When Amanda Patarino got word she was hired for a job that will start post-graduation, the George Mason University senior breathed a sigh of relief.
“It was huge,” she said. “I could start making plans for the future.”
Patarino, a government and international politics major, will be a research associate at Partnership for Public Service, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that works to make government more efficient.
In many ways, it is a great time to be entering the job market. There are 5.4 million jobs available nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And a CareerBuilder survey reported that 67 percent of employers plan to hire recent college graduates, the rosiest outlook since 2007, with information technology, finance and business development jobs topping the list.
Even so, it’s “normal and understandable that students feel a bit of apprehension about moving into the next stage of their lives,” said Saskia Clay-Rooks, interim director of University Career Services at George Mason.
And with seven of 10 college students leaving school with an average loan debt of $35,000, according to Edvisors.com, angst can be palatable.
“Some of my peers are freaking out,” said marketing major Gabriel Torres, who recently turned down a full-time offer because it wasn’t his perfect job. “‘What if I don’t find a job? What if I don’t find a job I want?’”
The average job search takes six to nine months, Clay-Rooks said, but students can shorten that time by being willing to relocate, connecting with employers through internships before applying for jobs, networking at professional conferences and attending events such as Mason’s Just in Time Hiring Fair on May 20 at Dewberry Hall. The event will connect students and recent graduates with employers who have positions to fill.
Mason’s HireMason website has more than 16,000 job leads each year and more than 600 mentors available to give advice, Clay-Rooks said.
Sometimes, though, personal initiative works best. Ryan Thornton, a government and international politics major, snagged a client relations job after cold-emailing the founders of Quorum, a Washington, D.C., startup that provides subscribers with legislative information.
“I was just really observant,” said Thornton, who saw a story about the company in the Washington Post.
Still, he said networking, through internships and campus organizations, is key: “Most of the resumes I’m getting [at Quorum] are coming through referrals. With each organization you are involved with, the more you are talking to people who have contacts.”
That also worked for Patarino, who, like Thornton, is a member of Mason’s Honors College. Her internships, including two at Partnership for Public Service, resulted from contacts made after Mason’s School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs emailed students about job opportunities. Relationships she cultivated as a member of the U.S. Senate Youth Alumni Association and while volunteering on several political campaigns led to further advice about job searches.
“I didn’t get any job opportunities from any of those people, but talking to all of them gave me a lot of optimism,” Patarino said.
Clay-Rooks said Mason graduates should be optimistic, as 79 percent of the Class of 2015 is either employed, in graduate school, in the military or volunteering. That is six points higher than the national average, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
“Mason graduates have the highest starting salaries compared to graduates from all other colleges and universities in the commonwealth,” Clay-Rooks said, quoting a report by the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia. “Students who have graduated from Mason have been primed for success.”