My two cents on teaching (I'm not an expert, but know a lot as it is my fiance's desired profession):

Co-sign with Dee, I've heard it's hard for teachers everywhere. Fiance graduated with a history & secondary education degree. I'm not sure of the amount of applications he's done but it's been a lot. Anyways, he only had one interview, but he did not get an offer there.

He's applied to jobs in state and out of state, as far as Louisiana. We were both willing and able to relocate if he got a teaching job in another state, but even then, he still couldn't find anything. So I'd stay it's still difficult even though we were willing to go where there were jobs.

Also, in his major (specifically history & secondary ed., not just one or the other) there were 40 graduates this year. Last thing I heard from him was that 3 of those 40 had teaching jobs and 2 were out of the country.

I'm very thankful that he was able to find a job in education (although not at a high school) that can offer him almost full time hours and fairly good pay. And because it's only 30 hours per week he still has time to take classes to get his science endorsements, which he will be done with by next spring.

LVTs are way underpaid. IMO.

Yeah I'm up for going wherever the job is, no matter how far. I figure I might as well before I get married and have strong ties to the community. It's a good time to expand my horizons...well in a year and a half.

That's been the experience of my friends, too, so I don't see any point in assuming I can't get a job.


That's not been the experience my friends had...I don't personally know that many people who have graduated this year (from the same program I will be attending) but I do know around 15 of them and I know at least 10 are employed as middle or high school teachers currently, and only one of those had to go somewhere farther than a state away. Of course I don't know how many schools they applied to, but hey, they're working. A few other friends from high school were hired as teachers last year at various locations, some out of state and some in. There is only one math and one special ed teacher out of that bunch. I know one is not employed as a teacher, but she told me she wasn't looking any farther than 30 minutes from where she and her husband live because he badly wants to keep the job he currently has. It must just depend on the situation.

This thread reminds me of a few years ago when I asked my cousin why she wanted to be a nurse all of a sudden. She said, "It's guaranteed job security and they're always hiring."

Fastforward to 2010.....

AFAIK it's still that way in a lot of areas.

^^^Not over here (and she's not able to relocate). There was just a thing on the news about how the older nurses can't afford to retire so the newly graduated nurses are coming out of school to find no jobs are opening up. Several recent grads interviewed said the same thing: I thought it was a guaranteed job so I went to school for this and there's nothing.

I had a guy one time try to shove nursing/healthcare down my throat and said "you'll be in it someday." I think I nicely responded that would be a cold day in hell. Just not my thing.

It's not that medical professionals aren't needed, it's that they may be hiring LPNs (or whatever that designation is called) instead of RNs, or they may have to look other places for a job (such as being a home health aide).

I know I am one of the very lucky few who did find a job right out of college, however unrelated to my degree. I have many many friends who graduated last year (09) and are still looking for jobs or have part-time "high school" jobs. I just graduated in May and was hired two weeks after. With a Bachelor's in English, I am working at a daycare, where I was told it was a big deal to have a B.A... And yes, I am living with my parents and making just a little above minimum wage. But I love my job; If I didn't want to work there, I wouldn't have applied, right? I can only hope for the best for everyone else :-/

There was an extreme nursing shortage prior to the recession. I read an article recently that the nursing shortage is over because so many people who have been displaced in other careers have gone into nursing. I know that in Michigan there were special accelerated classes for auto workers who wanted to become nurses.

I suspect that at least some of the people who turned to nursing in a pinch will leave it if things get better and other jobs become more available. It's definitely not for everybody. Having worked in health care, nursing is one area I know I could never do.

I see a lot of nursing jobs posted here still, but they are all for RNs (at least, some are higher level) and they all involve starting back at the low end of the totem pole and working the "worst" shifts with the most on call, etc. Those are probably the hardest to fill as few people want to regain seniority all over again, and you can't get your RN as fast as you can get your LPN.

But I couldn't tell you if there are fewer or more of the jobs posted now than there were before, or if what is posted now is just hiring to replace.

No. I am not a recruiter in my company- they have won a lot of contracts and in looking at our open job postings, they are on a big hiring push. Thousands per Quarter. Sometimes it really is who you know who can get you in the door. It's all up to the person being interviewed once they do get a call, but sometimes it's just nice to be introduced to an opportunity.

I just wanted to share that I FINALLY got a job! I posted a very angry/frustrated post a few months ago about my job search and I'm so glad all the work finally paid off. I graduated in May and everything was complicated by the fact that I ended up moving after graduation to an area of the country where I really had no contacts or people to network with. The job I just accepted is great, though - just the kind of thing I was looking for at the place I most wanted to work in my new city. I didn't have any connections there so networking didn't really help me, but the support I got from everyone in my last job (both in terms of references and "you can do it!" speeches) was so important over the last 6+ months. I hope this isn't salt in the wound of anybody still searching, I'm just so excited that after a really long, emotional job search it finally worked out for one Gen Y-er!