Tight Job Market Will Pose Tough Challenges for 1993 Science Graduates

The job market for this spring's science graduates at all levels may well be one of the tightest in decades, university career development experts say. Many also point out, however, that this year's recruitment patterns indicate that employment prospects are no longer experiencing the precipitous decline of the past several years. "Things seem to be finally leveling off and starting to go forward a bit," says Steven Kravinsky, director of career placement for the sciences, business, and liberal arts at Iowa State University of Science and Technology in Ames. "In the Midwest, we've never felt the fluctuations [in the job market] as severely as they were felt on the coasts. So a slight recovery for us probably means more in terms of the big picture." The current employment dynamics for young scientists appear to be stabilizing into new, probably long-term, patterns, career placement professionals say. These include an employer pool made up chiefly of small and medium-sized organizations, an increase in temporary and contract employment, requirements that candidates have some work and research experience specific to the demands of their potential jobs, and more interest in hiring master's and even bachelor's degree holders rather than those with doctorates in technical and research disciplines. While postdoctoral positions are still plentiful in most fields, tenured academic positions are relatively scarce. That paucity-- along with concerns that a scientist, once hired by a university, may still be unable to find research funding--seems to be causing more Ph.D.-level researchers to explore employment options outside academia. But some employers' growing interest in hiring and training science graduates without doctoral degrees may derail that effort, job counselors say. "The market is asking for fewer and fewer Ph.D.'s and more M.S.'s. And it's not just that the Ph.D. ranks are full. It's that [employers] are putting more M.S. and even B.S. people at the lab bench, asking more of them, and finding that they can do it," says Catherine Connor, director of placement in the biotechnology center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. "Companies are taking a hard look at paying the premium for all that education," says Richard Stewart, director of the university placement service at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. "For some jobs, the company's conclusion is likely to be that the kind of people they want are those who went on to get that [doctoral] degree," says Stewart, who is president of the College Placement Council, a Bethlehem, Pa.-based organization that tracks and analyzes job and salary trends. "But a number of firms are saying, `Do so many jobs really need the advanced degree?' " At most universities, a large percentage of bachelor's and master's degree recipients in the sciences have traditionally gone on to graduate or medical school in any economic climate. Many career placement officers report that, with positions harder to come by, that percentage is increasing. But if bachelor's and master's graduates were to explore permanent or temporary positions that allow them to use their science training, they would find that the job picture is brighter than they may think, professional placement experts say. Many kinds of laboratories hire bachelor's- and master's-level science graduates in biology and chemistry for technical and even some research positions, while new, nontraditional teacher certification programs in many states allow science majors without education degrees to teach. "We've found that there are a lot of lab jobs available just in our local area," says John Buckner, director of the Center for Career Services at Columbia University in New York. "Many medical labs that do work for doctors, and the research and development wings of manufacturing companies that make stuff like household products and makeup, say they'd love to pick up some of our kids for technical and professional positions." Career counselors at many universities report that undergraduate add that, for the most part, these students consider it only as a one- or two-year interim pursuit before they go on to graduate school or other employment. "More people seem to be going into teaching, but not as a profession," says John Youngblood, career and student development coordinator for the Emory University career center in Atlanta. "They see it as a viable option when they find it hard to get into a lab. In teaching, you're being sought after. Somebody's saying, `We need you, we want you.' But for most, it's just a stepping stone before graduate school or other work." Career development professionals say the current hirers' market means that virtually no scientists can now engage in the kind of field-hopping that was once common in the scientific job market. "When opportunities were more bountiful, employers would hire graduates across discipline lines," says Dennis Ryan, director of the career center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "They'd hire a physicist when they couldn't get an electrical engineer. They would use the person's general scientific background as a basis for training them for the job. Now, they absolutely will not. . . . That makes it difficult for lots of students, who may not clearly identify their precise interests till near the end of their educations, and so end up labeled as belonging to a slightly different field from the one they want to work in." According to James Harris, interim director of career development and placement at Tuskegee University in Alabama, "The most noticeable trend today is that employers are asking point-blank for experience in the exact kind of work [they want prospective employees] to do. And many times it's `no experience, no offer,' regardless of other credentials." This change shifts much of the burden of the job search from the companies to the graduates, career placement experts say. "People who have hired bundles [of students from large universities] now aren't hiring any. The boom today, if any, is in medium-sized and small businesses," says Eugene Martell, director of career planning and placement at the State University pipeline, so that changes the recruiting picture drastically." According to Martell and others, science job-seekers must now generate long lists of potential employers and research those employers' specific needs, in order to target correctly the ones who may be right for them. "You have to be able to say, `I contact you because I know exactly what you're looking for. I hope I fit.' Small companies can't afford to bring in 10 people who might fit. They need to focus on those who certainly will," Martell says. In addition, he says, potential employees need to pursue every opportunity. "You have to turn every rock and see what's there. These people may hire only one professional every other year, so no matter who you are, you're in a numbers game." Martell and others say the switch to small employers for the bulk of industrial science and technology hiring means young scientists will also need to reconcile themselves to the somewhat lower salaries small companies can afford to pay as well as develop a well-rounded package of skills. To a small organization, a pure science specialty is less marketable than one that includes other skills useful to the company, such as fluency in a foreign language, or communications or computer science skills. Industrial Hiring Human resource professionals say that current uncertainties about the future of defense-related research