This year was an especially tough one, she
said, because the organization saw increased
interest from students preparing to graduate while it had to cut positions because of
the dollar’s devaluation overseas.
Alu also said more applicants this year
than usual seemed to be applying to the
Peace Corps because they didn’t have other
options.
“There were a lot of highly qualified
applicants,” Alu said, “but there were also a
lot who applied because they just saw
Peace Corps as an alternative. A lot of them
didn’t have language skills or qualifications.
… It’s not enough to just have a bachelor’s
degree.”
Using the networks
It’s not all bad news. Students who have
found jobs in competitive industries have
combined traditional job-searching methods — career services, alumni networking,
sending out resumes — with the nontraditional. Kelly Giles ’09, who majored in
psychology and journalism, found a job
through Twitter.
Giles decided last spring to forgo law
school in favor of a career in marketing,
and she began blogging and using Twitter
to write about her career search. A career
counselor in Maine contacted Giles
through Twitter and connected her with a
social media position at Optimal Resume
in Durham.
“[She] tweeted about it, and then like
an hour later, Optimal Resume was like,
‘Do you want to get together for lunch?’ ”
Giles said. “A week later, I had a job offer.”
Giles said using social media, such as
Twitter and LinkedIn, gives students infinite networking opportunities.
“In this job market, anything you do
with an online Web presence is just
demonstrating your knowledge,” Giles said.
“The more you do online, the less you
will have to ask for help. It will just
appear.”
Naveen Goel ’09 (MA) thought he
would have to leave the U.S. for his native
India until, through LinkedIn, he found a
job as an information scientist.
“I contacted a lot of people on
LinkedIn and joined different groups, and
I just started getting e-mails about open-
ings,” he said.
Alexa Robinson ’09, an advertising
major, is another social media success
story: A week after graduation, she got a
job with Pizza Hut as the company’s first
“Twintern” — last summer, she was in
charge of the company’s Twitter account,
sending tweets about Pizza Hut deals, promotions and events to more than 15,000
Twitter followers.
“Among the 400 other jobs I was
applying for at the time, I sent an application in for this, and I was lucky enough to
be asked to interview for it,” Robinson
said. When the internship ended in late
August, it led to a full-time position —
she’s now Pizza Hut’s coordinator of public relations and emerging media. “I hope
it’s made me more competitive.”
The internship — which got Robinson
considerable attention from local and
national media outlets — was her fifth
internship. Before the full-time job came
through, she didn’t know what she’d do
once the “Twinternship” ended. “The next
step would [have been] moving home,” she
said.
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