Students seek alternative jobs
Graduates turn to fields outside of their degrees as they serach for careers
Job openings are at a 14-year high, but graduates may need to look beyond their major to find one.
Job hunt — Several students have used the career fairs to find work after graduation. Photo credit: Lauren Adriance
The amount of job openings in December 2014 reached the highest level since January 2001, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report released Feb. 10. That same report said the number of people hired in December 2014 was the highest since November 2007 — one month before the recession began.
“If people who are graduating from school don’t have a job, it does not mean that there’s not a job out there for them,” Richard Glass, director of Liberty’s Career Center, said.
The Career Center organized eight major-specific career fairs and 10 information sessions with individual employers that will take place during the spring 2015 semester. Each career fair and information session is open to every student regardless of his or her major.
“Every person from every major can come to these events and benefit from the person representing the organization they’re going to talk to,” Glass said. “Undergraduates, graduate students and alumni should be coming to these events. Anybody who is in search of a job needs to come to all of them.”
A November 2013 CareerBuilder.com report may give students in one school, such as the School of Government, motivation to attend career fairs explicitly focused on another school, such as the School of Communication & Creative Arts. That report said 47 percent of college-educated people worked in a job different than the major they studied.
“Nearly half (47 percent) of college-educated workers said their first job after college was not related to their college major,” the study said. “Thirty-two percent of college-educated workers reported that they never found a job related to their college major.”
The Career Center offers students various tests to discover their talents and interests. The career counselors give students mock interviews and résumé critiques and help students connect with Liberty alumni working in the student’s desired field.
Glass said parents come to him and say their son or daughter is interested in a particular industry and ask how the student can get a job in that industry. He said the university aims to help students learn, grow and gain the appropriate tools to be able to get a job in whatever industry in which he or she is interested. However, there may be more options available to students outside of that field.
“We help not only our students, but (also) our employers understand that they need to broaden their vision,” Glass said. “You’ve got to look at these entities as working organizations. And some of them are very large.”
Glass challenged students to think of companies in a more holistic way, thinking of the whole company’s needs. The upcoming law enforcement fair, which takes place Feb. 26, will host employers looking to hire students with a government or criminal justice major, but students in other majors could also benefit from the career fair. Police departments and the secret service are organizations needing more employees other than officers in order to function well.
“They have human resources,” Glass said. “They have an accounting department … a maintenance department … a motor pool, a counseling department. They are an organization that is broad and wide and probably will take every major that we offer.”
A graduate with an English degree may only see a couple options available, such as working in publishing or education. But the skills the student learned in English classes about effective communication could open more doors than the student thinks.
“What can a person who’s getting a degree in English do?” Glass said. “Well, there are so many things available for an English major. It’s unreal. But they won’t know unless they come and explore the different options.”
One option is writing for the U.S. Navy.
“Do you know that the navy hires more English graduates than engineering (majors) or technologists?” Glass said. “An English graduate will be able to properly notate and write manuals.”
A Monster. com article placed technical writers in a list of 10 “Best-Paying Jobs for English Majors” with a median annual
salary of $49,100.
“An English major is able to articulate what needs to be said to a group of people from high level to a technical level,” Glass said. “And sure, they need to be trained on the product or the usage or whatever the case may be, but they are able to articulate it in a way that is communicated correctly.”
A list of each career event is on the Career Center’s home page at liberty.edu. Clicking on a specific event will show more information about how to RSVP as well as a detailed list of the employers attending. These lists are updated regularly.
The career fairs typically take place during the afternoon, and the information sessions are typically in the evening.
“We just had the Samaritan’s Purse,” Glass said. “We had 205 students RSVP, (of) which 146 actually attended. It’s great. Seventy-five percent? I’ll take that all day long.”
Hoosier is a news reporter.