges and
Employers projected that
employers would hire 8
percent more people
from the class of
2008 than from the
class of 2007.
That's half
of an esti-
-I-- -
_ T
shadin
mate the group made in fall 2007. What this means is
that although there will be an increase in hiring, there
will be fewer opportunities available than predicted.
Further, there is an increase of degrees awarded from
2007 to 2008, which will add students to the applicant
pool, thus increasing the competition of the amount of
hiring being done.
BANKING ON CHANGE
Independent investment banks have long lured stu-
dents with promises of big salaries and bigbonuses. But
trouble at these firms has forced some of them to sell
out to larger, retail banks. It's not yet clear how that will
affect their hiring.
Finance Prof. Robert Dittmar says these jobs aren't
necessarily disappearing, butthatrthe already steep com-
petition is only going to get worse.
"The Wall Street banks will have a much lower appe-
tite for hiring entry-level employees," Dittmar said.
"Because of the economic situation and the turmoil in
the markets, the number of those positions is going to be
scaled way down."
The uncertainty surrounding the investmentbanking
industry means that banks that historically hired stu-
dents as interns are tightening their belts in response to
the troubling economic climate.
"Everything is tightening up basically," Dittmar said.
"We've come off a fairly rich set of years in which banks
have been expanding. Right now we're having a little bit
of a hangover situation and I just think that for recent
graduates the job opportunities are going to look a lot
worse in the spring of 2009 than they did in the spring,
of 2008."
LOOKING ELSEWHERE
Some students, however, like LSA senior Mitchell
Zoerhoff, aren't worried about the economy's effects on
their job search.
"The Wall Street situation is alarming, yes, but
at the same time you can't live your life worrying
you're going to lose your job just because it hap-
pened at another company," Zoerhoff said.
The economic uncertainty will likely mean
more students have to expand their target indus-
tries to find a job.
Izak Duenyas, a former management profes-
sor who currently teaches at the Ross School of
Business Executive Education, said flexibility is
becoming a more and more importantaskill. Edu-
cation, Duenyas said, matters more than ever.
It's just that students entering the job market
now are less likely than their parents to spend
their entire career doing the same thing.
"The needs of the economy change all the time, so the
importance of flexibility and the renewal of your skills
is important," Duenyas said. "I don't think that people
should think anymore, 'Just because I h'ave an under-
graduate degree, I know this and will spend my whole
life doing this.' Now there is so much outsourcing that
you really need to build skills because what you're doing
today is not necessarily what you'll be doing five years
from now."
HEALTH CARE'S HEALTH
The same wave of retiring baby boomers that's opening
up jobs for young people is also creating opportunities in
some fields. Health care is the most obvious example.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, health care spending is expected to
increase two times faster than inflation for the next
decade. Prof. Jeffrey Alexander, who concentrates on
health management policy, attributes the expansion to
the population aging and the increase of heart disease.
The health care industry, he said, needs people with a
range of skill sets - notjust doctors and nurses.
"The markethas changed primarilybecause the diver-
sity of types of healthcare organizations has increased
dramatically over the past 30 years. This opensup oppor-
tunities for folks who are trained in health care manage-
ment," he said. "It's no longer a single track occupation
into a hospital."
STRONG FUNDAMENTALS
No matter what the economy'sstate, the fundamentals
of getting a job are the same. But in a downturn, showing
interest ina firm becomes all the more important.
"I've been spending a lot of time lately browsing the
web and looking at bank's websites that have opportuni-
ties for both freshmen and sophomores," said LSA soph-
omore Daniel Gottlander, who is looking to break into
investmentbanking.
Showing employers a bit of initiative can greatly
increase an applicant's chances. Knowing that JPMor-
gan Chase & Co has $1.8 trillion in assets in over 60
countries is something that will show that 45-year-old
recruiter in a suit why he should consider a 22-year-old
college student. It's not so much that the applicant knew
the information - it's that he cared enough to learn it.
"When an employers only sees-your resume; a lot of
people can wind up looking pretty similar in some sens-
es," Dittmar said. "I think one of the things that stands
outforemployersisinitiative. Thatsortofthingresonates
really well with employers, especially when they're look-
ing at a deep pool of applicants for relatively few jobs"
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