Thursday, May 15, 1997

'Phenomenal luck' eases the job hunt for '97 grads

By JON VAN / Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO - Bethany Medford, a senior at Northwestern University, is having a ball this spring quarter as she heads toward graduation next month knowing she has a good job awaiting her.

Indeed, she's had the job lined up since last year, when she picked it from among three offers.

Medford, a psychology major from Dayton, Ohio, is just one of the many young people these days who are thanking their good luck to be graduating in the midst of a job-seeker's paradise. The current tight labor market behind this month's report that the unemployment rate was the lowest in decades, is the flip side of the job shortage that greeted young people entering the job market five years ago.

"It's just phenomenal luck," said Medford, whose job with Andersen Consulting meets her goals of getting to stay in Chicago after graduation and joining a company with a fine reputation.

About the time she started at Northwestern, many graduates were opting to go to graduate school, travel or otherwise avoid the dismal job market.

"When I was a freshman and a sophomore, I thought I'd probably go to graduate school and maybe teach," Medford said. "I thought if I did get a job, I'd probably have to go back to Dayton because there'd be too much competition in Chicago."

But after interviewing representatives of several companies on campus last fall, Medford had her pick of three offers, and most of her friends also have had jobs lined up for months now.

"Life is good," she said. "We're really lucky."

William Banis, director of career services at Northwestern, has figures to back up Medford's perceptions.

"During the past two years, we've seen an increase of 15 to 17 17 percent in the numbers of recruiters coming to campus," Banis said. "That's an increase of one-third in two years, which means jobs are plentiful for the Classes of '96 and '97."

In the early days of the recession of the early 1980s, Banis said, corporate America continued hiring college graduates as usual, ending up with a surplus as the economy slowed. Striving not to repeat that experience in the early '90s, they cut back hiring young people at the first signs of a slowdown, Banis said.

But now college recruitment is back in a big way, especially for students who have computer skills, he said.

The employment boom is also helping older workers who may have lost their jobs to downsizing.

John Challenger, executive vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement consultant, said that in surveys of his clients he's found that the average job search time for workers over age 50 is now just a little more than three months.

"That's much shorter than it was," Challenger said. "The market is sizzling right now for workers over 50. Employers seek them for their experience, their commitment and their skills."

Another trend that Challenger has seen among his clients is that fewer are going into business for themselves.

"We usually see about 9 to 12 percent of the people becoming entrepreneurs, but in the latest quarter, that's down to 5 percent," he said. "There are so many good jobs around that people are deciding against the risks of starting their own business and taking good salaries and benefits of a regular job instead."

One person on the lookout for older job applicants is Jim Roach, corporate director of human resources for C.P. Hall Co., a Chicago-based manufacturer and distributor of chemicals.

"I just hired a man over 50 to manage a plant in New Jersey," Roach said. "We don't go looking for people by age, but we do look for experience, and often times people with the experience we want turn out to be older."

Finding good employees these days is much more difficult than it once was, Roach said.

"Often you find that applicants are choosing among several job offers," he said. "It's definitely a job-seeker's market out there."

But so far the tight labor market hasn't caused significant increases in wages, Roach said.