Business

New Grads Navigate Job Market

By Juan Vargas

Staff writer

Job prospects for new college graduates have improved since the Great Recession, but still haven’t returned to previously higher levels. An improving job market however, doesn’t stop the job search from being difficult.

“Technological skills, analytical and data science skills have really emerged in really profound ways and shifted everything about the way that work looks,” said Brittany Baron, associate director of employer engagement and strategic outreach at NYU’s Wasserman Center for Career Development.

“Employers look now for a more diverse candidate than they did four or five years ago,” she added.

Baron is familiar with the job market and how it has changed since the recession of 2008. “There has been an explosion of what we call the gig economy,” she said, referring to rising rates of self-employment. “Recent grads have been career pivoting and transitioning at a much more rapid, frequent rate than what we saw years ago.”

John O’Donoghue, a 2018 NYU political science graduate, planned to work in government or politics but now is employed by a college essay coaching company. “It’s a matter of figuring something out that will get you by,” he said, “which definitely detracts from allowing people to pursue what they want to do. Instead, people are kind of forced into doing what they have to do.”

Similarly, Bryce Joyner, 22, who earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tufts University in Boston in the spring of 2018, has been having difficulties finding work in his field. “As of right now, I’m looking for any job that will hire me,” Boyce said. While he is looking to apply to law school next year, he is currently applying for jobs in both journalism and retail.

In the field of journalism, change has been massive and downsizing has been substantial in recent decades. Even before the Great Recession, students aspiring to become professional journalists were facing big obstacles. News organizations have laid off workers as advertising revenues that had paid worker salaries declined, said former journalist Sylvan Solloway, director of career services at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

Recently, however, Solloway said, that the job market for journalism graduates has improved. “We have a lot of start-up companies that are doing really well and are looking for young journalists with new digital skills and talent,” she said, mentioning Buzzfeed and Axios as examples of those growing online news organizations. NYU journalism program, which has been ranked amongst the top schools for media jobs, aims to equip its students with the digital skills required today.

During the Great Recession, the U.S. economy and employment rates hit a low.  In 2009, 9.3 percent of the labor force was unemployed, and underemployment rates for graduates with bachelor degrees was 9.1 percent, according to this CBS News article. Those trends have reversed themselves considerably.

Baron, from the career development center, said she is optimistic. “We’ve seen there has been great expansion in the scope of opportunities available to students,” she said.

Tara Yarlagadda, 26, is one such success story. Now interning in Bedford + Bowery, a an offshoot of New York magazine, the 2018 master’s degree graduate of NYU’s journalism program, Yarlagadda said, “I didn’t have to do much outreach because NYU has a pretty great outreach center. “I was mainly looking to do this summer internship as a way of getting more credibility and learning about more issues that would help me as a freelancer.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inaccurate Pitch and Outline:

 

Pitch: The career opportunities and job market for college graduates has changed a lot in the past decade, mainly due to the digitalization of the modern age. This change has increased the accessibility and opportunities for college grads to find jobs in their desired field. This article will include interviews with Career Services Staff (Solloway and Godsoe), and recent graduates from different colleges (O’Donoghue and Joyner)

Lead: The job market has changed dramatically over the past decade due to the digitalization of the modern age, opening up new career opportunities for college graduates.

 

 

BACKGROUND:

 

 

QUOTE FROM SYLVAN

The field of journalism is one that has experienced notable change. Sylvan Solloway, who’s been working as Director of Career Services for the NYU Journalism Institute since 2009, declared that the job market, especially for NYU students has “gotten better”. Referring to Buzzfeed and Axios, she said, “we have a lot of upstart companies that are doing really well, and are looking for young journalists with new digital skills and talent.” She then proudly stated that NYU has been successfully preparing aspiring journalists for the updated job market by teaching them digital skills and talents. “Just a few years ago,” she continued, “NYU was ranked the #1 school for media jobs.”

 

News companies that have been around for longer years, such as the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, have also been affected by digitalization, their news now being read mostly on their web pages and apps rather than in paper (about 40% of americans read their news online, while only 20% read in paper. TV still dominates the consumption of news). This transformation has created new jobs such as, Social Media Manager or App Developers, that didn’t exist a decade ago.

 

QUOTE FROM GRADS

Graduate students, Joyner/O’Donoghue depicts his personal experience with the job market, explaining, “”

 

QUOTE FROM GODSOE?

The digital transformation of the modern age doesn’t only impact the journalism world, but other fields as well. Bethany Godsoe, Associate Vice President for Career and Leadership Development at NYU states “(Ms. Godsoe could be useful for a view of the job market for college grads as a whole and not only from the journalism angle)”

 

 

http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/the-modern-news-consumer/pj_2016-07-07_modern-news-consumer_1-01/) (the news comsumption data)

 

http://blog.nasstar.com/10-jobs-created-by-tech-that-didnt-exist-10-years-ago/ (new jobs)

 

studies??

---