This is a cross-post from my PSH blog, I skipped the one I did yesterday, which basicall talked about a new way I’m gonna do this blog topic thing. You can check that out at my PSH blog.
Yesterday there was talk in my office about a news article about someone suing their college because they couldn’t find a job. So, I had to find this article and read it for myself. I hit up Google, and with the little information I knew I was able to find the CNN posting of this article. Alumna sues college because she hasn’t found a job, go check it out. It opens in a new window, so you can read it first and then continue on with my comments.
A quick summary, this 27 year old woman graduated from a New York based college with a B.A. in Information Technology this past April and hasn’t been able to find a job. Therefore she is suing said college for $72,000, covering her tuition for the time she was there plus $2000 for the stress she has endured over the past 3 months of not finding a job.
This entry is going to fall under Chris Brogan’s blog topic number 10, Somebody Has To Say It. I’m sure a lot of people are saying it, but I have quite a bit to say about this.
First, allow me to point out that this person is just one year younger than me, has earned the same degree that I will be getting in May, and has somewhere near the same GPA that I have now (although I am hoping to improve on that over the next year). Saying that, I wouldn’t dream of saying its Penn State’s fault if I don’t walk out of here with a job right away. The economy sucks right now, companies aren’t hiring, the job market is rough, the 2009 and 2010 classes are going to have the hardest time finding jobs in their fields of study. The best we can do is get out there and go to job fairs, submit to listings on-line, through career services, and in the newspapers. Nothing is guaranteed.
Now, onto the article itself.I’m going to pull a few quotes out so you get a feel of the tone of this woman.
“Office of Career Advancement did not help me with a full-time job placement. I am also suing them because of the stress I have been going through.”
“They’re supposed to say, ‘I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right — can you interview this person?’ They’re not doing that,”
“The office of career advancement information technology counselor did not make sure their Monroe e-recruiting clients call their graduates that recently finished college for an interview to get a job placement. They have not tried hard enough to help me.”
“It doesn’t make any sense: They went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald’s and Payless. That’s not what they planned.”
So basically, in saying she held up her side of the job search thing, for 3 months, she’s sent resumes and called places but has only gotten 2 interviews that never resulted in an offer, yet the career services people have failed her. And, she believes that her 2.7 gpa and attendance record should have any “reasonable employer” ready to pounce and hire her.
News flash. The office of career services at ANY college or university is there to HELP and GUIDE students in preparing for the job search, the interview, the follow-up, everything they need HELP with to find a job. They do not guarantee that EVERY student will find a job within a week of graduating. They can help with a resume, make sure its written correctly, not overloaded with uneeded information, no typos, etc. Most have some kind of online job search/application system that holds a list of employers for students to search through and contact. This system ALSO does not guarantee a job! Those listings aren’t “clients” of the college or university, those listings are places where students from that college have been hired in the past, or places looking to hire college graduates. Its like Monster, pacentral.com, phillyjobs.com, careerbuilder, or any other job search site that companies can list on. None of those sites say “apply here, job with in a week, guaranteed!”, nor does any career services listing of jobs.
The end of the article, where she was asked if other students should consider suing their schools if they don’t get a job, she says yes.. and that last quote I have up there, about working at payless or mcdonalds not being what someone plans after 4 years of school. Someone HAS to work at those places or they wouldn’t exist. Payless runs because a manager is in charge, and cashiers keep the place organized and customers happy. On the corporate level, Payless exists because someone had the idea for an affordable shoe store, and the business state of mind to make it a success and turn it into a widely known chain of stores. ALL of these people are important and have various levels of education. You can bet the CEO of Payless has a degree, and that he didn’t stumble onto his first job overnight, nor did he become CEO overnight. The same applies to McDonalds – a world wide chain, mind you.
This person sounds like she feels entitled to a job just because she completed her degree. She also feels that the career services office should be calling businesses and telling them to call or hire her. It sounds as if she believes that the purpose of career services is to hand students job offers. That it is the responsibility of the counselors in career services to call places that have openings and get her a job. This is NOT how it works. NOT how ANY type of career services works.
To further make my point, and show an example of someone who HAS stressed over getting a job after getting his degree, I’ll tell you all about my friend and her boyfriend. The boyfriend graduated from Penn State this past may. He’d been applying at different places prior to graduation. Once he graduated, he went home (somewhere north Pa) and worked at the farm he’d worked at for years during the summers he’s been in school. Not what he wanted to do, but what he had to do until he found something. He continued to apply at places in Harrisburg (where my friend is still at Penn State Harrisburg for another year), places near where he lives, places in Maryland (near where he had a summer job before), and I believe places in the upstate NY area near the PA border, near where my friend’s family lives (which isn’t all that far from where his family lives). I don’t know how many total application/resumes he sent out, how many total interviews he went to, but I do know that he DID get a job in Maryland. Yes the search stressed him out, I heard about it through my friend, it took a little while, and he got a couple rejection calls or no call back at all, but he dealt with it and continued. Never did he decide to blame Penn State for the fact he wasn’t getting hired. He kept trying.
My point is this, the job market is tough now and probably will be for a little while. None of us with college degrees are entitled to a job right after graduation. All we are entitled to is the degree we worked for. Some students will get lucky and get hired by their internship, or get hired quickly after visiting job fairs, others might take a little longer to find something. It really depends on the area a person lives in and the area they are willing to work in. Some will relocate to where the jobs are, others don’t want to. It also depends on how hard someone works to find a job, waiting for someone else do do it for them won’t help.
So, Ms Thompson, your law suit is is an example of you taking the easy way out. Putting the blame on someone else, and trying to get them to pay you. You paid for an education, NOT a job. It is true that people that have a degree have a better chance at getting a job, but your diploma is not a golden ticket for a job. You are not the only one attempting to find work. You graduated with a couple thousand other people, they want jobs too, think anyone is handing them work on a silver platter? Get online, Get a newspaper, Get to a job fair, whatever you do, just GET OUT THERE and apply for jobs and STOP waiting for someone else to do it for you!!
And as a side note, please stop making college students look lazy and like we expect things to just be given to us. We aren’t all like that, some of us want to earn what we get. Sometimes we get such crap for just BEING college students, we don’t need someone like you making us look bad.
