Have Degree, Will Travel

By Ellie McGrath

The class of '83 faces the worst job prospects since World War II

For graduating seniors at Northwestern University, the small room tucked away in one of the administration buildings has been a popular spot on campus. There, twice a week, a group of students known as the job club gathers to swap leads, vent frustrations and talk of how to get someone to hire them in this year's tight job market. They even practice the art of shaking the hand of a recruiter in a convincing way. "I'm confused," says Margaret Berger, an English major who cannot find a job in her chosen field of communications. "I always thought an education would mean something."

So did most of this year's 965,000 college seniors, the largest class ever, who are having a difficult time finding work in an economy that is slowly recovering from the recession. Says Thomas C. Devlin, director of Cornell University's career center: "The American dream of getting the diploma in one hand and the job in the other has been deteriorating." Wayne Wallace, placement director at Indiana University in Bloomington, predicts, "This year is probably going to be the most difficult for college grads since World War II."

In the booming economy of 20 years ago, only about 500,000 students graduated from college annually. With national unemployment at just 5% or so, jobs for college grads were plentiful. This year, according to Victor Lindquist, co-author of Northwestern University's Endicott Study on College Placement, about one-third of the graduates will leave campus without jobs. Indeed, there has been an estimated 50% drop in offers made by employers since last year. At Indiana, for example, the administration estimates that fully half of its 7,000 graduates getting their bachelor's degrees will not have positions at commencement. Says Jack Shingleton, placement director at Michigan State University: "The universities are turning out more graduates than our society is able to absorb."

The number of on-campus recruiting interviews this year is down between 20% and 30% from 1982, according to Lindquist. The University of Pennsylvania, for instance, had 800 recruiters in 1981; in 1982 there were 620, and this year only 565. If the economic recovery persists, prospects should improve in 1984, but long-range predictions for employment of college grads remain gloomy. The Federal Government's Scientific Manpower Commission predicts that in 1992 there will be 3.3 million more graduates than jobs requiring a college education.

The seniors most in demand by corporations this year are those who majored in electrical engineering, computer science and accounting. But even a diploma in those fields does not guarantee a paycheck, as in the recent past. This year the market for engineers, once booming, is down 18% from 1982. Cutbacks by oil companies have dried up opportunities for chemical engineers. In 1970 the geology department at the University of Texas at Arlington had three graduate students and all were hired. Then students flocked to geology as the search for oil quickened. This year, with an oil glut, only two out of Arlington's 15 graduate students and none of its 300 undergraduates have jobs.

The shortage of positions has depressed most salaries. This spring the pay for even highly prized computer scientists is up only about 1% from 1982, to $23,172. Accountants are averaging $18,700, also a rise of only 1% over last year. Beginning lawyers may be getting a hefty $38,800 on Wall Street, but masters in business administration are averaging $23,232, down 9% from last year. Given the realities of the job market, even advanced degrees do not help students drive much of a bargain. Says Judith Kayser of the College Placement Council: "Students are accepting offers almost as soon as they're made. There's a lot of talent out there that can be hired at very reasonable rates."

Liberal arts students face the bleakest prospects of all. According to the College Placement Council, their average starting salaries are down 7% from 1982 levels, to $14,256. Counselors predict that many liberal arts students without specific talents or experience must brace themselves for a long and frustrating search for suitable work, and may initially have to accept lowpaying, low-prestige jobs. Worst off are students with an academic average of 2.5 (C+) or below; many companies will not even interview seniors with anything less than 3.5.

With an eye on the market, many schools are counseling their liberal arts majors to consider imaginative uses for their degrees. Boston College's placement office suggests that history majors consider applying their research and analytical skills to jobs as far afield as the Border Patrol. Drexel University in Philadelphia requires liberal arts majors to take an accounting and computer science course. Still, there are a few encouraging signs that prospects for liberal arts students may be improving. Says Lindquist: "Corporations need to have good communications skills and some analytical skills. They're finding that they can get better kids in their management training programs from among liberal arts than from such programs as business administration."

Anticipating hard times, some liberal arts students switched majors or took technical courses to improve their prospects. Deborah Hilibrand, 21, a senior at Penn's Wharton School of business, started as a liberal arts major but changed to marketing. The recipient of four job offers, she says: "Transferring was the best thing I ever did." Others were not so lucky. Sue Smith, 22, a senior at Drexel, switched her major from biology to chemical engineering two years ago when she discovered the high salaries that engineers were commanding. Her timing was bad: others rushed into chemical engineering just when the synfuel and plastics industries were cutting back. Smith has no job.

Many students have tried to develop specialties that, they hope, will give them an edge for a position. Steve Blalock, 23, a senior at Southern Technical Institute in Marietta, Ga., majored in electrical engineering but had only a C+ average overall. Still, he has had three promising interviews and is waiting by the telephone. "I built a small computer this quarter," he says, "and if someone wants a computer science employee, that is going to impress them more than an overall grade-point average." Robert Nilsen, a University of Utah senior, might have appeared to be a poor bet for a job in business because he majored in German. But his marketing courses, plus a job doing market analysis last summer in Germany for a manufacturing company, landed him a position at Procter & Gamble as a sales representative.

Bret Allenbach, 21, a senior at Cal State-San Jose with a double major in economics and math, credits a fateful decision four years ago for three job offers. Instead of taking a high-paying construction job, he started working every summer as an administrative aide for the pro football Oakland Raiders (who have since moved to Los Angeles). Says Allenbach: "If someone has a choice between a summer job that will bring in lots of money now or working in a field related to his goals, I'd tell him to take the goal-related job. It's so competitive out there, it's the experience that counts." Allenbach has decided to become a corporate auditor for Crocker Bank in San Francisco.

Colleges everywhere are beefing up career-placement offices, offering seminars on interviewing techniques and workshops on resume preparation. Some schools are encouraging students to use videotapes so that they can see themselves in interview simulations and correct potential blunders. During a two-month trial period at Cornell, 200 students used the taping service.

Many seniors are postponing the day of decision by going on to graduate school. Applications are up as high as 20% at some universities, according to a preliminary check by the Council of Graduate Schools. But some financially pressed seniors cannot find the funds for further education. Says Indiana's Wallace: "Graduate school is not the safety valve you would think. If a student is undecided about a particular field, a graduate degree narrows his options." Notes Gary Margolis, director of counseling services at Middlebury College in Vermont: "Many students worry about the money it has cost their parents to send them to school, so they feel that they have to produce."

Jobs are dividing senior classes into the haves and have nots. Admits Drexel's Sue Smith: "There's a lot of stress and pressure between best friends who do and don't have a job." Her boyfriend at Drexel was interviewed by an engineering company that also talked to her. He got a job offer, she did not. Says Smith: "For a while, I sat there staring at him, thinking what's he got that I haven't got?"

At Boston College, students recently held a rejection party, limited to those who could produce a turndown letter from a prospective employer. No one there was tactless enough to ask, "What are you doing in September?" And one senior wears a button with an inscription that answers the question for many seniors across the country this spring: YES ... I'M A SENIOR. NO ... I DON'T KNOW AND DON'T ASK! --By Ellie McGrath.

Reported by Janice C. Simpson/New York with other bureaus

With reporting by Janice C. Simpson/New York, other bureaus This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.