Dana Littmann
Features Editor
dmlittmann@valdosta.edu

On Dec. 13, at 3 p.m., Nicholas Braun walks into VSU’s P.E. Complex for the last time.  He’s not watching a basketball game, though; Braun is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice today. As he sits in his metal folding chair, surrounded by students, family, and friends, he can’t help but feel a little anxiety underneath all his excitement. He hasn’t been able to find a job, yet, and while his job at Lowes will do for now, what he really wants is a job that will put his four and a half years of hard work to use.
Three hundred and ninety three miles away, in Charleston, N.C., McKaylee Higgs sits in a room at the Hampton Inn. Higgs is supposed to be graduating today as well, but instead of attending the ceremony, she is fulfilling her obligation to the United States Air Force.  Higgs is in the Air Force reserves and works in air field management at the base in Charleston. Higgs also hasn’t had any luck finding a job yet. Higgs has her work with the Air Force to fall back on, but she is also anxious to be able to put her degree to good use.
Graduating college seniors are having more and more trouble finding jobs in their fields. The economy is having quite an impact on the job market, and college graduates have to be more competitive, and experienced, to get the jobs they want. Often, students who can’t find jobs are deciding to continue their education until the job market picks back up. VSU’s graduate school enrollment has risen from 1,649 in spring 2008 to 1,837 students as of spring 2009.
According to an article published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers 2009 graduates aren’t having as much luck finding jobs after graduation. The lack of jobs is due to the economic recession which has caused the unemployment rate to rise to 7.2 percent. The high unemployment rate has also caused many people to stop spending as much, which has created a decrease in the demand for goods and services.
Braun sits at his computer searching USAJobs.com again, hoping that today will be the day he finds the job he has been waiting for. He checks and rechecks his resume, trying to decide how he can tweak it this time to make himself more appealing. Braun has been looking for a job since he graduated, and he has not had any luck finding employment so far.
“I’ve applied for a job as a probation officer and a police officer [in Gwinnett County], and I’ve applied for some management positions,” Braun said.
Higgs hasn’t had any luck finding a job either.
Higgs would like to be able to continue working for the military as a civilian. She’s interested in putting her degree to work as a public affairs specialist for the military; however, she is continuing to look for a job outside of the military.
Braun’s dream job is to work as an investigator at a state or federal agency, but with the competitiveness of the field and his lack of professional experience, Braun doesn’t qualify for these positions.  Braun’s only option now is to go back to school or continue searching for work on a more local level.
“I’m looking for a local level job as a police officer, that way I can get at least two to three years experience, and from there I can move up, hopefully, to my dream job,” Braun said.
Higgs attributes not being able to find a job to the number of people who are out of work.
“I think there’s not a lot of jobs open right now, and a lot of people have lost their jobs, so there are just so many people applying for the same jobs,” Higgs said.
Higgs has been taking advantage of many different job search methods to help her locate jobs she is eligible for.
“I’ve looked in the newspaper classifieds, online classifieds, Monster, Yahoo, all those different job searches,” Higgs said.
Even with all the research, Higgs hasn’t been able to find a job that she’s qualified for.
“It seems like everything is for accounting majors, and they’re not something I could do because I don’t have any experience with it,” Higgs said.
Braun and Higgs aren’t going to be the only graduates looking for work. According to a press release from NACE, employers are projecting a 22 percent drop in the hiring of new graduates. This drop puts an end to the steady incline in the new hire employment rate for new college graduates since 2004.
Braun is willing to move anywhere to get a job; however, Higgs, can’t move out of Valdosta because her husband, Cory, is stationed at Moody Air Force base. Because of her location restriction, Higgs is more limited than other graduates may be.
On the other side of the situation, on VSU’s main campus, in Powell Hall, the Career Center staff is devotedly helping graduating seniors prepare for life outside of college. Inside the Career Center’s main office, students meet in small groups to discuss what their plans are and what they’re doing now. In a smaller office, Marcia Hall, a VSU career counselor, sits behind a large wooden desk. Her office is tidy and anyone can tell she likes to keep it that way. Hall, who speaks quietly and seems a bit reserved, suddenly becomes animated when students ask her for help finding jobs.
According to Hall, students should be getting a jump on searching for jobs.
“In a good economy it takes anywhere from zero to three months to find a job after graduation,” Hall said. “In a down economy, which is what we’re in now, it takes anywhere from six months to a year. We encourage student to start early and not wait until the fall semester of their senior year.”
Hall also suggests that students have a clear idea of what they want to do before they start applying for jobs.
“You can’t successfully job search if you don’t know what you want to do,” Hall said.
Hall encourages students to be open to taking entry-level positions and to relocating. Students will be more likely to find jobs if they are willing to take entry level jobs and are willing to move where jobs are more plentiful.
According to an article released by The New York Times in March 2009, more college graduates have to take entry-level jobs that they are over-qualified for.
Braun and Higgs, for example, are currently at entry-level retail positions.
Both Braun and Higgs agreed that they are not ready to leave their current jobs without having something lined up, even if it means working outside of their field and working for less money.
“I don’t want to leave my job without having another job, because then I won’t have any income and I’ll go into debt,” Braun said. “I was working at Lowes, as a part-time job to pay the bills, while I was in college, but now I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things.”
Higgs is ready to leave her job, at Cici’s, for a much different reason.
“[I don’t like working at Cici’s] because people are managing me that are younger than me, and they don’t have any kind of education, and I’m making so much less than they are,” Higgs said. “I thought I’d at least be able to get a decent job right after college, not just one that you work at while you’re in school.”
The New York Times article attributes graduates taking work for which they are over-qualified to a study done by Paul Devereux that found that employers tend to employ people with more education when the unemployment rate is high.
Along with encouraging students to start applying for jobs early, Hall suggests that when students get an interview they prepare for it appropriately. With the little amount of hiring that is being done, it is important that students do well at interviews or they may not get any offers.

————– The Whole Story ——————-

Who I am and what I do: Hi, I am Dana Littmann and I am a senior English major with a concentration in journalism and I’m the features editor of The Spectator. This is my second semester as the features editor, and I am really enjoying the work I am doing. Working for the newspaper has helped me manage my time better because working on a newspaper is a lot of work and it takes a lot of time, so if I don’t manage my school work wisely I end up falling behind.

Why this story is important: This story is important because the semester is coming to a close and graduates are starting to look for jobs. The job market isn’t very good for graduates now, and this story brings the problem to light.

What I did to get this story: I did a lot to get this story. I interviewed both Nicholas Braun and McKaylee Higgs multiple times. I also interviewed a career counselor from Career Services. I also had to do a lot of online research to find more insight into why companies aren’t hiring right now.