Andrew Holmberg, Trinity '09, was an economics and public policy double major. He had an internship at Dutko Worldwide, a lobbying firm that advises public and private sector organizations. He went through the on-campus recruitment process and spent eight weekends of his senior year flying from coast to coast for more than 100 interviews with companies from Google to accounting firms. But Holmberg-who may have been the ideal candidate for a spot on Wall Street only a year ago-never did land a job in the private financial sector.
Instead, he is exploring an altogether different career opportunity-with the FBI.
"The importance of public service is something I overlooked when I said, 'I want to make $100,000 when I graduate,'" Holmberg said. "If you asked me a year ago, 'Would I be working in the FBI?' of course I would have said no. But I have a two-year commitment where I not only have a job, I have a unique experience and I am able to serve my country."
Holmberg said pending completion of the security process, he will be doing work with the FBI similar to what he would have done for a finance company, but he does not have to worry about layoffs like his peers in the private sector.
But that is assuming graduates of the Class of 2009 get jobs in finance-or any jobs at all, as they enter the workforce in the grimmest economic environment in recent history.
Slim pickings
April saw a 6.1 percent national unemployment rate for graduates of four-year institutions between 20 and 24 years old, the Wall Street Journal reported May 9. And the National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that companies say they will hire 22 percent fewer college graduates this year.
Alex Bellis, Trinity '09, is part of the unfortunate 22 percent. Bellis said she has wanted to work in advertising since her freshman year. She began her search last Fall, but remains unemployed.
"Advertising is the first thing that companies cut from their budget in times of crisis, so many agencies were impacted," Bellis wrote in an e-mail. "Though there are more and more jobs listed everyday, I have been surprised by how few entry-level positions there are out there."
Although Holmberg laughs about his frequent flier miles, he and many other graduates have learned how exhausting it is to send 100 resumes to employers in a week and only get three interviews, he said.
"It's frustrating because we all work really hard not only to get into Duke but also to get awards and graduate with a good GPA, and despite all the work we put in, there are low returns when you're in the job market," Holmberg said. "When a recruiter tells you, 'If it were any other year...' it's really no consolation."
Some students are trying to avoid the work force altogether. It is difficult to know exactly what the Class of 2009 is doing now because of the low response rate to the senior survey, said William Wright-Swadel, Fannie Mitchell executive director of career services. He noted that the low response rate may in part be due to seniors not yet knowing their plans.
Wright-Swadel estimates that 30 percent of the Class of 2009 will go to graduate school in the Fall, including at least 30 or 40 who will attend a graduate business program.
William Evans, Trinity '09, will attend Georgetown Law in the Fall, as he has planned since high school. Evans said he expects competition in and out of school to be tougher this year with increased applications and higher selectivity. He has already noticed fierce competition even for a summer job.
"I always look for a job in the summer, and the classifieds used to be three or four pages long," he said. "Now they're a few paragraphs and they are jobs that have really obscure qualifications or they're really high turnover jobs, like a retail job in a mall."
Branching out
For those who are in the job market, Wright-Swadel said graduates must be open to different options.
"Our students think there are three places in the universe---New York, Washington and wherever they're from," Wright-Swadel said. "I'm sorry, there are some really great opportunities... and students need to begin to look more broadly at where are the seminal job opportunities in the world market rather than simply, 'What can I find in New York?'"
To that end, 2009 graduates are quickly learning to be flexible and considering unconventional opportunities, career counselors at several universities said.
Wright-Swadel and Tim Stiles, associate director of University Career Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said they have seen increased interest in alternative career paths like public service and non-profit jobs.
Barbara Hewitt, senior associate director of Career Services at the University of Pennsylvania who works with students from the Wharton School of Business, said she reminds students that every job is a learning opportunity.
"Even if it's just waiting tables, that can be very helpful for the future," Hewitt said.
Adam Weiss, Trinity '09, took a non-traditional route to his job as a bilingual third grade teacher. A political science and Spanish double major, Weiss applied for jobs at non-profit businesses and Teach For America. After taking additional summer certification courses, he quickly found a job.
Weiss said there are still jobs available, but graduates need to be resourceful and look in lower-paying markets-like education-they might not have otherwise considered.
"I think getting a six-figure salary in five years almost seems like a myth now, whereas when I started at Duke, it was understood that that was possible," Weiss said. "It's almost like we thought we were entitled to that."
The silver lining
Non-profits, in particular, have become an attractive "Plan B" destination for graduates looking for temporary job security.
Teach for America, a non-profit that recruits top college graduates to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools, has a record 35,000 applicants this year. Eleven percent of Duke seniors applied to TFA this past year, as did 11 percent of all Ivy League seniors, said Lorraine Anderson, managing director of regional communications.
This, in turn, has made getting into organizations like TFA more competitive.
"It's not enough to simply be a 3.7 from Duke in English Lit and assume that everyone in the world knows what that means," Wright-Swadel said. "It's really up to you to... differentiate [yourself], and it is going to come from not why you think you'd be a good TFA person... but what differentiates you from other students like yourself."
Since its inception in 1990, 300 Duke graduates have joined TFA, Anderson said. And for at least two years, TFA has been the single largest employer of the Duke graduates. Thirty graduates will join the 2009 corps in the Fall, she added.
"In these challenging times, young people are taking time to evaluate what is really important to them and are seeing an opportunity to pursue more meaningful careers that they may not have considered previously," Anderson said.
One new corps member is Aileen Liu, an English major who graduated from Trinity in the Fall.
Although many of her friends also applied to the program, Liu said TFA appealed to her because she was unsure of her plans after graduation.
Liu said she agrees more people are working in non-profits, but added that she sees the increase as a trend rather than a shift in mindset. Graduates will continue to seek high-paying careers-particularly to pay back Duke's price tag, she said.
Holmberg, however, said he is lucky to have found an opportunity that is such a good fit for him, even if it wasn't his first choice, adding that he is optimistic about the future of the Class of 2009.
"I'm a firm believer in the fact that life is long and I have a lot of opportunities," Holmberg said. "What drew people to finance was the money, and now they are finding deeper meaning in the work they do.... It's a silver lining to the economic downturn."
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