Nate Torvik has mixed feelings about his upcoming graduation from Purdue University. While there's relief that classes are over, exams have been taken and term papers turned in, what lies ahead is an extremely challenging and competitive job market. "I feel like the wind has been taken out of my sails," says Torvik, who received a bachelor's degree in mass communication. "There is so much pride and happiness that comes with graduation, but as soon as I step off that stage at graduation, I become another statistic of the current miserable economy." Torvik is one of thousands of soon-to-be college graduates thinking about relocating for work this spring. While choosing the best place to settle down can be a daunting decision, the current economic climate has raised the stakes. "I have been looking just about everywhere throughout the Midwest for a job because I do not want to be too far away from my family, but things are looking more bleak everywhere I turn," Torvik says. For now, he's working in retail and hopes it might open other doors to a job as an account executive at a marketing or advertising firm. Allison Lackey is one of the lucky ones ... for now. She is graduating with a communications degree from Millikin University and starts a ten-month stint as a traveling field consultant for Delta Delta Delta women's fraternity. After that, she hopes to find a position as a marketing or PR specialist for a nonprofit organization. "In a way, I am grateful to be searching for a job in this tough economy," Lackey says. "It has forced me to become comfortable with being able to articulate why I am the best candidate for the job and it has also forced me to learn how to network well with people in my field." Top cities for new grads While many new grads tend to look for jobs near their college or hometowns, scores of them are considering locations they might not have when they entered school four or five years ago. "Given the current economy, new grads looking to relocate are becoming increasingly concerned with the cost of living as they are faced with more competition for jobs than seen in previous years," said Tammy Kotula, public relations and promotions manager at Apartments.com. "With these very real concerns weighing on the minds of many, two leading online resources for apartments and jobs have come together to paint a realistic landscape of both the job market and cost of living in the most popular cities for young adults after college." For new grads who plan to expand their job searches beyond their college or hometowns, Apartments.com and CBcampus.com just released the "Top 10 Best Cities for Recent College Graduates." The list is based on the ranking of the top U.S. cities with the highest concentration of young adults (age 20 - 24) from the U.S. Census Bureau (2006), inventory of jobs requiring less than one year of experience from CBcampus.com (2009) and the average cost of rent for a one bedroom apartment from Apartments.com (2009). According to Apartments.com and CBcampus.com, the top 10 cities for new grads are: Popular entry-level categories:** sales, customer service, health care Popular entry-level categories: sales, marketing, customer service Looking beyond your hometown If you are considering expanding your job search to other cities, here are some tips: · Contact an alumnus from your college who lives in that city and join your alumni chapter if there is one. · Get an insider's perspective by familiarizing yourself with the local media and other resources. Read up on the city's business and community news. · Develop a list of companies within the area and learn about their businesses and company cultures. · Register with a national recruitment agency; interview with a recruiter in your local office and have that person put the word out to other offices in your target cities. · Consider spending a few days in your desired city to learn more, network and set up informational interviews. In your applications and cover letters, tell hiring managers the dates you'll be in the city and available to interview. Although this is a challenging market for new grads, remember: Attitude can be the key to your success. The reality is that the job search will take longer for these new grads thrust into the "real world" but the right mind-set can make you resilient. Consider the words from Elaine Goodwin, who plans to graduate this fall from Northern Illinois University: "There is always something. I love the Japanese proverb that says 'Fall down seven, get up eight.' I understand that it is going to be a tough economy to graduate in, but I will take the challenge and show companies how I can be an asset to them. You can't get discouraged because the world is not going to give you a break."
Top 10 Cities for New Grads
Are You in the Best City for Your Job?
Elizabeth A. Campbell was happy with the job offer from a top Houston law firm, but she wasn't itching to leave the comfortable life she had built for herself and her two teenage boys in suburban New Jersey. Other than a detour to Michigan for law school, she was a lifelong Northeasterner.
Campbell drew up a table of the pluses and minuses of relocating. On the plus side: more affordable real estate, no state taxes, cheaper food and services, an international airport, and strong schools and sports programs. Only one minus: saying goodbye to friends and family.
It has been almost a year since Campbell joined Houston's Andrews Kurth law firm as a partner and chief diversity officer, and the angst is long gone. She sold her 2,800-sq.-ft. house in Bordentown, N.J., for $350,000 and upgraded to a 4,200-sq.-ft. place on a golf course with five bedrooms and a game room six miles outside Houston. The price: less than $325,000.
Houston Is Rolling in Oil
"The bottom line was: 'How come I didn't live here already?'" Campbell said. "I came here because of a job. But it's a wonderful city, and I can see myself retiring here."
Only a few years ago, Houston was reeling. The implosion of Enron in 2001 had sandbagged the local economy, and the mood was grim. But that seems like a long time ago now. The explosion in energy costs has boosted the city's oil- and natural gas-fed economy, which is home to ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, as well as Waste Management, KBR, and many more. Job seekers in all sorts of careers have started streaming into Houston, where the unemployment rate was 3.8% in April, the lowest level in eight years, and where the job growth rate was 2.8%.
Businessweek.com worked with Seattle's Payscale.com to determine where the best and worst cities are for 20 common careers and found that -- when it comes to earning a comfortable living -- Houston it at or near the top for most jobs, from human resources manager to graphic designer. We adjusted the median compensation for jobs in each of the top 25 big-city metros for cost of living. Houston, Dallas, and Charlotte, N.C., rose to the top for many of the jobs because they're affordable cities with competitive salaries. New York, San Francisco, Washington, Los Angeles, and Boston, which have some of the highest salaries, sank to the bottom because residents there pay through the nose for real estate, parking, groceries, and almost everything else.
Accepting a lower salary might make financial sense if you were willing to leave an expensive city such as Seattle and settle in, say, Oklahoma City. But it's also important to know when a salary looks higher than it actually is.
When Is a Raise Not a Raise?
"What looks like a 20% raise might turn out to be a pay cut if you're moving from a less expensive place like Pittsburgh to San Francisco," said Al Lee, director of quantitative analysis at Payscale.com, which provides real-time salary information to individuals and employers.
For example, the median income for the executive director of a nonprofit in New York is $87,800, more money than you could expect in any other of the nation's 25 largest cities. But on our list, New York is actually the worst place for the job because -- adjusted for cost of living -- the salary would be equivalent to just $41,400 in a city such as Detroit where lifestyle costs equal the national average.
Of course, there's more to a job than compensation (the number of available jobs, opportunities for advancement, etc.), but our list focuses on relative compensation. Also, there's more to a city than how affordable it is. Many people would rather squeeze into a studio in Manhattan or San Francisco than live a more luxurious life in Dallas or Cincinnati. One could also save money by commuting to work and living in a less-expensive suburb. Our cost-of-living analysis assumes that the employee lives in the core city of the metro area where he works, which in the case of New York is Manhattan.
Barton Smith, a professor of economics at the University of Houston who summers in Colorado, towed his favorite 1987 Dodge Colt Vista station wagon back to Houston one year because it would have cost him more than twice as much to replace the engine in Colorado, he said.
Housing Is a Crucial Cost
"The real wages in Houston adjusted for cost-of-living differences are relatively high because cost of living is low," Smith said. "It's not just housing, but housing gets a lot of attention."
Many employees have become reluctant to relocate with the economy pointing toward recession and the housing market slumping. The need to stay put is especially strong in California, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada, where many homeowners can't unload their homes without taking a massive loss.
Some employers have beefed up relocation packages to make the move more feasible, in some cases covering the loss on a sale and helping spouses find jobs in the new location, said Margery Marshall, president of Vandover, a career management and relocation transition consultant in St. Louis.
"There's a general reluctance to move, not just because of the economy," Marshall said. "Today, there's also a reduced loyalty to the company. People say: 'Why move with the company when they don't care about us?'"
Staying Near Mom and Dad
But there are many other reasons for the reluctance. Baby boomers don't want to leave aging parents or pull teenagers out of school, and relocating is especially complicated for dual-income households, said Jane S. Howze, managing director of Alexander Group, a national executive search firm based in Houston with offices in New York, San Diego, and San Francisco.
Some employees who can move are finding that they can get a good deal on a house in markets that are crashing, especially in California or Nevada, she said. "But it gets kind of tricky if you can't get rid of one house in order to cash in on a downturn elsewhere," she said.
Companies have long offered temporary cost-of-living adjustments for employees who are transferred to more expensive cities. Employers do not, however, cut salaries for workers who are transferred to low-cost cities, so it's possible to improve your lifestyle hugely by simply getting a transfer (This phenomenon is magnified in developing countries where many expatriates, who lived modestly back home, can afford mansions, chauffeurs, and teams of servants).
Salaries Aren't City-Indexed
Kay Burd of Runzheimer International, a Rochester (Wis.) management consulting firm specializing in calculating cost-of-living and travel costs, said large companies like to pay what a job is worth rather than what it's worth in one specific city.
"What companies don't want to do -- if they're relocating people quite often -- is to inflate a salary because of cost of living," Burd said.
Al Blumenberg, manager of global relocation for St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, said many employers do provide cost-of-living adjustments but aren't responsible for an employee's lifestyle choices, which can change the cost equation.
"What you as a young person view as a lifestyle might be totally different in New York than it would be in St. Louis," Blumenberg said. "Companies don't try to address lifestyle. I can't tell you whether to live in a brownstone in Greenwich Village or out in Connecticut. That's a personal choice."
Lifestyle Adjustment
Colleen Ide was moved by her company from St. Louis to Orlando this month, and she's getting used to her new lifestyle. It's too early to tell whether the cost-of-living adjustment she received will cover her much higher utilities and real estate taxes.
A salesperson for 14 years, she was able to pick up a two-year-old house in Orlando for 30% less than it had sold for two years earlier, all because of Florida's weak real estate market.
"My new house is about the same size," said Ide, who used to live in four-bedroom custom house on five acres outside St. Louis. "But the neighbors are right on top of me. and there's a whole list of development rules and regulations I'm not used to."
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