This initiative is a reaction to students’ worries about finding jobs in the current economic climate.

In 2009, the Career Center interviewed and researched 25 premier employers, including Google and Teach for America, to discern how Washington University students could become more competitive in the job market. They found that, in nearly every case, 50 to 100 percent of the seniors hired by these institutions had previously interned there.

Jim Beirne, director of external relations for the Career Center, called this discovery an “aha” moment.

“From that moment we switched what had been an internal metric to [emphasizing that] our graduates should have multiple meaningful internships,” he said.

In pursuit of this goal, the Career Center has expanded its stipend program from $40,000 annually to $250,000.

While four years ago, the school offered only 20 WUSTL preferred internships, there are now over 100 on CAREERlink.

“For legal reasons, in the U.S., you have to treat every applicant the same way and document that they applied. But, by sending it in personally to the website, people feel like it’s a black hole. With the WUSTL preferred internships and the connections we have, we try to bring personalization to the process,” Beirne said.

Opportunities for Alumni Career Externships (ACE), which allow undergraduates to shadow prominent alumni of the University over spring break, are also a new offering of the Career Center. This year, the program includes the CEO for Lionsgate Entertainment, and the senior designer at Derek Lam.

Beirne said that he has already seen the results of new Career Center initiatives. The University has seen a rise in campus interviews, and both Goldman Sachs and Google recently made the University a target institution.

“One of the things we heard a couple of times from key recruiters is that WUSTL students were competitive with any undergraduate in the country, but they felt that WUSTL students didn’t have multiple meaningful internships. They would go back and teach swimming again like they did in high school,” Beirne said.

Beirne also noted the importance of students using the Career Center. “There is a direct correlation between students coming in here multiple times and students getting earlier offers, higher paying offers, getting closer to what they want,” he said.

Students with diverse interests agree with the Career Center’s message.

Shirlene Obuobi, a sophomore, noted internships’ value for pre-medical students.

“I think they are important if you go to a place with a medical field, because I know a lot of med schools want to see that you have experience in an actual hospital,” she said.

Katie Dobscha, a junior, interned for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in New York the summer after her freshman year. The internship was a WUSTL preferred one and was listed on CAREERlink. Dobscha also received a stipend from the Career Center in order to afford living in New York.

“It was very nice to be able to get some experience right away, because it steered me in the right direction in terms of my career path,” Dobscha said. “It gave me a picture of what it would be like to work in New York in marketing for a nonprofit.”

Working to redesign one of the foundation’s brochures influenced Dobscha’s future plans.

“It was something I loved, and now I’m applying to a lot of places that use design and social media,” she said.

Science graduates are faced with a very stressful research environment that demands incredible devotion to a project that may not even be funded, and for far less compensation than a bank would offer. As a result, many decide not to even engage in such research. This is a perfectly rational thing to do, but one that harms most of the nation in general. As a physics major myself, I would certainly like to continue on to secure my Ph.D., but it is easier for me to go to Wall Street and make a little money rather than spend another four years in school.

While this may seem like a rather selfish act for those graduates, one must understand the perspective of those whose future is involved. From a rational, self-interested point of view, there is almost no reason to continue with research. This simple statement of fact makes those who dedicate their lives to technical research even more admirable, as they put the accumulation of knowledge above their own personal benefit.

Unfortunately, this is a difficult reality to change. While there is an intangible gain from a better understanding of the world, there is very little immediate economic benefit for research in fields such as planetary sciences or physics. While scientific research eventually leads to dramatic societal benefits—just look at the vast technological changes over the last 50 years that can be attributed, both directly and indirectly to such fields—such dramatic advances often take very long periods of time to reach the market.

This is a very difficult problem to address, as these tendencies are the most economically rational for all the involved parties. Ideally, we could restructure our view of the sciences, making them seem like a much more desirable career than they are currently. That is a long-term goal, however. In the immediate future, it would be best to see an increase in national funding for such groups as the National Science Foundation or NASA—a difficult pitch in these economic times. The real question is if we, as a nation, can afford not to fund scientific research. As each year passes, our technological edge, arguably the most important factor in American economic growth over the past 30 years, slowly erodes.

Don’t hate me because I’m going to work on Wall Street; hate everyone else for not giving me a reason to stick with science. I want to, but when push comes to shove, money talks more than the ability to solve differential equations.

