By Jake
NEWBURYPORT — It's a difficult time to be a college senior. Forced to face one of the harshest job markets in decades, there's plenty of questions for upcoming college graduates uncertain about their future. Christine Bolzan believes she can provide some answers.
Bolzan, the founder of Graduate Career Coaching, will be speaking at the Newburyport Public Library Monday, Feb. 23, from 7 to 8 p.m. She intends to raise many important topics for college graduates, current college students and their parents, including where jobs can be found and what they need to expect in this tough climate.
Bolzan has extensive experience with young graduates entering the job market. She oversaw global recruitment as a vice president for JP Morgan and coordinated intern and analyst training and development. She was also a managing partner for an executive recruitment firm, CPI, and her clients included The Blackstone Group and Morgan Stanley, among others.
The programs of Graduate Career Coaching aim to go beyond the basics of the job hunt and address the complex nature of hiring and recruitment during such a difficult time when Bolza expects more than 60 percent of graduates will go home this spring unemployed.
"Graduates need to be extremely well-informed. We find that going through your immediate family network isn't really working. Doing more networking beyond that, and doing very good research, are important right now," Bolzan said.
With so many corporate cutbacks, hiring recruiters have been disappearing from college campuses. This is putting the onus back on students themselves to secure employment after graduation.
She believes the standard length of a post-college job search used to be around three months. Now, it can be expected to last six to nine months.
"Waiting can be a big mistake this time around," she said. "I keep hearing a lot of people saying, 'Hey, maybe if I wait until June, things might be better to find a job.' That's a bad plan. It's going to take much longer to find a job this time around."
An important message Bolzan wishes to convey to impending graduates is about looking in different kinds of places for work that, on the surface, might not appear related to what they've spent years studying.
She has cited that companies in the biotech, health care and pharmaceutical industries are experiencing a boom right now and need workers with a variety of abilities. For example, companies like these are in need of people with strong writing skills, and English majors are finding work at such places.
"Graduates are going to have to re-evaluate what to expect," she said.
On Monday, Bolzan plans to discuss how the $787 billion economic stimulus bill will affect hiring going forward.
In addition to her experiences on Wall Street, Bolzan herself knows what it's like to be out of college and looking for a job in this difficult market, and it's part of the reason why she began Graduate Career Coaching.
"When I graduated from college in 1992, I was coming out in the worst job market besides this one over the last 20 years," she said. "I can relate to how hard it is."
For more information, visit graduatecareercoaching.com.
