Grant Jedlinsky | The Roanoke Times

Hot and cold jobs

Experts don’t have clear-cut agreement on which jobs are going to be most in demand and even what qualifies a job as “hot” or “cold.” For example, accounting jobs are among the highest-paying positions for new graduates, but setbacks in the financial services industry could make them more scarce. On the other hand, there’s a high demand for teaching positions, but salaries for graduates with education degrees actually dropped the past year.

Hot

• Health care
• Computer engineering
• Chemical engineering

Cold

• Accounting
• Manufacturing
• Teaching

Related

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• Although Blacksburg is "insulated" from a recession, some projects around town have experienced difficulties.

BLACKSBURG -- When it comes to the job market, timing may be important, but it's not everything.

And that may be good news for the Class of 2008. With rosy employment predictions from fall meeting recent speculation of a recession, career directors at universities everywhere are getting mixed signals.

If their worst fears are realized, it could mean that students who received offers in the fall might find themselves jobless on graduation day.

"What I suspect will happen is that opportunities will be offered -- this is a little scary to say, because I would hate for our students to think about this. But offers will be made, and offers will be accepted and, by and large, all of those will be honored," said Donna Cassell Ratcliffe, director of career services at Virginia Tech. "But it's not unusual around April, May, June for those companies, some of those companies, get back to their students ... and move start dates back from May to July to September."

And some job offers may be simply pulled off the table, she said. Cassell Ratcliffe has worked in career services at universities for 26 years and has seen her share of recessions and their effects on the job market. She advises students to save business cards and stay in touch with employers, even if they've already accepted a job.

But that doesn't mean students shouldn't still honor their words.

"One of the things that we always stress to students is that your commitment should be sound," she said. "You shouldn't be looking for a better offer and then go back to them and say, 'Oh, I found a better offer.' "

Despite her words of caution, Cassell Ratcliffe said that even if a recession does hit, students shouldn't panic.

"People still need to hire," she said. "It just may not be their first, ideal job."

Cassell Ratcliffe's office is busy this time of year working with students anxious to get those job offers, recession or no recession. February is filled with job fairs that will bring hundreds of employers to campus, and career development staff meet regularly with students to polish their resumes.

At a resume workshop in late January, organizers passed along tips for students seeking jobs, such as following up with companies and keeping pages of social-networking Web sites free of embarrassing information.

And listing an e-mail address on your resume is a good idea.

Just make sure it's not "hotchick@vt.edu."

Amy McPherson, associate director of career services at Virginia Tech, told the group of students at the workshop that she actually reviewed a resume with that e-mail address.

"That is not the way you want to be projecting yourself to employers," she said. "You are leaving the student world and going to the professional world."

There's a general perception that some students put off joining that professional world by going to graduate school. Cassell Ratcliffe said graduate schools and community colleges benefit from growing admissions when the job market isn't robust. But Tech's career services Web site cautions against going to graduate school without a clear goal other than avoiding the real world.

Jacqueline Nottingham, director of graduate admissions at Tech, said it's tough to draw a relationship between an increase in graduate school applicants and the economy. Applications to Tech's graduate school have grown in recent years, but that could be because of several factors, she said.

The undergraduate students waiting to speak to career services staff a couple of weeks ago had no plans to hide in graduate school. And so far, there's little hard evidence to suggest that they should. Despite the recession talk, the job market for new graduates hasn't shown signs of cooling.

A survey of employers in the fall by the National Association of Colleges and Employers reported hiring increases of 16 percent for upcoming college graduates. The spring survey hasn't been completed, but another survey, released Jan. 30 by job search Web site Collegegrad.com, shows hiring up nearly 12 percent from last year.

Ed Koc, director of strategic and foundation research at NACE, said the job market is receiving a boost because so many baby boomers are headed toward retirement.

"If you're a college graduate, you're probably going to have a very good job market, with ups and downs, for the next 10 years," he said.

Donnie Brown, vice president for human relations at Tindall Corp., a concrete products company based in Spartanburg, S.C., said Tindall has steadily increased its recruiting of college graduates since 2003. The company is in the market for civil and industrial engineers and often the onus is on them to make themselves attractive to students rather than the other way around. The company visits Tech every fall and spring.

"If we're not there in the fall we lose access to a large number of kids," he said.

Some professions will be hit harder by a poor job market than others. Jobs in manufacturing are typically most affected by recessions, Koc said. But financial services jobs may become more scarce given the nature of the current economic slump, he said. That means accounting jobs, typically among the most lucrative for new graduates, could become more scarce.

But accounting major Abdi Sheikh, a Tech senior, didn't seem worried. He made a trip to the career services office to touch up his resume. While he had yet to land a job, he was confident there were plenty of companies interested in hiring someone with his abilities.

"As far as accounting, I don't want to brag about it, but there's lots of jobs out there," he said.

Kathy Jordan, director of experiential learning and career development at Radford University, said Radford students in general start their search later than Tech students. Engineering firms make many of their job offers to students in the fall. The job searches for liberal arts majors often linger into the spring. Sometimes that has to do with the nature of the work they're interested in and sometimes it's because of a lack of focus, she said.

And that can be disastrous in a poor job market.

"My message to students is to get out there and get out there quick," she said. "This is not the time when you can let fate manage your job search."

Students can sometimes overanalyze their decisions, especially if their major lends itself to a broad focus. Jordan's advice: Choosing your first job is step one of a journey, not a lifetime decision.

Keeping multiple options open, sometimes in multiple fields, can be crucial. The general rule of thumb is it takes four good leads to equal one job offer.

"And that's in a good job market," she said.

Tech senior Brett Hudner, a communications major, has one promising lead at the moment -- at a Charlottesville television station. Still, as he waited to have his resume looked over, he didn't sound like someone who was worried about his prospects.

"It'll all work out in the end," he said. "If you're good at what you do, you should be able to find a job."