College seniors describe job hunting during COVID
College seniors, who are balancing graduating and looking for work, describe what it’s like to find a job during the coronavirus pandemic. 5/14/21
Damian Giletto, Delaware News Journal
When Delaware State University senior Kaia Grey thought about job-searching this past year, she said, “I could cry” — and she was only half-joking.
While some employers like restaurants and shopping centers are desperately looking for workers, college graduates are still struggling to find entry-level positions in the fields they studied.
For Grey, pandemic job-searching has pushed her to get creative and accept the possibility of a short-term career path that’s not exactly what she planned. Entry-level positions as an air traffic controller are completely gone, she said, so she’s had to put her dream on hold for a while.
“I’ve tried applying just to get a feel for what the applications look for,” she said. “I got denied right away.”
Like Grey, University of Delaware senior Kelly Read has found that getting a job without previous experience is more difficult than ever. Even if the political science internships she’s looking for haven’t shut down completely, there are far fewer job postings than usual, so entry-level candidates who are fresh out of college often get weeded out.
“All of my friends are facing this,” Read said. “I don’t know a single one of my friends that has a job lined up right now.”
‘The first opportunity you get, you snatch it up’
DSU’s Office of Career Services Director Terry Bankston has heard the same stories. He’s seen many longstanding internship programs canceled entirely, leaving students without the ability to get their foot in the door.
In light of that loss, Bankston has worked hard to connect students with the opportunities that are still available, encouraging many to “pivot” for a while until they can find a job in what they really want to do.
That’s exactly what Sierra Cruz, another DSU senior, has had to do this year.
“The first opportunity you get, you snatch it up because you never know if there’s gonna be another one out there,” Cruz said.
In the months after her off-cycle graduation last winter, she had to move back in with her parents and work at Walmart while she searched for a job where she could use her kinesiology degree.
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The first job opportunity she got was in physical therapy – not athletic training, like she’d wanted. Beyond that, it also lacked the hands-on learning experience she’d gotten in previous internships.
Due to COVID-19 distancing precautions, Cruz missed out on getting to be in the room with trainers while they helped clients, and instead spent most of her time wiping down surfaces and feeling “like a maid.”
For Grey, she’s had to put her dream of working as an air traffic controller on hold, turning to business aviation management instead for the time being.
“I really wish that coming out of college, I could do my dream and what it is I feel like I’m set forth to do,” she said. “But I know that I’ll be OK.”
‘LinkedIn has been my best friend’
Regardless of whether or not they’re still pursuing the dreams they had coming into college, seniors across the state have had to adapt and learn new skills to job search remotely.
For some, it’s as simple as being attentive to their emails. Evan Massa checks his multiple times a day.
“If someone reaches out to me, I want to get back to them that same day to show them I’m enthusiastic about it,” Massa said.
For Read, who describes herself as “kind of a shy person,” the lesson she’s had to learn this year is to be more proactive.
“I have to be more willing to follow up twice for an email,” Read said, now that hiring managers are inundated with even more emails than usual.
In order to maintain connections remotely, she works to be “on top of people’s piles” by touching base with contacts every few weeks to update them on what she’s doing.
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Honing virtual skills also applies to the interview itself.
Bankston emphasized that it’s important to be just as prepared for a Zoom interview as you would be for an in-person one.
“Practice with FaceTime with friends, and then record it so you can go back and look at your mannerisms and how you are coming across to someone on the call,” he said.
Chris Chapman has also developed some tricks for Zoom interviews — he always sets a photo of himself winning the Mr. DSU award as his background.
For the charismatic Chapman, an aspiring sports commentator, the pandemic has meant less of the vital networking opportunities he needs to break into a tough industry.
Without that face-to-face interaction, he’s focused his energy on perfecting his resume and putting everything he can onto that single sheet of paper.
Delaware Career Offices are working to help
After the early stages of the pandemic caused many internships and other opportunities to be cancelled, the University of Delaware expanded its assistance programs with the help of alumni.
Since last year, alumni have posted more than 500 new jobs and internships on Handshake, the recruiting platform used by the university as part of its “Hire-a-Hen” program.
The university’s job-shadowing program is also seeing an increase in participating alumni as more than 200 host organizations have joined the program since last year.
Finally, the school’s internship grant program secured more funding. In a normal setting, students could receive grants to help with things like housing if they were working in new cities. Virtually, it now allows students to pursue unpaid internships so that they don’t have to pass on opportunities in fields in which they have strong interests.
A brand new opportunity for students is the ability to work project-based internships. Rather than a traditional internship where one might work for a few months, these are generally 40- to 80-hour projects in which students help with specific tasks such as social media campaigns, copywriting and data analytics, said UD Career Center Director Nathan Elton.
These services are also available to alumni who may be job hunting during the pandemic, Elton said.
Meanwhile, Delaware State University launched DSU Connect last September, a brand-new platform with a range of features for job-searching seniors.
The platform features a search engine that allows students to find alumni by relevant field, filtering for level of experience and what the alumnus is willing to help with. Undergraduates are also matched with alumni mentors based on their field and interests, and can find a list of job opportunities posted directly for DSU students.
The platform currently has over 4,000 registered alumni and students, and expects to hit 7,500 users by the end of the summer if it maintains the same growth trends.
DSU has also organized virtual “Fireside Chats” with influential alumni speakers.
There are upsides to doing these virtually, said Ursula Harvey, who runs the series.
For one thing, DSU has been able to host panelists outside of Delaware who might not have been able to come otherwise.
And while there’s no substitute for a face-to-face-conversation, she also said she’s still seen students successfully connect with virtual speakers via email and social media.
‘Don’t lose that momentum for being successful’
As unexpected changes have thrown them a curveball, many seniors said they’re also grateful for how they’ve learned to adapt.
Kelly Read said she’s learned to “advocate for herself more” in an environment where it’s easy to get lost in someone’s inbox.
For Kaia Grey, she’s learned to trust herself and be persistent.
“I promise you, if you really put in the work for what you are looking for, you make connections and you do your research, and you stay up at 3 to 4 in the morning looking at how you can get this job, the opportunity will be presented to you,” she said.
Several DSU students agreed they found the pandemic to be something of an equalizer.
“We’re all on the same playing field now. We’re on the same laptops, on the same computers,” said Chris Chapman. “You’re trying to make yourself as best you can in under a page.”
For Grey, job opportunities are easier to find, even if some jobs are temporarily unavailable.
“You don’t really have to leave your bed to find a job position,” she said, pointing out that job listings moving almost entirely to LinkedIn and Indeed made them more accessible to anyone.
But weeks of worrying about having the perfect resume or hoping an interview went well can take its toll on students. Many said it’s important to decompress every now and then.
“There are times where I just take a few days off from applying to jobs because the next day you wake up and in your email, there’s just like 30 rejection notices which kind of sucks,” Massa said.
Even University of Delaware senior Keon Wiles, who successfully found an internship for this summer at CSC in Wilmington, takes days for himself.
“Just make sure to get some type of physical activity, even if it’s just going for a walk,” said Wiles, who has been going to the gym and practicing meditation techniques.
Keeping an eye on that end goal though is crucial, especially during a difficult job hunt, said DSU’s Bankston.
“Stay focused on what you want to do,” he said. “Don’t lose that momentum for being successful. If you have to pivot until doing what you really want to do becomes available, do that.”
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