SRU 2011 grads have five percent unemployment

The national unemployment rate for individuals with a bachelor's degree was 4.6 percent this past August, as reported on in part one of this series. While much lower than the 9.1 percent overall national average, it is more than twice as high as it was before the current economic recession hit.

With the nation slumping in gloomy economic times, students at Slippery Rock University need to be aware that they're in the same boat as the rest of the country.

According to the university's Office of Career Services' 2011 annual executive report, the unemployment rate for Slippery Rock University graduates with a bachelor's degree in 2011 was five percent. While percentage points are higher than the national average this past June, this report was released in June 2011 when the national average was also around five percent.

Like the national average that dropped over the past year, SRU's unemployment rate for recent graduates fell from seven percent in 2010, but is still more than twice as high as the two percent mark from 2007, prior to the recession.

As a result of the weakening job market, Slippery Rock grads are following the national trend in an increase in students advancing their education beyond a bachelor's degree. The number of graduates continuing their education has increased or stayed the same each year since 2007. Over that time, the rate has grown from 15 percent in 2007 to 23 percent in 2011.

As a result of the down market, John Rindy, the director of the Office of Career Services, urges students to be more open-minded to their career choices.

"Students need to be more flexible, they can't be as selective in what they do in their first occupation anymore," Rindy said. "Students have to open themselves to different possibilities."

Rindy's advice stems from perhaps a more telling statistic of the gloomy economy than unemployment rates. According to the aforementioned report, the full-time employment percentage for individuals in their field of choice in 2011 was 41 percent, 12 points below the mark in 2007, and a far cry from the 61 percent mark in 2000.

The number of individuals employed part time in their field of choice has increased from seven percent in 2007 to 12 percent in 2011, while employment in fields not related to a graduate's field of study is relatively the same in both years.

Along with being more flexible and open-minded in their career tract, students also need to do proper career preparation while still in school, according to Rindy.

"Ultimately the responsibility is on the students to come in," Rindy said. "And you can't come in your last week before graduation. Students need to partition time and look at career building."    

While it is up to the students to prepare to set themselves apart in the job market, the Office of Career Services is continuing to explore more ways to help them along the way. The best way the office feels it can do this for the entire student body is to offer assistance to a larger number of students in a variety of ways.

"We have three professional staff and four graduate assistants with limited service," Rindy said. "We'd love to meet one-on-one with every student, but it's simply not feasible."

As a result, Career Services is attempting to create programs that address students in mass rather than in person. Having representatives speak in seminars, job fairs, campus events and new virtual tools – such as a new online mock interviewing tool set to debut later this year – are just a few measures the office is taking to reach out to the student body.

But Rindy also sees parents as an obvious go-to source to help students prepare.    

"We're trying to harness the power of home," Rindy said. "Parents want to be part of their students' life, so we need to figure out how can we get them more involved."