Post-grad employment increases '11

On Sept. 13, a record number of students came to Dana Auditorium where they attended Senior Meetings.

661 students attended the three sessions at 12:30 p.m, 4:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. — an increase of 94 students over the same number last year. This is the first time Senior Meetings have been attended by more than 600 students.

The meetings introduced the Senior Program and taught seniors to effectively search for jobs by focusing on the three key elements: research, networking and interviewing.

Also covered were some of the results of the recently released statistics from the Senior Survey for the Class of 2010. The survey had a 66 percent response rate and inquired into senior’s post-graduate plans. Of the surveyed seniors, 34 percent had secured employment upon graduation. The next two largest percentage groups of seniors were those seeking employment, which comprised 29 percent of the surveyed group, and those attending graduate or professional school, which comprised 15 percent.

This data is good news for seniors this year who are interested in entering the job market. The percentage is higher than any employment upon graduation percentage that Middlebury College has seen in the last three years.

While the 34 percent employment rate is approximately the average graduation employment rate for the graduates of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), which rests approximately around 33 percent, the number represents an increase from the 25 percent senior employment rate last year for the class of 2009. At 34 percent the number also represents a small increase over the class of 2007, who had searched for jobs in a time when job opportunities were at their peak.

This increase is partially due to the efforts of Career Services (CSO), which although facing some limited resources, has adapted its policies to the changing times.

“We’ve done some much smarter programming,” said Donald Kjelleren, director of career services.

This programming includes “looking where student interests are and trying to build these types of programs that get students out of Middlebury,” he said. “Most employers won’t come to Middlebury … getting students to these events is really important.”

Students explore options through events like Eastern College Career Days (ECCD). The event allows students to interview for employers in three locations: New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. This gives students access to job opportunities unavailable in Middlebury.

These new opportunities are in conjunction with other CSO resources, including a new senior program blog that launched last year. The blog is written by other students, and its style is fun and relatable.

Moreover, CSO has recently joined with Student Fellowships and Health Professions and the Alliance for Civic Engagement (ACE) to form one office in Adirondack House, collectively known as the Center for Education in Action: Careers, Fellowships and Civic Engagement (EIA). With this change, the offices hope to be able to work together more collaboratively to help students.

CSO continued Senior Week through Sept. 17 with Resumania.  Throughout the week, all CSO counselors were available from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and encouraged seniors to bring in their résumés, cover letters and other documents for tips and suggestions.

Kjelleren hopes that these activities will encourage seniors to begin their job search and be excited about their opportunities.

“The whole point of senior week programs is to get students to tune in, rather than tune out,” said Kjelleren.

“Because it’s very easy when you say ‘the economy’s down, the labor market and the employment rate is really bad: why waste my time looking for a job?’”

For some seniors, the process of searching for a job has already brought success.

“A lot of people don’t go to CSO until very late,” said Jing Zhuang ’11, who has already secured employment after graduation. “I would advise you to go there as early as possible because they helped a lot.”

Zhuang particularly highlighted the benefits of networking and urged students to use the resources at CSO to practice and improve their valuable interviewing skills.

“Networking is really important. It is probably the greatest advice I can give to people looking for jobs. You have to just go out and network,” said Zhuang.

Besides employment percentages, the senior survey also included other types of information about postgraduate employment plans, including most popular employment industries, employment locations and graduate programs that the students were planning to attend.

For the class of 2010, the top two employment industries for the Middlebury seniors were Education/Academia and Finance/Banking, at 22 percent and 16 percent respectively.

The top three city destinations were New York, Boston and Washington D.C. For states, the top three most commonly cited were New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.