BOBBE BROWNING, Director, Career Development Center, Cal State Fullerton
Bobbe Browning, director of the Career Development Center at Cal State Fullerton, says corporate recruiting on campus is down 30% this year, which follows a 5% drop the year before. Large companies, especially, seem to be more cautious about hiring with the economy as uncertain as it is, according to Browning. She spoke with free-lance writer Anne Michaud about which industries are hurting most, what creative ways students have found to land available jobs and where there may be some signs of improvement.
Do you have an idea why there are fewer companies coming in to recruit?
It’s the economy entirely.
The companies just don’t have jobs?
Exactly. It’s a dilemma for them because they want to keep their name in front of the students, yet it’s not good to come here and recruit when you don’t have jobs. It’s also costly to have a manager or recruiting professional here.
One thing that is getting more popular is job fairs (as opposed to one-on-one interviews with students). It’s more cost-effective. We are having five job fairs just this spring, here on campus. For example, we’ve had a career conference for disabled students, a teacher job fair, a minority career conference.
Which types of companies are still recruiting?
The smaller companies are here. That’s where the jobs are. They’re a bit harder to find than the big companies.
Which industries seem still to be hiring?
The healthiest ones are, particularly in Orange County, the high-tech and biotech organizations and health care.
And I think people have to broaden their perspective of what is in health care, apart from doctors, nurses and physical therapists. The health care field needs managers, administrators, people in marketing, public relations, finance, publications. There are about 800 medical and dental journals. That takes writers, publishers, editors.
Another blossoming field is environmental. Most of those jobs are technical. There are very few environmental engineers graduating because that degree is not available from many institutions. However, many civil and electrical engineers are getting into the environmental area.
Another field that has continued to experience job growth is insurance. Actually, sales jobs are available in many fields, in particular food sales, investing and retail--for chains like Target, Mervyn’s, K mart and Sears.
How many companies came to interview students this year?
This year we have 234 organizations coming in, which is a drop of (31.6%) over last year. Of course, we’re watching that closely, and we’re doing some job development.
You’re going out to corporations?
Well, we do mailings more. It’s awfully time-intensive to go out to corporations. Our staff is a lot more active in contacting chambers of commerce and professional associations.
What does your office do?
We do three things: career counseling, personal counseling and employment services.
Under employment services, we do job matching, where we get 500 to 600 calls a month from local employers who are looking to hire our students, primarily part time because they’re going to school. The second employment service is on-campus recruitment, which is for people graduating that semester.
Our services are free to employers.
Are students looking for alternatives to full-time jobs?
We’re beginning to see some nonprofit interest increasing among the students. Part of that is the competitive job market. Students are tending to try to wait out the economy by remaining in their part-time job, maybe adding another part-time job. They are looking at volunteer work, at nonprofits such as VISTA and the Peace Corps. Those agencies have had large increases in applications.
As always when there’s a bad economy, graduate school applications have increased.
Do you encourage students to take a job that might be not quite what they want, to get some work experience?
We try to do that before graduation. One of the important ways for students to gain experience is internships, and that area is growing a lot. It’s good for organizations because they have a fairly educated, easily trainable person to do some work. And they can observe and see what kind of worker he or she is.
For the students, they gain academic credit for the internship. They get to test out that work and see how they like it. And often they get paid.
One nice thing about a university like ours is most of our students work. The average is 20 hours a week. Even if a student is working just to earn money, they’re getting experience.
Have you noticed students using any especially clever strategies to find jobs?
We had a student recently who wanted to work for a performing arts organization. So, he took some tours here in Orange County, of the Performing Arts Center and a couple of other places.
He walked into one and asked for a tour, which they didn’t provide. But they realized they should, and he’s now doing that.
Have you offered any special job-finding workshops?
We have offered some workshops this semester that are new for us: “New Ways to Work: Alternatives to Full Time,” “Finding Jobs in Government and Small Companies,” “Americans Working Abroad,” and “Relocation Job Search: How to Find a Job in Another Geographic Area.”
On the dearth of professional recruiters . . .
‘Private organizations have been downsizing, so they don’t have as many recruiters available.’
On students’ efforts to find a job . . .
‘One of the nice things for our office about this kind of economy is the students are taking the job search more seriously.’
On where students want to work . . .
‘Ninety-six percent of our graduates stay in California, and 61% report working in Orange County. We are a vital link here for a well-prepared job force.’
On a growing interest in nonprofits . . .
‘It’s partly the economy, but it’s also partly students’ desire to help other people. The “me” generation is turning around.’
On starting early . . .
‘One of our frustrations in this office is we do not see more freshmen.’
GERARD BURKHART / For The Times
