R S S W w U W AM I Adlh - AM Adt 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 M ond y , 1 ,, 1!.EanDaly- Pnay Sp !mber 'T'2' _L Iii T^..i / +! i .y i r r- ... t j r __._ ____._r ____J.._. a.. _.__ _ _. ...,, t j t ! J h . '/ 71T11111111_KVT - 1 f .- 1/ .A !f IT'S ROUGH OUT THERE 't j 1 a r i i 3 i i i - - - - ---r u.____i--_-_. __. r j 1, i I I I r t i .. ......::. . . _ _. . _ . _.____.'____ i_ . t I I } I k 3.. _ _ _._.L..°__.__ ._ - ---_ i i j _ __.. Y... y.______ ... j 4 I t i _ } 1 I i i i { i _. ._.__.___..: __. .___.___ .___._.____ .___._r __ l E I T___ -I-- I- E -I -!. -- - - ~~7Vh-I I _ I If i a.: w 7 XRA v J A"u I-, - - ----- -4t I i I _ -, 1 34 ' f 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" 4-I-. 14 i 94 -/ .A* --- i f 7 7 , Ic 1 ® fl Y "/c Yl ^ Y c- ' +k1t i i I I'll 11f)UIl Z:ri 1 I i i i I i 1 i I r -i i i I I 1 1" L 1 4' i C1ar t t i ',tQ . ~ttheir I 1 4t spots °e 1y Micnaei voisen Daly Staff Reporter A A n 1-: I A