David Maley left his internship at Lehman Brothers last summer figuring he would be back on Wall Street in a glamorous investment banking job once he graduated from Colgate University in May.
Now Lehman is history, and Maley is moving instead to a Cleveland suburb to start a management training program at an industrial supply company.
Considering the job market, he’s just fine with that.
“I’m happy to have a job, counting my blessings,” said Maley, a mathematical economics major from Woodbridge, Conn. He thinks he will learn a lot. New York would have been fun but expensive. And in hindsight, he did not find banking work all that interesting.
For many college students in the class of 2009, the post-graduation job hunt has turned into a quest for a rewarding Plan B or in many cases Plan C or D.
After a string of golden recruiting years, employers plan to hire 22 percent fewer graduates this spring, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
But even that figure underestimates the drop, says Sheila Curran, an independent adviser and former head of career services at Duke. She believes the figures are even worse for the “just-in-time” positions offered in April and May that account for 80 percent of jobs for new grads.