and how best to compete in a global marketplace mean the employment situation in most scientific fields is in a kind of limbo, as employers try to anticipate and plan for future economic developments. While no field is experiencing anything that could be called a boom, career development experts do point to several areas--notably the environmental sciences and computer science--that remain stronger than most. Among the life sciences, health care-related fields such as immunology, toxicology, and microbiology have the strongest markets, these experts say, largely because these disciplines have applications in such a wide variety of settings, including and biotechnology companies. And, according to some career specialists, while biotechnology and biomedical engineering have never created the number of hires it was once hoped they would, those fields may still not have peaked in job-producing potential, since their medical applications are just beginning to be explored. Furthermore, some career development officers say, the small start-up companies that make up a large portion of these industries are not accustomed to recruiting their scientists straight from the university. "I'm not sure we're seeing what we will see in biotech and biomedical engineering," says John Hannabach, director of career services at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. "Those fields are dominated by small entrepreneurs, and I'm not sure they see campuses as resources yet." Major employers in physics, chemistry, and engineering have traditionally been the defense industry and other large companies that are currently hesitant to hire new staff, employment experts say. Since most such companies are in a slow- or no-hiring mode as they try to determine how best to compete in the global marketplace, times are especially tough for physical science and engineering grads, scientists long accustomed to being among the most employable science professionals. There are some bright spots in this generally dim picture, however. In physics, health-related subfields such as nuclear medicine are still much in demand. And according to a study of 1992-1993 job recruitment published by Michigan State University, while demand for chemists and chemical engineers is down, those who do find posts are commanding the highest starting salaries of any profession. Meanwhile, academic career development officials say, one of the most surprising developments in the current scientific job market involves electrical engineers. Since so many have traditionally been employed by large defense and manufacturing firms, many expected electrical engineers to be suffering along with other engineers and physical scientists. But the hiring picture for electrical engineers has turned out to be brighter than expected. Employment opportunities for electrical engineers in large companies like IBM Corp. and General Motors Corp. have "been a casualty," says Carnegie Mellon's Ryan. "But their overall market has been much more expansive than anyone thought. An interesting number of start-up companies--chip-makers, makers of other computer peripherals--are offering employment to electrical engineers. Companies I've never heard of are turning up on our doorstep and asking." Two other fields currently enjoying unusual prosperity are the computer and information sciences and environmental science, especially as it relates to air and water quality, industry hiring observers say. Government agencies, especially those involved in the cleanup of Department of Defense and Department of Energy sites; newly formed environmental engineering and consulting firms; waste- management companies; and even manufacturing companies are all recruiting scientists with environmental training. "That interest has really grown over the past couple of years," says Georgia Tech's Hannabach. "Lots of companies, regardless of product line, are looking to hire specialists in water treatment, hydrology, air quality, and so on." Computer scientists are being hired by a wide variety of organizations, from scientific research institutions in all fields to manufacturing companies to banks and other financial institutions. Hardware- and software-development and information management skills are sought after, career professionals say, with employers mainly looking for computer scientists whose work shows they can apply their computer skills to working out specific questions. "Potential employers are asking, `How can you use your computer skill to help me solve my problem?' Those who've studied applications sufficiently to have insight into that kind of specific problem-solving do very well," says Tuskegee's Harris. Government Work The good news for scientists interested in working for a facilities means that some jobs are almost always available, despite defense cuts and hiring freezes, university placement officers say. In addition, they point out that, at present, many defense-oriented labs seem to be changing their research focuses rather than phasing them out. "Government has always been a bit of a recruiting anomaly. There's not much on-campus recruitment. Instead, you just submit the paperwork, and after that it's survival of the fittest," says Purdue's Stewart. "But they're so big that even when they're shrinking, there are still jobs for those who target them properly." "A lot of our hiring is federal and defense-related, and a lot of it has dried up," says Marjorie Austin, director of career services at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro. "But the labs are trying to plug into other jobs, and some are managing that quite well." In addition, Austin says, many government labs are "still looking at postdocs, co-ops, summer hires. They want to keep going so when they start hiring again, they'll still have the job pipeline going." Contracting Science Across all employment sectors, temporary and contract work is growing rapidly, career placement officers say. "Many large companies are in a state of flux, so they're being very careful," says Craig Kopstain, director of engineering and science placement at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. "That's why many are hiring term employees, with few benefits, for nine months, or for three years, or one project." Kopstain and others say they expect to see more term employment for scientists in the next few years, and some career specialists think it will be a long-term trend. "We've had [contract employment] forever, and we don't mind when we call it postdocs," says the University of Illinois' Connor. "My theory is, [with more term and contract employment] we're leaving a 60-year aberration, when we made companies responsible for our lives. Before that, our grandfathers were responsible for themselves. Now the market is returning us to the days of contract employment--of skilled workers, apprentices, journeymen, and masters." Career officers say they also see promise for another group of science majors--those who choose to leave the field altogether. Banks and other financial institutions, as well as management and financial consulting firms, are eager to interview graduates with science training, and not just in computer science. Says William Corwin, associate director of career services at Princeton University, "Their quantitative aptitude and acquaintance with hard and demanding work" make science grads highly prized in these lucrative professions. Marcia Clemmitt is a freelance science writer based in Washington, D.C.

Tight Job Market Will Pose Tough Challenges for 1993 Science Graduates

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