BY JUDY LIN-EFTEKHAR
UCLA Today Staff

For this year's crop of Bruin graduates, the search for a job is taking longer and proving less lucrative than the previous year, say campus career assistance experts. Still, they insist, opportunities are abundant -- with a little extra effort.

"The economy softened dramatically, we saw a real demise in the dot-com industry, and the tragic events of Sept. 11 certainly have all had implications for the workforce," said Kathy Sims, director of the UCLA Career Center, which helps undergraduate and graduate students find employment. "But for the entry-level college marketplace, the impact has been less dramatic at UCLA than at other college campuses," she said, noting that previously, the college graduate job market in Los Angeles was at a very "high plateau."

Still, Sims said, salaries in most industries have flattened -- including the fields of electrical engineering and computer science, where salaries previously soared. Signing bonuses, which had been a mainstay in technical and financial service industries, have all but disappeared. "But the signing bonus is alive and well for graduate-level candidates and Ph.D.s going into nonacademic positions."

While employers are taking their time making offers, students are receiving fewer offers: Whereas last year the average student may have had five to seven offers to choose from, this year he or she has one to three, Sims said.

Hardest hit has been the management consulting industry, which in recent years recruited heavily at UCLA. This downturn has led to new directions for M.B.A. graduates at The Anderson School, said Alysa Polkes, director of the school's Career Management Center.

"Many students who might have planned a career in management consulting are now finding terrific positions in marketing, strategic planning or general management," Polkes said. "While this is a step away from what they initially thought they might be doing when they graduated, it will still enable them to continue to keep their portfolio skills vibrant."

In the aftermath of the Enron collapse and its repercussions for accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP, many students who had been offered jobs by Andersen months ago have seen those rescinded. But, Sims noted: "We are finding that some of the other Big Four audit firms are snatching these candidates up."

In terms of recruiters, the UCLA Career Center is still seeing them come in, although their numbers are slightly down, as are job postings on the center's Web site. But jobs are still abundant, Sims insisted. "UCLA has a great product in its students," she said. "Employers across the board are always going to have an interest."

One bright spot is that more graduates are moving into the nonprofit and government sectors, from education to defense contractors. A recent visit by the Los Angeles Unified School District drew strong interest. "Many students who perhaps never considered jobs in these fields are now saying, 'Wow, there are some great opportunities,' " Sims said.

Job-seeking Bruins, both Sims and Polkes noted, are exhibiting greater initiative, participating in everything from job fairs to Anderson's "Success Now" groups in which eight students meet weekly to support each other's job-prospecting efforts.

"What this gives them is accountability," said Polkes. "Every week they've got seven other people who could point the finger and say, 'Last week you said you were going to send out all these résumés. What happened?' "