ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601260018
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: 17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
Every spring, thousands of college graduates enter the job market, armed with a diploma, a degree and plenty of dreams.
Making sure that these graduates also leave college with job-hunting savvy and realistic employment expectations is the job of career services offices, on-campus counseling centers that help calm the fears of thousands of graduating seniors every year.
But career centers aren't just for students heading into the real world, said Rhea Nagle, information director for the National Association of Colleges and Employers in Bethlehem, Pa. The main purpose is to teach lifelong job search skills, she said, and the earlier these offices can interest students, the better.
"The mission of any career center is to capture students their freshman year," said Evelyn Bradshaw, director of the Career Development Center at Hollins College.
The Hollins office holds mandatory orientation programs for incoming freshmen during the school's short term each January, when many upperclassmen are away on internships.
"I say to them, 'I know you're wondering why you're here, because you're freshmen. But the career center is not the last office you should visit your senior year,''' Bradshaw said.
Many career centers give incoming students assessment tests to help them determine their interests and strengths. Advisers then coach the students in resume writing and interviewing techniques. The offices typically maintain listings of job openings and internships, or a roster of employers who have hired school graduates in the past.
Bradshaw said her office strongly encourages students to take internships - even part-time ones - because so many employers will not hire applicants without experience.
But students usually are on their own when it comes to landing those internships or jobs.
Rebecca Hinkle, who graduated from Hollins in 1994 and now is director of public relations for Wythe County Community Hospital in Wytheville, said the career center encouraged her to find internships and hooked her up with alumni resources. But she had to earn the job on her own.
"You pretty much have to take the initiative," Hinkle said. "They won't find a job for you."
Jim Malone, director of the career services office at Virginia Tech, agreed.
"We aren't a placement office," he said. "We don't place students in jobs."
The changing view of these centers is reflected in the progression of names they have held over the years. Almost a third of the colleges that responded to a 1975 poll called their job counseling centers "placement offices." By 1993, just under 6 percent did. The phrase of choice these day, Nagle said, seems to be "career services."
At many schools, those career services have been extended to graduate students and alumni, especially as the job market has tightened in recent years. At Tech, for instance, alumni can pay $25 to register in the Alumni Job Search Program, which gives them lists of employers and a subscription to a twice-monthly job bulletin. Alumni also may submit resumes to a resume file, which is given to employers who visit the campus.
According to a report published in November by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, employers make recruiting visits to an average of 26 campuses each year. Most of those visits are to large universities, not to small liberal-arts colleges such as Hollins. As a result, Bradshaw said, smaller schools must be more inventive.
Hollins, for instance, relies heavily on its alumni, who counsel students and provide contacts. And a group of Hollins students recently went to a career counseling workshop in Washington, D.C., where they were coached by alumni and career experts.
As technology and employer demands continue to change, college career offices will have to change as well. The practice of on-campus recruiting, which took off following World War II, already may be declining in importance as electronic recruiting methods become more widespread, Nagle said.
Rather than interviewing a random selection of students on campus, some employers now collect resumes, which are scanned into a computer database. When a position opens, the employer only has to search the database to find resumes with the necessary qualifications.
And some employers are encouraging job applicants to submit their resumes electronically, via the Internet or e-mail, Nagle said.
"It is a very different work force than it used to be," Bradshaw said.
But students seem to be adjusting well, she said, and are much more aware of their options. She gives much of the credit to college career centers, as does Malone.
"By the time they complete their program, I think they have pretty realistic expectations," Malone said. "Sometimes, it's just not comprehending the full range of opportunities."
In a year, some 4,600 students set up appointments with the Tech center's advisers, he said, and 6,000 attend workshops. About 2,100 interview with potential employers who visit campus, and 1,000 to 1,200 participate in co-ops each year.
"We don't get a lot of students who show up in April of their last year and say, 'What do you have for me?''' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. Evelyn Bradshaw is director of theby CNBCareer Development Center at Hollins College. color.