Your Financial Life AFter College

As college graduation season swings underway, there are many students and recent grads who don't know what they want to do with their lives and/or don't have jobs. Depending on your family's financial situation, this may be a problem. Over the years, there are some trends that I've been noticing about the job hunt and budgeting:

1) Start the Job Hunt Process Early
According to some recent studies, it takes the average college graduate 4 to 6 months to secure a job. Add in the looming recession, and you'll find that finding a job is extremely tough. Even though you may have found it fairly easy to get a part time job as a waiter or as a grocery store clerk, most people find it much harder to get a full time 9-5 job after colllege. If you're an average students, you should assume that you'll get 1 interview call for every 15-20 jobs you apply for. Then factor in the fact that you'll be competing against other students in the interview process, and that many companies have many rounds of interviews. Overall, the general idea is that you should apply for many jobs.
Secondly, it is important to understand that some companies, especially for the more competitve jobs (accounting, finance, engineering, computer science) will hold multiple interview rounds at many schools, and that the overall process from submitting your application to receiving an offer can take over a month. Therefore, it is important to start applying early.

2) Learn the Recruiting Cycle for your Industry
For competitve positions, most industries have differing hiring cycles. Financial Companies generally start looking for candidates in October, so it is important to start applying for jobs early. However, if you want to go into advertising, most firms look for someone to start immediately, so you can generally wait towards the end of the school year to start applying. Talk to your school career centers to learn more about the recruiting cycles of firms to help you apply for jobs in a more effective and efficient manner.

3) Student Loans
When reviewing job offers, it is important to consider the cost of living and every mandatory expense that you will incur, including student loans. With many private universities having total costs in the $40,000-$50,000 per year range, most students accumulate a signifcant amount of debt without considering the ramifications. Depending on who your loan is from and what interest rate you got it at, debt can cost students a signicant portion of their income. Contact your school's financial aid office to see how much debt you've accumulated and how to pay it off. If you have federal loans, go to http://www.dlservicer.ed.gov/. I recommend creating a budget in Excel to map out your projected expenses.

4) " I have a liberal arts degree, therefore I'm not qualified for most jobs"
I hate hearing this statement, because it's simply not true. With the exception of a few computer science and engineering jobs, most companies are looking to hire people who can think logically, write coherently, be organized, and be logical. The most important thing in your first job is to have a hunger to learn, an intellectual curiosity to ask questions, learn rules and processes, and improve efficiencies. Most majors won't prepare you for the specifics of a job, but will train you in how to approach the problems. The most important thing you can learn in college is to learn how to learn - that is, to learn how to be adaptive and understand your surroundings. A liberal arts degree teaches you these traits, as most classes have significant reading and writing assignments.

Good luck in your job search.