Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 7, 1991 TAG: 9104050779
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: E/1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
It's job-hunting season here - has been for seniors since the fall. And the students who crowd this office a few days a week are starting to worry.
"I thought I'd have many job offers by now," said Mike DiPiero, 22 and an electrical engineering major. "But I haven't even had a plant trip yet."
It's not for lack of trying.
DiPiero and his roommate, Tom Derenge, have gone out before dawn to wait, crouched outside of Henderson Hall, for a chance to bag an open interview slot with a company recruiting on campus.
Northern Telecom. General Electric. The Federal Communications Commission. Most companies schedule interviews for students who bait them with the best resumes, the best portfolios. But they hold open a few spots where students can sign up for 30-minute interviews on a first-come, first-served basis.
You have to be wily. Competition for these spaces is tough, DiPiero said. Tough enough to get him out of bed by 4 a.m. so he can beat out the other job hunters angling for a spot.
So far, though, these interviews have led nowhere.
Derange, an electrical engineering major who has had 50 job interviews so far, is getting frustrated.
"Most of them [companies] haven't closed the door yet, but they're saying they're kind of in a hiring freeze because of the economy."
Electrical engineers normally are in great demand, said Derenge, a Bluefield, W.Va., student who alternated semesters going to school and working for companies. "With three years co-oping experience, I thought I'd have no problem. But I knew when the economy started getting bad, things wouldn't be pretty."
Some companies still are hiring as usual, and professors are concerned that their students have too grim an outlook of their prospects. But tighter budgets are causing other companies to lower the number of new hires or cancel recruiting trips altogether. A few visit college campuses and interview students, saying they'll take names for some ambiguous "future time."
The situation is causing DiPiero to expand his job search from companies out West to "anywhere, really. As graduation gets closer and closer, I just don't care."
Fernando Mathov, a Tech student working on his master's in computer systems, is one of the lucky ones - he was hired in December for a job at Anderson Consulting in the Washington, D.C., area. He starts in September.
"I'm not complaining," he said. "Not at all."
Mathov, 23 and from Arlington, said he liked the company for more reasons than that it was the first to offer him a job. "My job search was so short, I didn't have time to get nervous," he said.
In the business school, 4,100 students have had on-campus interviews this year - an average of about five per student. The department does not have a way of tracking how many of these students actually found jobs, said Kathy Wilson, of the school's public relations office.
Still, some students have put their career plans on hold, deciding to stay in college until the economy levels out.
Accounting major Elizabeth Barrett spent her spring break studying for GMATs (Graduate Management Admission Singular Test) and filling out applications for graduate schools.
"I felt pressures to get a job, but I thought it was pointless to even try - there were none there," said Barrett, 22 and from Virginia Beach. "I decided if I found a job, I'd take it. If not, I was going back to school."
Earlier this year, however, a guest speaker in Rajaram Veliyath's management class, scheduled to talk about the banking industry, spent part of his lecture urging students to go to graduate school.
"Personally, I don't think it [the economy] is as bad as people are thinking," said Veliyath, an assistant professor at Tech.
Neither does Hilary Lewis, a student at Hollins College who is spending so much time in the placement office that counselors there joke about charging her rent.
"I've sent resumes everywhere," said Lewis, 22 of Winchester. "I'm finding [that] in the market today, the best thing you can do is network. I'm calling everyone I know . . . My phone bill's been high, to say the least."
Lewis, who is trying to find a job in marketing or public relations, did not go to the beach with her friends for this, her final, spring break.
Instead, she visited as many companies as she could in Richmond and Washington, armed with her resume and a 3.56 grade point average.
"I'm going to go door to door," she said, a few days before she left. "I'm going to get it. I will get a job. I'm willing to relocate. I'm not picky . . . I will get a job."
Determination is half of it, said Mathov. "I think a lot of people are just half-looking."
Jim Malone, director of the job-placement center at Tech, said more companies appear to have canceled this year than in previous years, although the university has not kept records.
"I think the students are getting a little antsy,' he said.
At Hollins, too, there are fewer recruiters on campus, said Peggy-Ann Neuman, director of the placement center there.
"It's universal," she said. "Everyone's unsure when things will pick up."
But they're hopeful that it will be soon.
\ ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 9, 1991\ Correction
The acronym GMAT stands for the Graduate Management Admissions Test. Because of a reporter's error, an incorrect name was given in a Sunday Business section story.
\
Memo: correction