About this time last year, the economy was showing cracks, but the job market was still strong. True to form, there was a job for every RPI grad, all at highly competitive salaries. Then, the economy tanked. Now, some students who were supposed to start their jobs in May have had their start date postponed to next month, December, or even next year.
This is not the same job market as it was two years ago, or even one year ago. It used to be students could assume everything and still get by. This year, you can’t assume anything. This year, you’re going to have to work hard to land a good job, and there’s plenty of people graduating with you who are after the same thing.
Use the resources at your disposal. RPI has a Career Development Center for a reason—navigating through your senior year is tough enough without a rough job market to complicate things. While employers have always complained that too many resumes were poorly written and too many students weren’t properly prepared for job interviews, now that they are being choosy again as to who they hire and who they don’t, these negatives actually count against you. Some companies have even gone so far as to only accept resumes from the CDC and refuse any sent in directly by students, on the premise that if the student is using the CDC, they have at least a bit of a head on their shoulders.
And for those of you who are underclassmen, now is also the time to start thinking long term. While it’s always been a good idea to get yourself real-world experience before you graduate, now it’s rapidly becoming par for the course. Explore your options and go on a co-op or summer internship. Take advantage of every opportunity to network with industry, especially through class projects.
The days are over where you could walk into the job of your dreams. There’s no need to panic; our reputation with industry professionals is still so high that our grads will still have the opportunity to get excellent jobs. But now you’ll have to work harder at it to get great work.
