Survey finds a more positive job market for Class of 2011

The job market is off to a positive start for the class of 2011, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers' job outlook. Employers responding to the NACE job outlook 2011 fall preview reported plans to hire about 14 percent more new bachelor's graduates from the class of 2011 than they did from the class of 2010.

At the University of Richmond, Leslie Stevenson, director of the Career Development Center, said there had been more recruitment activity through on-campus recruiting with new employers and more hiring. Her advice is "network, network, network" and she encourages students to come to the CDC and talk to one of the career advisers.

Stevenson said job searching takes a number of components: a tailored resume, a well written cover letter and practice interviews, to become comfortable talking to employers. Students who are considering graduate or professional schools might need transcripts or professor recommendations. Stevenson said the CDC could help students with any of these.

Once you have your tools, Stevenson said, the first important thing in a job search is knowing what opportunities you're interested in, whether it's graduate school or employment. She said having a general idea of what you'd like to do can help target your search. The CDC helps a lot of students with skills and interest assessments as early as their freshman year.

The second important thing is to have a job search strategy. After you have all your tools and know what you want to do, Stevenson said, start looking at job and internship postings on websites or job search boards or go to career events.

Stevenson suggests checking SpiderConnect regularly, a site where the CDC posts all the job and internship opportunities from employers who want UR students. There are big job aggregators such as www.monster.com, www.careerbuilder.com and www.indeed.com. There are also targeted sites for particular fields like www.idealist.org for nonprofit opportunities and www.usajobs.opm.gov for federal government opportunities. She also encourages students to check company or organizational websites that interest them.

Stevenson suggests www.linkedin.com, a professional networking site similar to Facebook, on which you can list what types of opportunities you're looking for and find people who work for specific organizations.

The CDC also holds career events. It recently had a health and science career expo on campus and is planning a nonprofit and government career expo in D.C. in February.

The most crucial part of a job search strategy, Stevenson said, is networking.

"Let everybody know, whether it's your high school friends, their parents, your family, let everybody know what types of opportunities you seek," she said, "because you never know who can be helpful."

Senior Jessica Bailey started her job search as a sophomore at Q-Camp, a Robins School of Business program, to learn about the process that accounting majors, such as herself, go through to find jobs. From there, she went to the CDC and networking receptions at the business school and applied to every externship she could find. Neither externship she did led to an internship, so Bailey returned to the CDC and filled out applications she found on SpiderConnect and wound up with two internships. After that, Bailey went to career events and one of her internships ended up offering her a full time post-graduate job.

"SpiderConnect and the CDC were both probably the biggest things that led to me finding even just places to apply so that I had a lot of options," Bailey said.

According to the CDC's one-year-out survey of class of 2009 graduates, the six-month employment rate is 91 percent, the one-year employment rate is 95 percent and the average salary range one year after graduation is $40,000 to $44,999. Forty-seven percent are in the business/industry field, 14 percent in government, 13 percent in education, 10 percent in health/medical services and 5 percent in law occupations. Thirty-one percent are currently enrolled or have already completed a graduate program and 10 percent are not currently enrolled, but are applying to graduate or professional schools. Ninety-eight percent of graduates were satisfied with their undergraduate education at UR one year after graduation.

Contact reporter Sarah Craig at sarah.craig@richmond.edu