According to an article by monsterTRAK, a division of online job-hunt giant Monster, 72 percent of employers are planning to hire 2006 graduates, up from 67 percent last year. The information comes from a nationwide survey of employers, college students and recent graduates.

Bette Scott, director of OU Career Services, said this year's higher percentage of job opportunities is not surprising.

"It's all based on the economy and job market," Scott said. "The job market has been increasing over the past three years, and right now, the economy looks pretty good. We're slowly recovering from 9/11 and the dot-com crash around 2001."

Several OU students who graduated in 2006 were included in the percentile of having good job opportunities, but some said it still wasn't easy.

While a student at OU, Kimberly Kottler, international business and marketing alumna, used Career Services to help her land a job.

"Career Services are helpful, but a lot (of) students do it, so you have to do some stuff on your own," said Kottler.. "I do think they (Career Services) are better for some majors as opposed to others."

Kottler said the path to finding a job was rough.

"The job search was discouraging at first," Kottler said. "You get excited about the interview, but then you constantly get shot down. It's hard after a while."

Kottler said she tried to keep an open mind that she would find a job that was suitable for her.

"I read a book that said if you didn't receive a job, in essence, they were doing you a favor because you would be more happy doing something else," Kottler said. "I kept that in mind throughout."

After several interviews with different companies, Kottler and Career Services were able to set up an interview after which she was finally hired.

"Actually, the weekend I found out I had a job, I had just been declined for another job," Kottler said.

She will be moving from her hometown of Tulsa to North Carolina to do sales for Cisco Systems on Aug. 1.

After graduating with an advertising degree from OU, Allison Debs also had difficulty finding a job.

"I had my heart set on the fact that I wanted to start my career right away in advertising," Debs said. "I searched and searched for a month and a half."

Debs said while there were job opportunities in Dallas, they either weren't close to her home or would not pay sufficiently well.

"More and more likely I was going to get a job in advertising, but the problem was finding something that was going to pay me enough to make me anything after paying tolls and gas," Debs said.

She accepted a job close to home at the Ben E. Keith Company as an office manager, but she said it's not the job she wants in the long run.

"It's not in my career field, so it's kind of a sacrifice I have to make to avoid the commute," Debs said. "Everything is close by, and all is convenient and great, but it's not something I want to do with the rest of my life."

Though some graduates have difficulty with finding a job, Matt King, mechanical engineering alumnus, was guaranteed a job because of his past internships.

"I kind of leapt into the opportunity," King said about his job. "My sophomore year of college, my school sent out letters encouraging internships."

King received an internship at the Boeing Company in Houston and worked there as a logistics and maintenance engineer for the International Space Station every summer.

"My job is doing the exact same thing as I have every summer," King said. "I like it down here. I've always been in school, so it's a little strange, but the job is pretty nice."

Students throughout the school year can sign up with Career Services to help find a job or internship.
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