Yet, we still feel that Washington University’s career services can do better. For instance, it seems that the majority of organizations that come to the Career Fair are focused in the fields of either business or engineering. Certainly, there are exceptions—transitional programs like Teach For America and other non-profit organizations—but when a significant portion of our community will be receiving degrees in something without an immediately “practical” application, we feel that it is important to provide these individuals with a more substantial amount of opportunities.

For a university of our size and standing, the Career Fair should better reflect the diversity of degrees in our undergraduate population. At the moment, all it seems to be doing is setting up a framework that ultimately holds those students back. With visiting companies being mostly looking for people with a business or engineering background, many Arts & Sciences students found themselves unsure of whether to attend: should they go just for the sake of going? Or skip the fair because they weren’t interested in the companies, and the companies weren’t interested in them.

Nonetheless, visits to the Career Center can be fruitful. The resources and advice they provide are solid, but it is disheartening to visit and come away empty handed or with little idea of what to pursue. The Career Link search engine fits in with this—a significant portion of the internships and job opportunities offered lay in the business and engineering sectors, making it seem a lot harder to look for something that’s geared for people with, say, an Anthropology or a French major. Most of us won’t love our first jobs, or stick with them for our entire adult lives, but the Career Center should still do all it can to help students find something that in line with their passions.

At this point, it’s up to Wash. U. students to use more resources than the Career Center to look for job and internship opportunities. This should be an expectation of all students, regardless, as it’s not on the Career Center to find jobs for students. But the Career Center should be there to help those students, all of those students, to look for and find options.

We hope that the Career Center will continue to build networks and create opportunities for students with majors of less practical application, and help them to find jobs that fit. This would not only benefit the students themselves, but the Career Center as well; it will help us build our alumni networks, demonstrate the diversity of Washington University’s graduates and help them improve in how they serve our community.

The figures indicate a total population of 319,294 people, a near 30,000 person decrease from the 2000 census and a reduction by more than half since the 1950s.

While this decline may cause some turbulence in the already struggling local economy, the demographic change is unlikely to significantly affect most Washington University graduates, most of whom seek jobs outside of the St. Louis region.

“The job market for Washington University graduates is usually national,” economics professor Steven Fazzari said. “It’s pretty unusual to find a student who actually gets a job here in St. Louis. Even if you were looking at jobs locally, the declines in the city are being somewhat offset by growth in the county.”

In fact, despite the decline in the population of St. Louis City, the total population of Missouri has risen by 7 percent from the last census, up 27 percent in places like St. Charles County. St. Louis County, which does not include St. Louis City, lost about 2 percent of its population.

Even in these instances, the growth rate has slowed from the 2000 census, which showed a state population increase of 13 percent from 1990. This trend reflects the current economic downturn, which has been felt across the nation.

According to Fazzari, the dip in population will likely have some consequences for the local economy in the longer term, which could eventually affect the University.

“There’s maybe longer term issues about quality of life,” he said. “If you have a declining core of a major metropolitan area, that might make the area less attractive over the long term, so that might make it more difficult to attract business here, and ultimately might not be such a good thing for the University.”

Overall, he said, population decline is not necessarily a negative thing for all areas, especially in younger parts of town such as the new urban lofts in the Washington Avenue area.

Jim Beirne, Director of External Relations at the Career Center, agreed that he does not consider the census statistics to be meaningfully correlated to student job placement rates in recent years.

“The statistics talk about the city of St. Louis, which is a portion of the St. Louis region, and we still see strong recruiters based in the city itself,” Beirne said. “They are still coming and recruiting, in some cases more than they ever have. What I do see is ongoing growth around the city of St. Louis. Corporations, organizations and nonprofits are trying to hire more and more of our students.”

Beirne attributes this lack of correlation, in part, to the fact that most Washington University graduates seek employment outside of the St. Louis area.

Many students do, however, choose to stay in St. Louis for summer internships.

Still, Beirne does not detect any hurdles in securing employment, especially, he said, as Washington University’s name recognition and the positive reputation of its students grow.

“More companies are saying they didn’t realize [the University] was so good, and as companies, organizations and nonprofits get to know us better, we’re seeing more opportunities developing for our students,” he said.

Although Washington University students are unlikely to feel the economic effects of population decline, the state will see political effects.

As a consequence of slow growth in Missouri, the state has lost one congressional seat, which means that the congressional districts will be redrawn before the 2012 elections.

It’s that small little thing that people seem to forget: the money.

Favre signed a two-year contract worth around $25 million, with extra incentives given for games played and for passing yards accumulated. So sticking around for a few more years kind of makes sense once you grab a seat on the money train. The average age for an NFL quarterback to retire is in the early thirties. Favre is 41. Is Favre really helping his team, or is he holding them back?

Progress is what’s dragging our current economy down.

The economy is in all sorts of trouble; some experts believe it’s in a recession, some say a depression, and every now and then you’ll hear some clown say that it’s just fine. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which most economists believe represents the vitality of the economy, has bounced back. So if there’s money flowing, then why is the economy really that bad? Is it because of the job market? Is it because the housing market and the subprime lending industry crippled everything? Or is it because of the baby boomers, those born from 1946 to 1964?

USA Today ran an article last week about baby boomers who are now homeless and who have lost everything. If that’s the case, who are all those old people still working? The Government Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the largest group of working people in our society consists of adults aged 44 and older. The baby boomers are the largest group of jobholders in our society. They are the graying America.

The interesting thing is that the original 401(k) program was introduced in 1978 by Congress, so there’s been plenty of time for this aging workforce to plan its retirement. Granted, the market took a giant downward turn a few years ago, but it has now recovered. That’s how the roller coaster goes. So what if they want to keep working instead of retiring, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that this impedes the career development of young people who should be moving into the workforce.

People search for a job when they graduate from college. Once they find that job, they’ll usually purchase a car, then a home and then stuff for that home. These are the consumers in the economy, the people who spend money, the ones who help with economic progress. When baby boomers get close to retirement, they save more, which doesn’t put a lot of money back into the economy. The other interesting fact is that older workers make more. When older employees stay at a company at a high cost, it affects the profit margin of that company. If an employee making $80,000 a year retires at, let’s say, 58, then a company can replace him with two college grads at $35,000 a year, saving the company $10,000 and netting them two employees instead of one. If that employee doesn’t retire then two people are still looking for work, and the company might have to look at different ways to save that $10,000.

It’s not my place to say who should work and who shouldn’t. But maybe before we get too old ourselves, we might really think about progress. Are we setting ourselves up to retire early, or are we going be the guy who everyone says is too old to play a young man’s game?

Though they are still being compiled, the University’s postgraduate statistics for 2010 continue to point in the school’s favor. The job market, following severe repercussions from the recent recession, has begun to recover significantly.

According to school officials, conditions will continue to improve as the country’s economy heals and as the University persists in marketing itself to achieve more recognition among employers.

An increased awareness of Wash. U. has already begun to show through more job recruitment on campus.

The business school, in particular, has seen a drastic increase in recruiting, hosting more than 85 major employers in the past month alone, compared to 35 during the same period in 2009. Mark Brostoff, director of the Weston Career Center at Olin Business School, considers this an indication of a recovering market.

“The economy is showing signs of improving, therefore hiring is improving,” Brostoff said. “Confidence is slowly returning to companies seeking employment.”

New postgraduate surveys from the Class of 2010 reveal that conditions are once again favorable for graduates. Ninety-seven percent of BSBA students were either employed or enrolled in graduate or professional schools within 90 days of graduation. Placement for MBA students was 94 percent, and placement for specialized-degree students was over 90 percent.

Although the University’s overall postgraduate statistics are not yet finalized, current figures are purportedly favorable.

According to Mark Smith, assistant vice chancellor and director of the Career Center, Wash. U. students have no difficulty locating employment, especially if they use the center and plan ahead.

“Everyone who wants to find a job finds a job,” Smith said. “They may not find it by graduation, but they’ll find it.”

A major portion of each respective graduating class, however, chooses alternate postgraduate routes. Anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of each year’s students will choose to go directly to either graduate or professional school.

Approximately another third of the class will spend between one and five years in “transitional programs,” traveling or working for programs such as Teach For America before attending graduate school.

Senior Andrew Bingaman, who is studying romance languages and literatures, notes that such options are beneficial, especially for students with majors in the humanities. He hopes to find an internship in New York City before capping his education with an MBA and finding a job.

“Graduating with a liberal arts degree, [finding a job] will be a bit more difficult than for someone with a business degree,” Bingaman said.

The Career Center, however, firmly believes in its potential to provide every student with a job, should students seek it out. Its recent campaign included heavy advertising and a newly remodeled website. Additionally, the center hopes to develop an online system for scheduling appointments. Through these changes, the Career Center seeks to eliminate the portion of the class that gets lost in the communication gap.

“This is only temporary,” he assured me before we even made it to Forsyth. “It’s only for a little while.”

He wanted me to know that he had been laid off from his real job four months ago. He wanted me to know that he was actually a construction manager; he had been with his company for 11 years. He wanted me to know that he had only taken this job because he could earn more from driving a cab than collecting unemployment.

He wanted me to know that he had a college degree.

He wanted me to know that he was raising two kids who were not happy to give up satellite television but, after all, “We needed to cut back.” He wanted me to know that he was a good father.

After the layoff, he told me, he had sent out hundreds of applications for management positions and didn’t land a single job. “It’s this economy,” he explained quickly, in case I thought that maybe he was just wholly unqualified.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Missouri’s unemployment rate is hovering around 9.5 percent. In the St. Louis metropolitan area, that number rises to 9.8 percent.

Nearly one in 10 St. Louis residents is unemployed, but the numbers mean nothing until that one person is driving you to the airport, telling you how he was booted from the job he thought he’d have for life.

You’re supposed to love your job—doctor, lawyer, teacher, construction manager, whatever. You’re supposed to be excited to get up in the morning and go to work. The construction manager/cab driver/father of two/college graduate had gone to school, made a decision and entered the workforce.

But what happens when you’ve done everything you’re supposed to and you still get stuck driving a cab when you wanted to do something else?

This cab driver/construction manager was working at a job he did not want. Because of his unexpected career change, I found myself in the back of his cab thinking about what might happen if one day, everything went wrong for me, too.

I might fall apart at the setback; I might become so embittered and disillusioned by the real world that I would proceed to waste away at a job I hated, everything in my life discolored by the hatred.

Or I might be like this cab driver/construction manager/father of two/college graduate who spent less than a month receiving unemployment compensation before he decided that action was better than no action.

I hope life goes as planned. If not, I know now that there is life after failed plans. That it might be better to try doing something you hate than doing nothing and hating yourself.

Maybe the driver just wanted me to know that he was more than this person behind the wheel. More than the layoff, the futile job hunt, the television channels he’d had to give up. More than this cab, this ride, this otherwise forgettable moment.

Maybe he was just looking for sympathy.

Either way, it worked. I left the guy a $20 tip.

Kate is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at kemarcal@artsci.wustl.edu.

Called “A Fresh Look at Government Jobs: Civil Service in the 21st Century,” the event featured George Selim, a Department of Homeland Security employee who spoke with students at the Danforth University Center and attended a luncheon with them. A number of other government employees attended the event, including representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Employees from the FDIC and the Department of Commerce held programs at the Olin Business School.

The event stemmed from a grant that created a partnership between the Gephardt Institute and the Career Center to promote government careers.

“With the economy being what it is now, students I think are more open to the idea of looking at different alternatives, including the public sector,” said Robin Hattori, program director for the Gephardt Institute.

Hattori also noted the need for young talent in government agencies to replace retiring government employees.

While the event was relevant to seniors who are considering pursuing government jobs after graduation, it also catered to graduate students, sophomores and juniors.

“People might not be ready to start looking for a job yet, but maybe a summer internship would be another option to look at,” Hattori said.

For Washington University law student Michael Wu, his internship created job opportunities on Capitol Hill. After working as an intern, Wu became a staff assistant and subsequently a scheduler for three different members of Congress. Wu is now enrolled in law school with the hopes of becoming a national security lawyer.

“Lawyers represent clients generally, and I feel like that’s not as exciting to me as the idea of trying to do good,” Wu said.

Senior Laura Lane-Steele is considering joining AmeriCorps during her gap years between graduating from the University and enrolling in graduate school for anthropology.

“I’m interested in working with people and trying to get on that community-based level,” Lane-Steele said. “I’m more of a public interest kind of person, and corporate America doesn’t really appeal to me in terms of social justice.”

Lane-Steele also finds the health insurance, benefits and non-discrimination policies that government jobs provide to be appealing.

In addition to providing opportunities to work for the public good, government jobs allow new employees to take on significant responsibilities.

“Most of the agencies have a lot of money for professional development and for training,” Hattori said. “The pay is not what you would find in the corporate sector, but to make up for it you really do get some great responsibility at the get-go.”

Hattori added that government jobs also provide mobility.

“Once you get in the government you can look at other agencies, and you can look at other departments within your agency,” Hattori said.

