Internship series: Part 2 of 3

Milic Stevanovic, a senior finance and accounting major, always knew he wanted to go into business but was nervous about entering the job market.

“I honestly did not see myself graduating and getting a job right off the bat just because the economy was so bad, and I was getting rejected left and right,” Stevanovic said.

With the unemployment rate currently at 10.2 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the outlook for seniors to graduate and immediately enter the job force is bleak. Students are turning to internships and undergraduate programs to bridge the time between graduation and full-time jobs. Despite a difficult job market, the prospects for this year’s graduating class look a little better than last year’s. 

When Stevanovic was offered a paid internship with accounting firm RSM McGladrey and Pullen, it seemed like a good way to build his résumé and spend a summer before returning to school to pursue a master’s degree in accounting. He said this is becoming a standard procedure for students planning to become certified public accountants.

“Everything so far has been going according to plan, and after graduation I’ll be interning at RSM and hopefully be offered a full-time position for after graduate school,” Stevanovic said.

Michael Cahill, director of the Center for Career Services at Syracuse University, said most seniors who visit Career Services plan for jobs or graduate school after graduation, but there has always been a willingness to accept an internship with a company if it leads to a job offer. Traditionally, more seniors enter graduate school during poor economic times, Cahill said. About 21 percent of the Class of 2009 planned to go on to graduate school.

“At this stage, that’s not the preference students would have,” Cahill said about the opportunity for seniors to take internships. “So that’s not the priority of seniors to look for internships. They’re still looking for permanent jobs. They would prefer to have that, but at the same time they may be looking at opportunities that will bridge the summer while they continue to look for full-time jobs.”

Summer internships are a last-minute opportunity to help build résumés or provide an opportunity to “try something on” before looking at it seriously as a job, Cahill said. He has only talked to a handful of seniors looking for internships and does not consider there to be too many more students accepting internships post-graduation than normal due to tough economic times, he said.

SU typically sees about 75 to 80 percent of students employed full time within six months of graduation and 15 to 20 percent moving onto graduate school, Cahill said. Statistics from the Class of 2008 show 77 percent employed and 18 percent entering graduate school.

Statistics from last year’s graduating class were lower than anticipated, Cahill said, with 66 percent employed full time, a 10 percent drop from 2008, and 22 percent in graduate school after graduation. Cahill said there were more people unemployed six months later and probably a few more people with internships than normal.

Despite last year’s numbers, Cahill said it looks like job opportunities are on the rise.

“The economy really had a major impact on last year’s graduates. For what we’re seeing so far, and what we’re hearing from a lot of the people who do the surveys across the nation, this year’s class is expected to fare better,” Cahill said, citing a spring report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers that predicts employers will hire 5.3 percent more college graduates than in 2009.

Senior mechanical engineering major Lionel Selwood will be working for General Electric Co.’s two-year undergraduate Operations Management Leadership Program. He will be rotating jobs and locations every six months, working in places like Atlanta, Houston and potentially Milan, Italy.

Selwood interned with GE for two previous summers in Schenectady, N.Y., and received an offer to interview for the program during his junior year. Selwood said he expected to have a job after graduation but was not always certain. As a graduating senior with job plans, he said he is an exception among his peers, many of whom are concerned with finding a job.

“I see a lot of people still looking, companies not returning e-mails or calls. The outlook is real bad right now,” Selwood said.

Alex Piliouras, a senior television, radio and film major and the founder of CuseMyCampus.com, said although he currently does not have post-graduation job plans, he is not looking for an internship to pass the time.

“I’ve had three internships in the past, so I have plenty of experience and my résumé is pretty stacked,” Piliouras said. “So, personally, I’m not going to seek an internship just on the off-chance that it could lead to a job. If it doesn’t, then I’m providing free labor to a company that might have paid me to perform the exact same duties but under a different title, like production assistant.”

He said it was difficult to look for jobs in television production since most production companies would not look for someone to work beginning in June. He said he is not worried about his lack of employment.

Piliouras said as of now, he isn’t worried about the lack of positions and plans to look for jobs from home after graduating. He said he plans to apply to multiple jobs and network with people in the field.

“I’m really not stressed about it because I know that something will come along eventually. I can’t exactly expect a position to present itself just because I’m looking for it,” he said.

Lynne Mundy, an accounting major who graduated in December, said she always envisioned herself getting a job after graduation.

“My sister had about a week between graduation and her first day, which I absolutely did not want, but after a month off or so I figured I’d be working to get out of my parents’ house,” she said. “Though, after four years of college, free meals, laundry and rent don’t seem like such a travesty anymore,” Mundy said.

After Mundy graduated, she began working toward her master’s in accounting, which she will finish in December. She already has a position lined up to start in August with PricewaterhouseCoopers, known as one of the “Big Four” accounting firms.

Cahill encouraged students not to rely on the foreboding job statistics. He said in the end, the likelihood for a student to find work comes down to his or her potential.

“You have to determine what the best path is for you and then if you can become as effective as you possibly can of putting yourself in front of the employers who allow you to do those things, who can allow you to be successful, to do something you want to do,” Cahill said. “And if you are successful in articulating to those people what you have to offer, the value you could bring to their organization, you’re going to find that the statistics don’t really mean anything.”

Published on April 26, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride