| Short on jobs, students network with alumni |
By: DAVID HENKE, Staff Writer
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Posted: Friday, July 17, 2009 11:01 pm
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NORTHFIELD — Just three typewritten lines landed Kyle Kingsbury a job.
Like many of his fellow graduates from Carleton College, the 22-year-old was struggling in his first, post-college job search. He had a ‘Plan B’ — his old, high school job in his hometown of Madison, Wis., but he was looking for new opportunities and coming up short.
Until he enrolled in Engagement Wanted, a new networking program created by Carleton to help its own new graduates connect with college alumni — and potential job opportunities.
The program, devised by the college’s Career Center last spring, was inspired by the poor economy and a noticeable rise in the number of Carleton seniors having difficulty connecting with employers, according to Jessica Mueller, a program coordinator with the Career Center.
As part of “Engagement Wanted,” participating students created a short, personal profile, no more than a paragraph or two in length, and submitted it to the Career Center. In turn, the center randomly sent five profiles at a time via e-mail to alumni who agreed to take part. If the alumni had contacts, advice or opportunities to offer, they could e-mail the students.
A physics student at Carleton, Kingsbury wrote a brief profile, summing up his experiences and goals in couple of short sentences.
His profile was sent out earlier this spring, along with the profiles of roughly 230 other Carleton seniors, who all enrolled with Engagement Wanted. After connecting with Mark Hall, from the Carleton class of 1985, Kingsbury found employment with Vodpod, a tech company which employs Hall.
“My original plan was to be smart and avoid the recession by diving back into grad school,” Kingsbury said. “This was easy, it didn’t take much time, and I happened to get fantastically lucky.”
While Kingsbury was able to find employment through the program, getting students jobs wasn’t the primary goal, Mueller said. Instead, Mueller and the Career Center wanted to help forge connections between students and alumni, and teach seniors how to network on a professional level. Although Mueller didn’t have exact numbers, she said a handful of students found internships or jobs through the program.
“I think the program was founded on the fact that we all knew how bad the economy was,” Mueller said. “We can’t create jobs for students, but we wanted to know how we could make it easier, less frustrating for students.”
“Broadening the group of people you know may be the only way for you to find those very few opportunities out there,” Manager of Mentor Relations Brent Nystrom said. “Once you’re getting yourself out there and beginning to netowrk, you don’t really know how far it’s going to go.”
A NATIONAL TREND
More college graduates are coming up short in the job hunt, a study conducted this spring by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found. According to the report, 19.7 percent of those who earned a diploma this year found a job, compared with 51 percent in 2007.
— David Henke covers city, business and youth issues. He can be reached at dhenke@northfieldnews.com or 645-1100. |
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