Undergraduates at the University are preparing for government jobs by selecting specific coursework.

Senior David Weisshaar, who has an interest in international policy and development, double majors in Latin American studies and political science with a concentration in international relations. He also minors in business.

“Having a little bit of quantitative skill I think is always useful in any government career,” Weisshaar said.

In addition to preparing for a government career through his majors, Weisshaar learns from the experiences of his fellow students.

“Just hearing their experiences, how they’ve gone about getting internships, the kind of perspectives they have on this field have certainly informed my own opinion and perspective on how I can best go about procuring a job in this field,” he said. Weisshaar also plans to pursue a master’s degree in public policy.

“I’m personally encountering a kind of skepticism among people in our general age range, 18-22, and a cynicism about government that I think is rather unhealthy,” Weisshaar said. “My personal viewpoint is that government is the quickest and most effective way to have an impact on public policy.”

“Government is a place where good can happen and inspiration can happen,” Wu said.

With job deadlines swiftly approaching, many Washington University seniors are rushing to the Career Center for guidance—and for some students, this visit will be their first in four years. How is that possible, you ask?

Many people simply don’t see the benefit of going. In fact, several students, from freshmen to seniors, believe that our career services don’t measure up to those of other top-tier universities. But is this because our Career Center is truly lacking, or are students simply unaware of all the resources available?

Mark Smith, assistant vice chancellor and director of the Career Center, has actually noticed a dramatic increase in student involvement in various career-oriented events over the past several years. The Career Center scheduled a total of 1,500 individual counseling sessions in 2005, according to Smith, but last year it scheduled around 9,000. At a recent New York City networking reception (which the Career Center holds in major cities every year during winter and summer breaks), 300 students participated—200 more than expected.

Despite these numbers, however, the fact remains that many students are not satisfied: Junior Marley Teter has been to the Career Center only once for an advising appointment, but she was disappointed. Teter said, “They didn’t have much to offer me as a theater major.”

Similarly, senior Julia Smythe of the Sam Fox School complained of a lack of companies representing the design, animation and visual arts fields.

Like Teter and Smythe, some students feel the Career Center needs to focus on the needs of students across all disciplines, rather than spending so much energy on students interested in fields like consulting and finance. Smith recognizes that companies such as McKinsey and Goldman Sachs are major players on campus but said that the Career Center tries hard to represent the interests of all students.

“We do a lot of surveys to take away some of the guesswork when we bring in new companies,” he said. “We try to figure out what students want.”

After recent surveys indicated a growing interest in non-profit organizations and NGO and international companies, Smith made sure to bring representatives from companies like the Clinton Foundation, Amnesty International and the Guggenheim Foundation to the career fair held several weeks ago.

“We want to help students no matter what they want to do,” Smith said, “but the fact is that there are some employers that are more likely to come on campus than others because they have the resources to do more entry-level hiring.”

It seems that most students who believe the Career Center is inadequate simply aren’t aware of all that is offered. Senior Suzan Sim had never been to the Career Center before.

“I just never thought they’d be helpful,” she said. “Now that I’m a senior, I feel the pressure to go, but otherwise I wouldn’t really have considered it.”

But after learning more about some of the programs available, Sim admits that she feels she missed out.

“If I had known they were doing all these things, I definitely would have been more likely to go before,” she said.

After sophomore T.J. Morgan visited the Career Center for the first time this week, he explained that he wasn’t sure how helpful it would be for him.

“I always just assumed it was something that you do later, like as a senior, to get ready for jobs and stuff,” Morgan said. “I don’t know what they can really offer younger students.”

But after learning more about some of the resources, Morgan, like Sim, also feels he has missed a lot of opportunities.

“I would have liked to go to some of the things designed specifically for sophomores, but I didn’t even know about it,” he said.

Even if you are unsure of what you want to pursue, the Career Center can help. The center provide various kinds of testing for students to help them discover what their talents and skills are or what industries would be the best fits for them.

“I think some students kind of shy away from coming in [to the Career Center] because they don’t have a real direction, so they assume that there’s nothing we can do. But we can always do something, we can help them figure it out,” Smith said.

A graduate of Harvard University, Smith believes that Washington University’s career services are actually better than those of most of the Ivy League schools. The University’s Career Center emphasizes individual counseling, a resource that many Ivy League students do not have access to.

