Students find retaining job offers as difficult as having earned them
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Due to the troubling economy, Natalie Woodrum, senior in marketing, will be taking up a job with the Peace Corps instead of going straight into the workforce. Woodrum interned with Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, last summer and was set to take a full-time position there after she graduated in May. Caterpillar notified her, sending a compensation check since they had to pull the offer. Her original plans were to find a job and after retirement join the Peace Corps, but with the recent upset, she decided to switch things around. Photo: Logan Gaedke/Iowa State Daily
Allison Strong, senior in logistics and supply chain management, and Natalie Woodrum, senior in marketing, were both offered full-time positions with Caterpillar after graduation, but because of the economy, their job offers were taken away.
With a mix of emotions, Woodrum said it was hard for her, especially when the company delivered the news just a few days before Christmas.
“It was just a flood of emotions — disappointment, anger, all of that, because to me I was back at ground zero, rebuilding and everything,” Woodrum said. Strong said she also felt disappointed, but she knew she couldn’t give up.
“I was disappointed but I knew I couldn’t just stop. I had to keep going to find something else,” Strong said. “It’s not fair, but I know they had to because of the situation and it’s just the way it goes.”
As an alternative, Woodrum looked into the Peace Corps, an organization she has been interested in since she was a little girl.
“I’ve actually always been really interested in the Peace Corps, ever since I was really little, and I knew that was something I was going to do at some point in my life. The timing of it now is just different,” Woodrum said.
Strong said she has searched and interviewed for other positions continually since she heard the news.
“Since I found out that my job was rescinded, I started filling out applications and interviewing. I went to the career fair, which was really helpful,” Strong said.
Mike Gaul, director of career services for the College of Agriculture, said that even with unfortunate situations like these, students need to keep positive attitudes and stay aggressive in their job searches.
“The unfortunate thing with that is those students probably could have been off the job market a long time ago with any other company, but it was just a classic case of wrong place, wrong time given the economy,” Gaul said. “The best advice is you have to stay aggressive with it, you have to stay positive. It’s so easy to get down because all you hear is the doom and gloom. Maybe things aren’t clicking right away, but you have to stay with it.”
Gaul said students still have opportunities, even if the job market is smaller right now.
“The good news is this: Good help is always in high demand and we have great students here at Iowa State in all of our colleges. It may take awhile but eventually things will collect,” Gaul said.
Bringing everything together as a whole will help students get ahead in the search for a job, Gaul said.
“It’s really a combination of everything — a positive attitude, mastering the art of networking, fine-tuning a hopefully well-rounded resume and being able to communicate effectively with people out there,” Gaul said.
Although it was difficult at first, Woodrum said she understands Caterpillar’s predicament.
“I think they did it in the fairest way possibly and even though I am out of that job, I’m accommodating for that. I’m just changing around my plans and do what I have to do,” Woodrum said.
As soon as the economy turns around, Gaul said he believes there will be plenty of opportunities for students, but they need to remain focused and aggressive in their job searches.
“Down the road, when things get better, I just think there are going to be some fantastic opportunities out there for students, but with that said, it’s getting that foot in the door and getting that first job,” Gaul said.
Comments
You can thank Obama for this. He's taking a wrecking ball to the economy by blowing trillions of dollars on pork, subsidizing failing companies at the expense of successful companies, and taking over the car industry. And this is just the beginning. We have an inexperienced president who is economically illiterate with socialist instincts who is hell bent on heavy government intervention in the private sector.
If you will remember, Obama visited Caterpillar headquarters in Peoria, IL only a few weeks ago, proclaiming that his policies would result in a hiring spree by Caterpillar. The president of Caterpillar quietly disagreed after Obama left. Now you can see who was right. But then, who are you going to believe, Obama or your own lying eyes?
Every student now enrolled in Iowa State will have trouble finding a job in Obama's economy. As Obama interferes in the free market, thinking the government will improve it, he will continue to screw it up and make it worse for everyone, particularly college graduates looking for their first job. When you see Obama on TV guaranteeing the warranties on new cars, saying the government can do it better than a private company, that should scare the hell out of you. Government micromanagement of the market leads to catastrophe.
My advice is to stay in school until we elect a pro-business president who believes in the free market. You may need to keep yourself busy getting a graduate degree or two before the market opens up.
Steve,
You still can't seem to grasp the actual problem here. Do you have any idea why the economy is the way it is right now? Do you know anything about derivatives and mortgage backed securities? Do you have any inkling of the unprecedented amount of economic leverage that has been practiced by the secondary financial sector such as hedge funds in recent years?
If you know nothing about any of what I just said, you should not talk about the economy, or at least stop blaming people for a situation you obviously don't understand.
PS: the secondary financial sector is the source of the mortgage crisis. These instututions are not regulated by the government. So if you think it's the government's fault for interfering and collapsing our economy, you have FOx News and Rush Limbaugh to thank for lying to you. It's time you go out and find some information for yourself instead of taking everything Rush says at face value (ACORN!!). Have you ever wondered if maybe Rush is lying to you??
