Career Services Director Bill Currin said he remembered the times when Teach For America recruiters would draw only a handful of students to meetings on campus. The latest meeting offered standing room only. Currin and others have said this is an example of a growing number of graduating seniors looking for careers, or at least first jobs, with service organizations rather than traditional businesses.

At the first deadline for applications last year, seven university students had applied to the Teach For America program. This year there were 21.

Currin and others believe that the surge in applications to this and other service organizations is connected to the tough job market many seniors will face at the end of this year.

“Because the job market is so tight and competition for graduate schools is so intense, students are saying, ‘I’ll do something else worthwhile for a few years,” he said.

Many of these students are also turning to groups like the Peace Corps. Peace Corps official Sarah Johnston said applications to the organization are up 30 percent since last year. She said one reason might be a change in the recruiting presences of organizations on campuses.

“The businesses Peace Corps was competing with are not coming to campuses as much now,” she said. She added, however, that Peace Corps hasn’t ever directly competed with corporate entities, but the lack of business recruiting presence on campuses has made service organization recruiters more visible.

Melissa Casey, Atlantic Coast Recruiter for Teach For America, also thinks recruiting strategy has been key to the nearly 180 percent increase her group has seen in applications this year.
She said the strategies have been refined by recruiters “really listening to what motivates applicants.”

Casey believes this is as important as any of the other forces causing the increase. She said career uncertainty is one factor, but the grim job prospects for soon-to-be grads “falls very short of actually explaining the increases we’ve seen.”

Johnston also acknowledges that the tough job market contributes to the rise in interest, but cited other factors as well.

“One reason is the tougher job market,” she said. “I think there has also been a response for promoting world peace and friendship over the last year.”

Johnston and Currin both said that the events of Sept. 11 have opened many students’ eyes to the world and perhaps drawn in students who wouldn’t have otherwise considered service work of this kind.

But Currin added that he began to see a slight increase in the popularity of post-graduate service opportunities even before Sept. 11 or the downturn in the economy. He said it is too early to tell if the increase in interest will continue, or to attach one reason to it. But he is sure of one thing.

“It’s exciting to see.”

A changing field
Senior Iana DeSouza, a campus recruiting coordinator for Teach For America said the growing applicant pool is good for the organization, but has made it tougher to become a part of.
“Our requirements have become a little bit more strict,” she said. “Because the pool has become larger, the requirements to get in are more strictly upheld.”

DeSouza said the requirements themselves haven’t changed, just since there are more and more qualified applicants that selection is becoming more critical.

Another potential effect of the the surge in applications to groups such as Teach For America and the Peace Corps is a change in the kind of applicant. Jennifer DiBella, a recruitment coordinator for the Peace Corps, said the organization still draws most of its applicants from a liberal arts background. But she said students are now coming to the organization out of other disciplines.

“We are seeing students with a computer or IT background,” she said. “That is sort of new.”

DeSouza said Teach For America is also seeing a slight change in its applicants as they become more numerous. Large numbers of math and science oriented students are now applying.

“Many non-education majors are applying now,” she said.

Staying the course
DiBella and DeSouza agreed that the changes they see among applicants will not change the goals of the organizations. In fact, they see a diversified applicant base as an asset.

DiBella said she is also seeing an increase in political diversity among applicants. The non-partisan Peace Corps has always had a strong connection to the Democratic party, but the president’s recent support has helped bring a number of Republican applicants on board.

They also stressed that the correlation between the tough job market and an increase in interest shouldn’t suggest that either organization wants to be a last resort for graduates. Quite often, they say, the tough job market is just one reason for students to apply to the groups they have always been interested in anyway.

“We’re also getting the students who have that inclination but in normal years wouldn’t follow that inclination,” Currin said.
Unemployed or unfulfilled?

Since the Peace Corps also draws from groups other than recent college graduates, the difficult economy has brought many people out of the woodwork.

“I think a lot of people signed up for these jobs and found themselves bored or unfulfilled,” she said of people who wanted to do service work but entered more traditional career markets after college.

“We’re also finding people who’ve been laid off who are thinking of going back to a dream that they’ve had.”

Here at the university, Currin said students being interested in service isn’t a foreign concept.

“I’m not really surprised by it,” he said. “We’ve always had students interested in public service and non-profit groups.”

The university was recognized for its outstanding contributions to the Peace Corps last year and the organization lists the university in its Top 10 feeder schools among small colleges and universities.