Recent grads facing tough job market
He sits in a wooden chair rocking from side to side, watching the sound meter sway back and forth. The controls were at his fingertips, yet he was still searching for the job that will “provide me stability, and allows me to do something I love.”
As a former communication student and Waynesburg University graduate, Greg Maxwell sits running the controls of the local radio station, WCNS in Latrobe, Pennsylvania as a part-time job until he finds full time work. Like so many, he is waiting for a full-time job and, according to some reports, that wait could be awhile.
According to a Gallup poll, only 43.6 percent of students’ ages 18-29 held a full-time job in July of 2013. Another report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers reported in 2013, businesses planned to only hire 2.1 percent more college graduates than in 2011.
Maxwell, like many of the other former students his age, works in a range of uncertainty according to him, with each week being different. He can work four to seven days each week with hours ranging from the earliest rise in the morning to the moonlit hours of the night and any hour in between.
Maxwell, sways in his chair, in a small nine by 16 room watching with casual glances to make sure that the Pittsburgh Pirates continue to broadcast to the people of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He marks each one of the commercials and liners that play through, anticipating the moment upon which he will have to press on the controls and play the Chick-fil-A promotion in the sixth or seventh inning of that night’s game.
“It’s not too bad,” said Maxwell. “You sit and get paid to listen to the Pirates.”
The small, four-office building, with papers hanging about every item going on in the world, has Maxwell scouring over the information he hopes to become the next step unto his professional career.
“I’m still figuring out what I want to do, so that’s why I’m picking up a couple public announcing jobs,” said Maxwell. “I’m still in the figuring out stage.”
A stage many of his peers have gone through also, with many moving forward with that decision in the confines of their parents’ homes.
In a research study done in 2012, 56 percent of college students’ ages 18-25 were living at home, a reality he knows well, but says he does not mind yet.
“There are perks to being back, having to only work a couple times a week,” said Maxwell.
According to Maxwell, one of those perks is living a mere seven minutes from the job he is employed by, but also missing the friends he left behind when he walked across the stage at graduation.
The opportunity to live at home has been a benefit for Maxwell, as his parents provide him a chance to save money on living expenses. His parents enjoy having him at home, as they say they encouraged him to stay there to allow him to build up savings.
Despite the enjoyment of living at home, with each passing moment and each scratch off of another commercial that has played on the daily log, Maxwell realizes the reality of the job market.
“I definitely had struggles in the job market,” said Maxwell. “It’s hard and it’s a rough place out there trying to get jobs.”
Marie Coffman, director of Career Services and Placement, said the biggest hurdle students need to overcome is the perception of their first job out of college.
“Expectations are the biggest one,” said Coffman about students’ assumptions of the job market. “[Students] have to realize they have to take those entry-level jobs to get to where they want to be.”
The local station identification plays over the Steelers broadcast, sending Maxwell to the radio station bulletin board overcrowded with numbers to fix the problem. He ran to find the solution to the place that gives him his chance as a broadcaster.
The man on the other side of the phone told Maxwell that all will be taken care of and that it was the flagship stations problem. Maxwell hung up the phone, took a deep breath and gave a nod of the head knowing the problem has been corrected.
When he settled back into his swinging chair, the accustomedness of the job he has known since his sophomore summer of college takes its place.
Despite the lack of a full-time job for Maxwell at this point, he knows he is a graduate from a university that has had success in placing students in successful careers.
According to Coffman, 97 percent of the 2013 graduates either have found employment or are attending graduate school. As Maxwell organizes a stack of papers he is required to fill out during the game, he looks around scanning the room and agrees with Coffman’s numbers in that Waynesburg gives its students a chance to succeed.
“[Waynesburg] really helped get my resume filled out and especially the mission work helped me,” said Maxwell.
Maxwell said the skills learned at Waynesburg, especially in the radio station, helped him in the job he now holds, looking at the controls of the sound board that would look like a rocket mission control board to many other people.
As the night fades, and the sound of the Pirates broadcast softens, Maxwell hopes these are just the many noises that will result in the climb out of college debt and parents home-cooked meals to the area that “provides me stability, and allows me to do something I love.”