Job market tightens; no need to panic

With the birth of the current recession last March, students graduating this spring have been left fearful about the current job market -- as they should be.\nBut Dr. Randall Powell, assistant dean and director of placement for the Kelley School of Business, said those without job offers have no need to panic. Not yet at least. \n"Between searching on the Web, networking on campus, interviews and job fairs, there are still a lot of opportunities to find employment," Powell said. "This year we've partnered with other Big Ten schools on job fairs…without the cooperative effort with all these schools we wouldn't have been able to acquire as many companies (on our own)."\nThe current Big Ten Plus career fair ends Feb. 21.\nPowell said this year has been softer in terms of number of companies recruiting and the number of offers has decreased slightly.\n"The fall recruiting season was down by 20 percent in the number of companies visiting campus," he said. "We are right now in the middle of our spring recruitment season. It's going to be down this season by another 10 percent…all the statistics could vary with the economy going back to a 3.5-percent growth."\nPowell added that he is pretty optimistic about the future state of the market but urged students to take the initiative by networking, coming in for coaching appointments and working with placement office counselors in mock interviews, if necessary.\n"You have to do a lot of networking and hit the pavement running. Nothing is going fall into your lap," said Jeff Kacerek, MBA student and co-chairperson of the Graduate Career Services for the Kelley School.\nThe toughest part of the job market currently is the ambiguity, Kacerek said.\n"You never know how many people have applied for this job, how many have been put off for a year…there could be people in front of you on the pipeline," he said. "There's a lot of uncertainty out there."\nKacerek said he thinks the current economic slump stems from cyclical trends that often reappear within the job market.\nAs a student in the job search, Kacerek said he hopes to attain a position that could vary from other Kelley school MBAs.\n "I'm a little different from some of the other MBA students," he said. "I want to back abroad and acquire some more international work experience. I'd estimate that most of the domestic MBA students will want to remain within the states."\n Kacerek plans to attain a position through networking, visiting different locations and "plugging away," he said.\n "There is this misconception that there aren't any jobs out there," Kacerek said. "That simply isn't true. We've had a lot of talent in the MBA program here; we have some of the smartest people here."\nStill, despite the availability of University placement offices, some IU students have initially struggled to find a job after graduation.\nMatt Reinhart, a December 2000 graduate from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said he struggled at first to find a full-time position.\n"I applied (to) between 30 to 35 jobs but only received seven or eight call-backs," he said. "From those callbacks, I received four interviews…most of which I received because of prior job experience I had attained through an internship."\nReinhart, who now serves as an environmental consultant dealing in water policy management, said his experience prior to graduation was a key factor in his ability to gain a full-time position.\n"The way the job market is now, there are so many qualified people out there; companies don't want to spend non-billable time training someone," he said. "It's vital that you have some form of experience in a related field before you get out of school"