Actually, the economy came to its current state long before Obama was elected into office. Like Jason said, if you do the research, the current situation is largely a result of mortgage backed securities and the many different types of loans available to borrowers. Banks and financial institutions have made loans and mortgages available to people who simply cannot pay them. Have you heard of option ARM (adjustable rate mortgage) loans? These loans make it seem as though anyone can afford to buy a home. However, many borrowers' perceptions are wrong. The basic premise behind these loans is that borrowers can refinance their mortgages at a bargain rate. Payments do, however, inevitably skyrocket, and in the end, borrowers can't make their payments.
Furthermore, I do believe it was President Bush that extended the debt allowance for Freddie and Fannie, after the two declared bankruptcy. That only added more turmoil to the housing market. Around the same time, interest rates were dramatically reduced, which only fueled Americans to spend more and create inflation.
Currently, the banks and corporations that are receiving these hefty "bail-outs" are using their bail-out money to reward employees with exuberant bonuses. Merrill-Lynch was in the news for spending 70,000 dollars on a rug for the CEO's office, only after receiving a bail-out.
Really, this whole situation cannot be blamed on Obama. Maybe Americans just need to take a different perspective on things. It seems as though our country is SO set on consuming. If America somehow shifted its mindset and saw the benefits of saving and producing, maybe we would not be in this economic crisis.
Although I am out of my job with CAT, like the article states, I'm finding ways to work around the situation. It is, however, very frustrating. I have never had a late payment on a credit card, and I save my money very well. I do feel as though many students are in my situation, however, and it's scary. We are graduating with large amounts of student debt, and with job offers being rescinded and the job market so slow, it's hard to picture what's going to happen with our generation in the near future with regards to student loans. Will we be the second wave of borrowers who can't pay back? What will happen to the economy then?
Why was the phony housing bubble created in the first place? It was intervention in the free market by the federal government. It was the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates too low, creating easy money and more inflation. It was Freddie and Fannie, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the FDIC; all of which distort the market and allow businesses and individuals take risks they would never have taken.
Natalie is absolutely right: Americans need to save and produce again. Credit does not come out of thin air in an economy, it comes from savings. And we can not consume unless we first produce. Unfortunately, the government wants us to borrow, spend and consume even more.
In a true free market, savers like Natalie would be rewarded, and reckless borrowers punished. Now, it seems, the opposite is true.
You are right, Natalie, student loans will be the next bubble to pop. What will happen? Graduates will default, lenders will tighten, and people won’t be able to get student loans so easily. Schools will have to cut their budgets and reduce tuition in order to attract loanless people. If the system is allowed to correct itself, people who save and work hard will be the ones who will afford the cheaper college prices without loans. The government will probably try to keep the bubble inflated with more credit from inflation, which will just make everything worse.
The price of education is artificially inflated, just has housing prices were. Everybody and their dog can get a student loan; so colleges, naturally, are able to charge more and more.
People who think they have a right to an education don’t realize they are claiming a right to other people’s money, or to government-printed credit money, which only erodes everyone’s purchasing power through inflation. The system is unsustainable.
Jason Hines,
Actually, I have an MBA and I do know what I'm talking about, unlike you. However, it's always cute to watch Obama's lemmings explain their cartoon ideas of economics and financial instruments. It's kinda like watching a chimp smoke a cigar or a bear ride a bicycle. It's not that you do it well, but it's amusing to see you try it at all.
Making mortgages into securities is not the problem. Doing so is a good thing in that it brings more money into the mortgage business. The problem is that the government forced the banks to make bad mortgages to minority deadbeats. It was mainly the Democrats, admittedly with some Republican help, who forced the banks to make mortgages on political grounds rather than financial grounds.
One of the lefty ground troops forcing this issue was Barrack Obama, training groups like ACORN in Saul Alinsky's radical rules to force banks to make bad loans to their favored groups. ACORN harassed bankers at their homes and stalked them during the day. They slandered the banks with bogus accusations of redlining. They forced politicians to pass laws forcing the banks to make bad loans or be decertified from doing any business.
Think of mortgages like bricks. A good mortgage made on sound financial terms based on the credit history and assets of a borrower is like a kiln-fired brick that will last. The bad mortgages forced upon banks by Obama and ACORN, the so-called NINJA loans (No Income, No Job, No Assets) to politically favored minorities are like mud bricks that won't hold up.
If you build a home out of kiln-fired bricks, that house will stand for a hundred years. If you build the same house out of mud bricks, it will melt away in the first thunder storm. If you force a building contractor to build a home out of mud bricks, that doesn't mean that the design of the home is at fault when it collapses. It means that mud bricks are no good.
A financial instrument built out of sound mortgages is a perfectly good thing. Grouping good mortgages into a security stabilizes and spreads the risk of making mortgages and draws capital from general investors into the mortgage market. That brings interest rates down and allows more people to buy homes. These are all good things.
