As Cal Poly seniors near commencement, they are feeling the pressure to either find a job or start looking into their graduate school options.
Fifth-year hotel and restaurant management student Denene Davidovich thought she had found a solution for after graduation after she found a position with the Marriott hotel chain. When the economy started sloping downhill, Marriott was forced to re-evaluate things.
"Due to the crashing economy, and being that it's the travel industry, guests are cutting back expenses, so hotels are too," said Davidovich. "Now half the candidates can't start their jobs until fall, me being one of them."
While Davidovich doesn't mind the break between being a student and being an employee, other graduates can't afford to wait that long.
A recent article in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune pointed out the correlation between a less-than-desirable job market and the number of recent college graduates heading back to school.
"With the economy not doing well, people are thinking they'll get into a graduate program and sit it out for a while," said Wendy Margolis, director of communications for the Law School Admission Council, in the Tribune article.
The council tracks law school applications.
The article explains that when the national unemployment rate hopped up 2 percent in 2001, the law school admissions test, the LSAT, also went up 23 percent. As the unemployment rate dwindled in 2003, so did the number of test takers.
The article said the unemployment rate in California spiked to 6.2 percent in March, the highest rate in the last four years. Manuel Perez, director of the career center at Cal State Long Beach, encouraged students to think outside the box when it comes to job hunting.
"With California's $16 billion budget shortfall, students need to not just look to Southern California, but nationally," said Perez in the article.
Davidovich feels differently, however.
"Marriott isn't just in California, so the postponing of their job hiring is affecting people everywhere," said Davidovich. "If it's a national problem with the economy, there's no way to avoid it."
Perez recommended students look into areas that are maintaining their strength even with the poor economy, which included retail, entertainment and health care.
"Mervyn's and Target have excellent management training programs," said Perez. "The salary range would be $40,000 to $60,000 with no experience. They can be store managers, regional managers [or] regional buyers."
While she wouldn't be standing behind a cash register, Davidovich has worked for Mervyn's in the past and is in no hurry to go back.
"For me, it's not too bad because it gives me time to take a vacation before I start a real job," said Davidovich. "But if the economy continues to fall, I might go to grad school as a compromise, while I wait for it to rebound. I just haven't decided yet."
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