Friday, February 11, 2011

Conducting a survey of Coker Communication Grads

I have the privilege of being on Sabbatical this semester from my job at Coker College. For someone whose life is so wrapped up in the happenings of the college, this has not yet been as comfortable as you might imagine. But, as I hear a tidbit about a meeting or think about not having to lead an 8 a.m. class, it does get a bit more enjoyable.

One of the first projects of this sabbatical has been a survey of those who have majored or minored in Communication since I began teaching full time in 2000. We have a strong major but the number are not overwhelming. I have the survey on surveymonkey for computer response and in the first few days have had 22 grads.

One of the major areas of this survey is jobs. We are hoping that there will be some use for this data as we continue to move toward some outcome assessment of the major. My preliminary assessment is that more students than I hypothesized are in communication-related professions.

For this morning's blog, the question I am highlighting is how they found out about the job they are in. The answer, especially for someone like me who got my real professional beginnings in the newspaper business, is surprising. Not a single one of the first 22 people saw their current job in a newspaper classified ad. The times are not changing; they have changed.

1 comment:

  1. Times definitely have changed--you're absolutely right about that. In grad school we never once mentioned the thought of even glancing at newspaper classifieds for jobs; the main way we were told/discussed to find jobs was networking, whether in person, through social media or email. And honestly, after looking for work in NYC and other smaller metros, that really was the only way that I ever even got a call back, let alone an interview. The same is true for my current job; I'm over qualified for it, but honestly I probably wouldn't have gotten it if I didn't intern for the markcomm agency my company uses (thereby getting the job through referral). If I had to compare, I would say the closest thing to finding a job in the newspaper classifieds these days would be finding one on Craigslist, which is much more feasible and not a total crapshoot if you're in a larger city (like NYC).

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