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Questions & Answers
Dan Ryan is director of the Office of Career Services.
How does the impending recession affect the job market for the UB Class of 2008? What industries/professions could be affected most? Which ones are likely to still be hiring?
If I didn't read the newspaper or watch network news, I would have no idea what you are talking about. Over the past year, we have witnessed a significant increase in employer activity. If you take into account the attendance at UB job fairs, the number of companies recruiting on campus or the number of jobs posted on our BullsEye system, the economy remains strong in many sectors. Some of that employer activity on campus may be attributed to our ramped-up employer development activities, and some may be a result of a general national labor shortage in a number of areas. But, clearly, our students have had a lot of opportunities presented to them. The demand is particularly high in areas like science, technology, engineering and math. Our nursing, public health, engineering and computer science students are of such high quality that they attract a lot of attention.
You've been heavily involved in the campaign to keep local college graduates in town after graduation and to bring back Buffalo natives who attend college elsewhere. Has the "brain drain" slowed?
The brain drain hasn't stopped, but I would like to think that it has slowed. This is the most mobile generation in our nation's history. The exodus of population from the region over the past decade or more has made it easier for others to follow. In addition to that, the far reach of the Internet has resulted in the labor market becoming a more efficient market, wherein both buyers and sellers are well informed. The positive result is that local companies that for years have relied on the "Buffalo discount" in wages are now re-examining their compensation packages. Unfortunately for the region, the same people who are most desperately needed here are also the ones in highest demand elsewhere. Still, with efforts like Jobsapalooza—a regional job fair that celebrated its 10th year in January—we are doing a much better job of exposing local students and downstaters who would like to stay here to the opportunities that exist locally.
I hear that Career Services has increased its employer development efforts, both locally and nationally. Can you tell me about that?
Our goal 10 years ago was to re-establish the University at Buffalo as the premier source of talented young men and women for the Buffalo Niagara region, to establish ourselves as one of the top five sources in New York state and to establish ourselves in the top 25 with employers nationally. We have been successful on the first and are close on the second. To achieve the third, we have stepped up our efforts to market our services nationally. For the past five years, we have sent representatives to the National Society for Human Resource Managers conferences for recruiters. We get a table in their exhibit hall, and because we are typically the only university there, we get a lot of attention. As a result, employers from New York City, the Carolinas, Texas and as far away as San Diego are listing their positions with us, attending our job fairs and in some cases even recruiting on campus.
These days, parents seem to be more involved in the lives of their adult children than parents of past generations. Does that "involvement" extend to their children's job searches and career choices?
This is a real phenomenon. It is a little bit amusing that the generation that fought so hard for privacy and for things like FERPA (the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, also known as the Buckley Amendment) now are the very people who want access to every aspect of their kids' lives! My favorite story was told to me by a recruiter who went to the waiting area to greet a student (non-UB) and his father asked if he could come into the interview as well. The recruiter said that it wasn't possible, and the father responded, "It's just that he might not know all the answers." After the interview, it took all of the recruiter's self-control to refrain from informing the father that his concerns were well founded.
How can faculty and staff partner with Career Services?
Over the past few years, Career Services has tried to more actively market our services to faculty and staff. Our collaborations are adaptable to what a faculty or staff member would like to see. We have career counselors who have gone to speak to dozens of class sessions on any variety of topics tailored to the subject area of the course, and we provide a newsletter that faculty can use to pass relevant information along to the students they work with. We also offer to deliver presentations on days when faculty need to be out of town to present their research.
What question do you wish I had asked, and how would you have answered it?
If the university could do one thing to improve the career development and lifelong satisfaction of its alumni, what would it be? Anything we can do to have more students participate in experiential education—that is, local internships, faculty-guided research, co-op, service learning or internships abroad—would be great. The vision for UB that President Simpson has articulated, particularly when he draws a parallel to the impact of the University of Washington on the Seattle area, assumes a deep relationship between the public, private and not-for-profit organizations and our students. I believe we need to build an infrastructure and system that can facilitate the connection between these groups. Our faculty need to maintain control over the determination of which experiences are worthy of academic credit, but anything we can do to help students experience the application of their knowledge outside of the classroom will not only reinforce their classroom education, but will also help to strengthen the communities in which they have those experiences. And the easier we can make it for the community to access our students, the more likely they are to engage them.