“We have more counselors than Harvard and several of the other top schools,” Smith said. “Most of the Ivies do counseling in big programs, so a career counselor will just lecture to a large group of students. But I find it is much more helpful to have one-on-one conversations with students.”

Some of the Ivy League schools, according to Smith, have a slight advantage because more employers visit their campuses. But Wash. U.’s Career Center is working hard to level the playing field.

“We’re really trying to build up our brand and sell Wash. U. to employers,” Smith said.

He has compiled pamphlets of information to give to employers, explaining the quality of a Wash. U. education in comparison to other, better-known schools. He explained that employers need time to catch up to Wash. U.’s rise in the rankings before we start seeing as many companies on campus as Princeton, Yale or Harvard. Aside from talking to employers and trying to bring more companies to campus, the Career Center is always working on new programs to help students. The stipend program, started just a few years ago, has grown dramatically. Smith hopes to keep this program running strong.

“The Career Center gave out about $150,000 last year [in internship stipends]. I really want to keep that growing and take it to the next level,” he said.

The Career Center hosts interview and résumé workshops, as well as employer information sessions on a weekly basis. The center has various programs designed specifically for freshmen, sophomores, juniors or seniors, and tailored to their individual needs. They also host several shadowing and mentoring programs to promote alumni-student relationships across all fields, as well as off-campus trips to visit industry-specific companies in major cities like New York, Washington and Chicago.

“I know it’s frustrating for students that the onus really falls on them, but that’s the way it has to be,” Smith said.

Students have to be the ones to take action and find out what the Career Center has to offer.

“My message to everyone would be: You just have to give us a chance,” Smith said. “I really believe it’s worth it.”

With a weak financial market, Olin Business School graduates with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) degree, like their peers at other institutions, found it more difficult to receive a job offer this year. In the spring of 2009, however, as the economy began to recover, many employers realized they needed more interns.

“We got a little bit of a bump [as] we began to find a lot of just-in-time hiring,” said Mark Brostoff, associate dean and director of the Weston Career Center at Olin.

The reason why BSBA jobs have been relatively stable is that companies tend to cut middleman jobs during economic challenges, Brostoff said. Companies desire to maintain “a talent pipeline,” which creates a continued need for entry-level jobs.

Brostoff said the figure has not changed from 2008.

The biggest difference for students this year was not that they were unable to get a job, but rather that they had only one job offer as compared to three or four in past years.

Although job-offer figures remained relatively stable, the median starting salary for the MBA graduating class of 2009 remained flat this year at $90,000, while that of the BSBA decreased from $56,500 to around $55,000.

Brostoff explained the reason behind this dip is that one of the highest-paying undergraduate jobs—investment banking—took the greatest hit, which in turn dragged down the median salary figure. In addition, many students decided to go into the non-profit sector, while others joined the military.

According to Brostoff, 2009 was “a very, very difficult year.”

“There were complete industries that really skidded to a halt, and only began to hire just one or two positions,” he said. “If the economy stays at where it is today, even if it stays at a very flat level of growth, I think the number of positions and opportunities for our graduating BSBA students next year will be very similar to that of this year.”

“Companies’ requirements haven’t changed, but they’re looking for that drive, energy, commitment and proven intellectual rigor,” Brostoff added. “The companies are looking for students who are going to commit in the investment that the company is making.”

Companies have also altered their methods of hiring. Contrary to conventional methods, recruiters are shying away from on-campus hiring to reduce travel costs. They are depending more on career centers and telephone interviews, Brostoff said. Students are now more active in their searches, rather than the other way around.

Junior Adrian Githuku, a marketing and international business double major who interned with Proctor and Gamble, praised the Weston Career Center for helping with her internship search.
“I feel like the job market right now is tough. A lot of companies are hiring a lot less people,” Githuku said. “At the same time, I think the Weston Career Center does a really good job of making sure we know how to differentiate ourselves.”

Brostoff said he believes positive figures this year reflect the business school’s efforts to create and maintain relationships with employers in both good and bad markets.

The Olin Business School and its Weston Career Center made efforts this past summer to create more opportunities for their students. Brostoff and his team traveled to Shanghai and Hong Kong to meet with potential recruiters. They returned with 15 companies who were very interested in the talent pool at Olin.

In addition, the Weston Career Center recently published a new comprehensive Career Guide with nearly 50 pages of tips on résumés, business etiquette, interviews, the follow-up process and receiving and negotiating job offers.