Daily Aid 91: Three key job finding concepts you MUST understand
Daily Aid 91: Three key job finding concepts you MUST understand
Student Financial Aid News
From Inside Higher Ed:
Studies of endowments don’t bring good news these days. College endowments in the United States lost an average of 24.1 percent in the last six months of 2008, according to a survey from Commonfund Institute that provides an update on an estimate the organization released two months ago. As is typically the case, the largest endowments did better than smaller endowments. Those with more than $1 billion saw average losses of only 21.7 percent. Those endowments valued at less than $10 million lost an average of 30.2 percent.
Commentary
Tuition increases will not be far behind. If endowments are losing a quarter of their value every six months, that’s a loss of half annualized. With a declining capital base and no returns on investment, the only place for colleges to get money will be from your wallet.
Especially as financial aid increases in the various stimulus acts, I would anticipate seeing more tuition increase announcements. These numbers by themselves are not shocking, especially when you consider the broader market performance.
Universities would do well to listen to the same advice we give families about 401k and 529 plans – if you need capital for major purposes – like keeping the lights on – in the next 3-5 years, the market is no place to be keeping it. Cash out, stick your money in safe harbors like bank CDs, savings accounts, and anything FDIC insured, and wait out the storm.
Scholarship Update
Alpha Phi Foundation is proud to continue the Fraternity’s high regard for scholarship and foster the pioneering spirit our Founders held close to their hearts by awarding scholarship aid to Alpha Phis everywhere.
Recipients are selected from among highly competitive applicant pools from graduate and undergraduate universities across the United States and Canada. Scholarship recipients are selected by the Foundation’s scholarship committee on the basis of the applicant’s scholastic record, essays, service to Alpha Phi and the community, campus involvement and alumnae recommendations.
Details at our free college scholarship search site.
Jobcast
Also from Inside Higher Ed:
The last few months have seen many of the companies that hire new college graduates revise their plans — and that’s why you may be seeing more anxiety in the career center. Data released Wednesday by the National Association of Colleges and Employers show that hiring of new college graduates this year is expected to be down 22 percent from a year ago. And 22 percent of employers responding to the survey said that they didn’t plan to do any hiring at all. While the survey found no parts of the country that are immune from the downturn, the projected hiring declines are the greatest in the Northeast and the West.
What are you doing for your job search? How are you handling looking for work after college? Here’s a sampling from Twitter:
dluberda: Job hunting difficult for graduating college students…great…
elise27: trying to find a job…graduating soon and there are nooo jobs. scary
andrewvo: I’m graduating. May I have a job? You can find me online but I wasn’t in “ping pong playa” I produce and get coffee. Please?
jjnick: is a little worried about graduating in April. CNN just posted an article about graduating college seniors and I still don’t have a job!
alexfish: advice for people graduating trying to land there first job and break into the web industry would be awesome!
Here are three key concepts you must understand for job hunting:
1. If a company is paying to advertise for any job, they’re hiring for other positions, too. Whenever you’re looking at job listings, don’t assume that’s the only job they’re hiring for. That’s the only job they’re hiring for that they’re so desperate to fill, it’s worth paying for. There are other jobs available, and a willingness to pay for advertising means the company likely has good growth prospects. Find companies hiring on pay sites like Monster.com and see what else is available at the company on their web site that they didn’t want to pay Monster for.
2. Seth Godin says it best: being remarkable literally means worth making a remark about. A resume and cover letter aren’t enough. If you have a LinkedIn profile, solicit testimonials from everyone and anyone you’ve ever worked with, volunteered with, coached with, etc. and get those remarks piling up. If a hiring manager has a choice between two nearly identical resumes (which most college student resumes are), and one of them has 57 recommendations and the other has none, guess which person will get an interview?
3. You must master networking. If there’s one resource that I’d point you to, it’s the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. [disclosure: paid Amazon link”>MP3 file Some parts are kind of silly or hokey, but on the whole, it’s a tremendous resource and well worth a few dollars to buy. Have the basic tools of networking ready: business cards with your contact information on them (even if you’re not employed), a personal web site with lots of content that demonstrates your communications skills, and a LinkedIn profile stuffed with legitimate testimonials about what you can do, so that when someone you meet goes to dig a little deeper, they’ll find what you want them to find.
If you lack noteworthiness, go and make some. There are endless opportunities, particularly now in the Great Recession, for you to volunteer at a non-profit and make your mark. If you have great portable skills like writing, technology, accounting, whatever, you can make a difference AND build up some solid credentials.
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Reminders
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidNews.com.
+ Free scholarship search secrets eBook at StudentScholarshipSearch.com/ebook
+ Online degrees programs and directories at Edvisors.com
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+ Parent PLUS loans at ParentPLUSLoan.com
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+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.
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Great post, thank you Chris! For me, building a career started out as learning a survival skill and became the discovery of a passionate new interest.
I graduated with my Bachelor’s in classical languages back in 2002, when there were jobs but none for Latin translators (at least none outside the academic field). Getting a job has never been easy – especially for me and my fellow humanities majors – and it’s harder now more than ever. Now that I’m getting ready to graduate with my Associate’s in computer programming, I can say that not only did my efforts put me in a better position career-wise, they also allowed me to discover my passion for technology and social media.
The truth is you don’t have to be an extraordinary person to succeed during tough times, but rather tough times challenge you to find out that you _are_ more than ordinary.
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