SCDC expands co-op database
Stephanie Takach
Issue date: 7/31/09 Section: News
Because of the rising unemployment rate, Drexel University's Steinbright Career Development Center is looking at 17 different ways to approach job development for co-op students and graduating seniors.
"[SCDC] lost some jobs due to [the] economy and we wanted to take a very focused effort for the fall term to gain back the vast majority of those jobs," Peter Franks, executive director of SCDC, said.
And because of those efforts, the SCDC is expecting 500 more job opportunities to be posted in the B round of the fall/winter co-op cycle.
"[Job development] is an ongoing process - something that we do all the time, but what has happened is that because of the current economy and [the] fact that labor market conditions have changed dramatically ... we took some actions and really geared [this process] up," Franks said.
The unemployment rate is approximately 9.5 percent, which almost doubled from last year's rate of 5.5 percent and trends predict it will continue to rise.
"The conditions that I see are that the unemployment rate will top out at 10 percent, 10.5 percent, then gradually come down," Franks said.
Franks also said the economy will begin to get better before the unemployment rate drops.
In order to create more job opportunities for co-op and graduating seniors, SCDC took a strong approach by researching companies in a growth industry such as energy efficiency and companies that had gotten some stimulus money, according to Kathy Neary, associate director for Global Business at SCDC.
Other avenues included research on employers who had posted co-ops at schools other than Drexel and employers who posted in the past but not this time.
"Another area where we were really successful was looking at employers that had posted one time, and we went back to them again," Neary said.
She said the areas with the biggest success that SCDC found were employers that hired students through direct apply, or full-time immediately, and employers that hired students through an independent job search.
"[SCDC] lost some jobs due to [the] economy and we wanted to take a very focused effort for the fall term to gain back the vast majority of those jobs," Peter Franks, executive director of SCDC, said.
And because of those efforts, the SCDC is expecting 500 more job opportunities to be posted in the B round of the fall/winter co-op cycle.
"[Job development] is an ongoing process - something that we do all the time, but what has happened is that because of the current economy and [the] fact that labor market conditions have changed dramatically ... we took some actions and really geared [this process] up," Franks said.
The unemployment rate is approximately 9.5 percent, which almost doubled from last year's rate of 5.5 percent and trends predict it will continue to rise.
"The conditions that I see are that the unemployment rate will top out at 10 percent, 10.5 percent, then gradually come down," Franks said.
Franks also said the economy will begin to get better before the unemployment rate drops.
In order to create more job opportunities for co-op and graduating seniors, SCDC took a strong approach by researching companies in a growth industry such as energy efficiency and companies that had gotten some stimulus money, according to Kathy Neary, associate director for Global Business at SCDC.
Other avenues included research on employers who had posted co-ops at schools other than Drexel and employers who posted in the past but not this time.
"Another area where we were really successful was looking at employers that had posted one time, and we went back to them again," Neary said.
She said the areas with the biggest success that SCDC found were employers that hired students through direct apply, or full-time immediately, and employers that hired students through an independent job search.
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