A financial instrument made of mud mortgages is doomed to fail. In this case, the government skewed the capital markets by guaranteeing these bad loans, so many of them that it could never cover all the bad loans it guaranteed when they all failed. It's like the Big Dumb Gummint demanded that neighborhoods all over America build their homes out of mud bricks and guaranteed that they wouldn't collapse. When gummint intervenes in business, warping the market to achieve some dubious political aim, it's setting us all up for catastrophe. In this case, political correctness is bankrupting the nation.
Now, in classic lefty fashion, the lefties who engineered this disaster are running like rats from their creation and attempting to shift the blame for it to their victims, the bankers and Wall Street, the very people they pressured to make bad loans and the money men to whom they guaranteed these mud loans. Does the Left ever take responsibility for its screw ups?
Whenever the government intervenes to "improve" the economy, it screws it up. The current mortgage crisis is a classic example. And the Left is incapable of learning from economic history, wanting to use its failed intervention in the mortgage market to justify even greater intervention and greater losses by the government, leading us from catastrophe to apocalypse.
Natalie Woodrum: "Will we be the second wave of borrowers who can't pay back? What will happen to the economy then?"
As I recall, student loans have a provision that payments be delayed if the borrower remains unemployed after graduation. You're not the first college graduates to enter a sour job market. Lots of students graduated into President Carter's sour economy.
Steve,
Excuse me, Mr. MBA. Sorry I underestimated you.
Since you know what you are talking about, can you please do me a favor and go find out the percentage of subprime mortgages that contributed to the housing bubble that were made by CRA-regulated institutions. And don't forget to cite your sources.
Go do your own homework, Jason.
Just because you have a degree doesn't mean you know what you are talking about. The proof: George W. Bush also has an MBA.
That dastardly ACORN!!!! What about Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright? They must also be responsible somehow.
This from someone who doesn't use evidence.
Why? Is it because you can't find the evidence you want to find? Don't worry, Steve, I already did my homework. And the evidence proves you WRONG. That's why I tried to send you on your little treasure hunt. To see what you would do. Thanks for affirming yourself!
*A recent study of 2006 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data showed that banks subject to CRA and their affiliates originated or purchased only SIX PERCENT of the reported high cost loans made to lower-income borrowers within their CRA assessment areas
Comptroller Dugan Says CRA not Responsible For Subprime Lend...
*experts have said that approximately 80 PERCENT of subprime loans were offered by financial institutions that are not subject to the CRA
Media Matters - On Fox, Barnes, Krauthammer echoed conservat...
CRA assessment-area lending
accounted for only NINE PERCENT of higher-priced loans to lower-income borrowers and neighborhoods, while independent mortgage companies accounted for the majority.
www.jchs.harvard.edu/...
*A Register analysis of more than 12 million subprime mortgages worth nearly $2 trillion shows that MOST of the lenders who made risky subprime loans were exempt from the Community Reinvestment Act. And many of the lenders covered by the law that did make subprime loans came late to that market – after smaller, unregulated players showed there was money to be made.
The market made them do it | loans, subprime, banks, law, le...
Now what, Steve? I did my homework, I used reputable sources, what about you? Are you going to keep lying after the evidence is in your face?
If you still want to go on your treasure hunt, there are a lot more sources out there that I didn't use. But they all say the same thing.
Just stop lying.
Obama and the leftists simply cannot be blamed for this crisis. Do you think that if lenders are allowed to MAKE money by lending subprime loans, and borrowers are allowed to BUY homes with subprime loans, their going to simply stop these practices because of fear of economic crisis? The real problem is that nobody expected this bubble to burst. It kept building and building, and so many borrowers, lenders, and future homeowners saw INSTANT gratification. They simply weren't thinking economic crisis, because it wasn't an obvious issue back when subprime loans were being HANDED out.
With regards to blaming the liberals-- the CRA has been around since 1977, and the act doesn't even apply to most of the loans behind it! Furthermore, during George W. Bush's presidency (particularly around 2004), many small and mid-sized banks were pulled from the siege of the CRA. Subprime loans, however, INCREASED after CRA regulations were loosened. It's also important to note that independent mortgage companies are not covered by the CRA; only banks that are federally insured. Independent mortgages companies are the ones that are giving out the most subprime loans.
Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that when it comes to money, people are greedy. Government acts and regulations did NOT have anything to do with independent mortgage companies; in fact, they weren't regulated enough! It was increasing profit margins that led these independent companies to give out more loans. This is what caused the bubble to pop. Nobody saw it coming, but now that it has, everyone is looking for a political group to blame. Why don't we put our political beliefs aside and instead, realize that it was the selfish, greedy people (regardless of political affiliation) that put us in this depression?
Really? Nobody saw this coming? If you didn't see it coming, then you are an idiot. Basic economics tells you that all bubbles must pop. The only question is when it is going to happen. Secondly, we are not in a depression, so don't exaggerate the current financial crisis.
I think you missed my point, or maybe I wasn't clear enough. If people would have sooner realized what was going to happen with the housing issue, our problems would probably not be as drastic.
It depends on your definition of "depression." Ask 100 different economists, newspaper columnists, politicians, or anyone for that matter, what the difference between "depression" and "recession" is, and you'll get 100 different answers.