U. offers hundreds of job opportunities to grads

Seniors still searching for post-graduation job opportunities may not have to look far.

For those willing to stay on campus, several hundred jobs are available within the University, according to Career Services Director Patricia Rose.

Seventy of the more than 260 jobs posted on the Human Resources website are entry-level positions “best suited to graduating seniors entering the workforce for the first time,” Manager of Strategic Communications Division of Human Resources Terri Ryan wrote in a statement.

The positions span administration, finance, dentistry, veterinary, recreation and athletics, according to Ryan.

At least 70 seniors across the four undergraduate schools — including 55 School of Arts and Sciences graduates — were employed by Penn last year, according to career surveys from last year’s class. This makes Penn the top employer for graduating College students.

Penn’s employee benefits include health insurance, retirement packages, “generous paid time off” and a “wealth of personal and professional development opportunities,” Ryan wrote.

Additionally, conducting research in a lab could result in publication opportunities, which is a “tremendous advantage,” Rose said.

Despite a tough job market, Rose emphasized that Penn students are continuing to find jobs.

The rate of unemployment was only marginally higher last year than this year — increasing from 9 percent for the class of 2008, to 11 percent in 2009, which is “not that high a number,” Rose said.

The national unemployment rate in January was 9.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Oftentimes, students who remain at Penn after graduation are taking a break before entering a larger job market, Rose explained.

Sometimes, recent alumni seek work at Penn because of significant others who are still at the University, she added.

Still other students simply want to remain in Philadelphia, and working at Penn offers them that opportunity, Ryan explained.

However, some students looking to remain in Philadelphia have deliberately looked elsewhere in the city for jobs.

College senior Sean Healey, who will be working for Teach For America in Philadelphia next fall, never considered Penn for employment because he was initially interested in entering “corporate America.”

Healey is staying in Philadelphia, however, because he “wanted to avoid the mass exodus of the Penn senior class to New York.”

Normally there isn’t a large number of alumni who remain in Philadelphia, but this year “I know several of us who might be in Philly, because there was difficulty getting jobs,” Healey said.

But a difficult economic climate can have a silver lining, said Penn President Amy Gutmann, who predicts that some students’ careers may eventually “flourish” because they had a “tougher way to step.”

“The most successful careers are almost never [a] straight line,” she said.

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