The U.S. unemployment rate is at a 20 month high. The technology industry has laid off nearly 50,000 workers since December of 1999. Roughly 150 Internet companies folded this year alone. And some economists now say that a recession is inevitable.
Given these disturbing factors, are Dartmouth students worried about finding work after graduation?
For many, the answer is no.
"I feel like people graduating from Dartmouth are still probably in a pretty good position ... It seems like there are still a lot of options out there," Jennifer Rottman '02 said.
Noah Hutson '02 agreed.
"I think the economy runs on a boom and bust cycle, and before we know it, we'll be booming again," he said.
Neither Rottman nor Hutson considers the present state of the economy to be a significant threat to their future career prospects.
According to Monica Wilson, assistant director of employer relations at Career Services, their optimism is not unfounded. Despite the troubling economic indicators emerging in recent months, the Career Services department has seen little to suggest that in coming years Dartmouth graduates will find themselves floating in the unfriendly sea of unemployment.
"We haven't seen any real change," Wilson said.
Wilson conceded, however, that it might be too early to tell. Most job offers, she said, were extended to the graduating senior class before events such as lowered earning reports caused some CEOs to utter the dreaded "l-word" -- layoffs.
In fact, American companies -- including Citigroup, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Yahoo! -- announced a total of 162,867 layoffs in March alone. This staggering figure, nearly three times the size of its March 2000 counterpart, helped raise the national jobless rate to 4.3 percent -- the highest it has been since the summer of 1999.
Evidently, the surge in job cuts has not corresponded with retractions of job offers -- at least, not yet. Employers have [mostly] been very good at Dartmouth about holding on to their offers, and not reneging on [them]," Wilson said.
Wilson admitted that she had heard rumors about employers retracting offers at other schools, but that such stories are unsubstantiated.
Furthermore, Wilson maintained that increased layoffs will not necessarily have a negative impact upon the career prospects of those new to the job market.
During a slowing economy, she explained, employers are likely to reorganize and lay off high-paid personnel at the upper levels. However, they will often continue to hire or even increase hiring at the entry level -- where labor is less expensive.
What exact effect the current state of the economy will have on the availability of entry-level positions is unclear -- and will remain so until the coming fall and winter -- but, according to Wilson, the fact that next October's job fair is already two-thirds full is "a good sign." About 100 employers have made reservations for the two-day event, which is sponsored by Career Services.
Wilson did not completely discount the effects of the economic slowdown. For instance, although the number of employers who reserved spaces at the career fair at this point last year is roughly equal to that of this year, employers themselves don't appear to be "as frenzied" to obtain the best possible interview dates as they were in 2000.
Wilson also predicted that some employers will wait until the winter to decide how many people they need before they start interviewing applicants.
Increased caution on the part of employers means that it is more important than ever for students to take measures to make themselves stand out, Wilson said.
"Showing employers that you go beyond the basics to research them, talking to alumni in advance ... The students who do this will be separated from the crowd more easily as the top candidates."
In the eyes of employers, taking basic steps such as researching their companies may be more crucial to a candidate's success than one might think.
The Washington Post reports that since early 2000 -- when companies were still scrambling for skilled workers -- the business etiquette of applicants has dropped considerably. More job applicants now fail to research their potential employers and arrive to meetings late or unprepared.
In one instance, a man missed his interview altogether. He explained his absence by leaving a message on his interviewer's answering machine, saying that he had gotten "wasted" the night before and had accidentally overslept.
With more candidates now vying for fewer positions, employers are less likely to tolerate such behavior.
Although some speculate that this tighter job market may push more students toward graduate school, most students who spoke to The Dartmouth said that the economy had not figured prominently in their decisions whether or not to pursue advanced degrees.
According to Wilson, graduate school applications are up, but this may be in part due to recently laid-off graduates seeking to further their education rather than reenter the job market.
Wilson encourages those not applying to graduate schools to explore possibilities beyond corporate recruiting -- such as work at nonprofit organizations.
"There are careers beyond investment banking and consulting," she said.
Some are already taking Wilson's advice.
"I'm thinking about the Peace Core, or an overseas organization," Sara Mathew '03 said. "Making 80,000 dollars a year straight out of school isn't what I'm looking for anyway."
