DePaul Offers Peer Workshops for Alumni Whose Careers are in Transition

Despite an economy that is floundering, numerous layoffs, a credit crisis and soaring fuel costs, the undergraduate Class of 2008 is not suffering in the job market. Hiring of this year’s graduates has remained steady, along with the number of opportunities available for them.

Gillian Steele, managing director of the Career Center at DePaul University, the Midwest’s largest private university located in the heart of Chicago’s business community, said the notion that graduates struggle to find work when the economy teeters on the brink of recession is largely a misconception.

“Many companies are scaling back in their hiring or laying people off altogether,” she said. “However, in most cases, those employers are seeking to reduce middle and upper management positions. Even in times of major downsizing, companies will often continue to hire at the entry level.”

While the news is positive for those with freshly-minted diplomas, Steele said that university career services offices have seen an influx of alumni who have been out in the job market for several years, only to find themselves in a job search due to recent cutbacks.

“We have certainly seen a number of alumni in transition, particularly those in middle management positions or higher,” Steele said. “That corresponds with national trends that show that career transition is up 12 percent over last year at this time.”

After landing that first job out of college, many people don’t think to include their university’s career services office as part of any future job searches. Steele said that’s a mistake, even though the number of services provided to alumni can vary widely from school to school.

“At a minimum, they’ll be able to help you tap into your school’s alumni network and point you in the direction of some resources that can help,” she said. “Networking is crucial, since only about 25 percent of available jobs are ever listed on the open market. The rest are filled through networking.”

Many universities go even further for their alumni, including DePaul’s Career Center, which has recently launched a Career Changers Work Team to help those alums who are making a transition from one role or industry to another. The team is a peer group that meets on a monthly basis along with a facilitator to help ease the transition, engage in group dialogue of issues facing the job seekers, manage the job search process and note accomplishments and priorities. The groups are limited to 15 people each to ensure individual attention, and members will be given access to an online forum to communicate between meetings. The goal is to make sure that career changers are using effective strategies, developing a clear marketing plan for selling themselves to potential employers, and targeting the right organizations and positions during their search.

For those job seekers who cannot utilize their college’s career services for whatever reason, Steele said that there are other options, such as creating a profile on professional networking sites like LinkedIn and using it to make connections to industries of interest. Those sites typically have alumni groups from many U.S. colleges and universities.

“Those sites are definitely a way to further develop your own network,” she noted. “Also, corporate recruiters do scan those sites, looking for leads on potential candidates.”

Finally, Steele noted that job seekers should never pay anything for accessing job listings online, since most of the information is typically available for free elsewhere.

“With such a small percentage of available jobs even being listed on those sites, paying for that information seems to be a waste of resources,” she said.

For more information, please visit http://careercenter.depaul.edu.