Tanya Marsh

With enrollment up and the economy down, college students are hunting all over Brookings for jobs.

Nancy Jo Popowski, an employment representative at the One-Stop Career Center on campus, said that she hasn’t yet seen the frustration of students unable to find jobs.

“It’s Sept. 20 and maybe the students are still finding that balance of studying and classes, seeing if they have time for a job. It might be too early to know if there are a lot of students [unable to find jobs],” she said.

Frustrated students do exist, however. Junior aviation student Greg Sauder said his job hunt has not proved fruitful yet.

“I’ve only applied two places, but I haven’t got a call back on either of them, even though they said they needed people,” Sauder said.

One of the businesses Sauder applied to was Video Update.

Store Manager Amy Liebing said the video rental store has been inundated with applications since classes started.

“I probably have about 200 applications,” she said. “I wish that I could hire everyone. I know it’s tough out there this year.”

Liebing said she sees many reasons the job market is rough on college students this year.

“I’d say increased enrollment is a factor, combined with layoffs from the factories. There’s decreased opportunities out there,” she said.

Still, opportunities do exist.

Popowski said, “You always have your [job openings] for servers, your hostesses, counter attenders. We do have some positions that require you’re in a certain major from customer service to Website development to clerical support.”

She added that there are openings for cooks, bartenders, and dishwashers, as well as short-term jobs associated with harvest time.

An option for some students is on-campus employment through work-study.

Junior Krystal Maras, an interior design major, is working in the Agricultural Engineering Department through the work-study program. She enjoys the flexible hours and the variety of duties at her job.

“I can come in whenever I want,” Maras said. “I’m working on a website right now, scanning pictures, filing things.”

Maras is looking for a second job right now, but has not met with success.

“I applied for a job at the city library and I didn’t get that,” she said. “I’m kind of avoiding waitressing.”

Maras used the Career and Academic Planning [CAP] center to find her current position and is using it again in her search for a second job.

Popowski encourages all students to take advantage of the services of the CAP Center, which is located in Medary Commons.

She said students can look at available jobs via the Internet, or stop by to pick up the job listings, which are updated daily.

“Just get registered with us,” she said.

Students who have not yet found a job should take heart; all the job opportunities in Brookings have not yet been filled.

Annette Zuiderhof, the personnel manager at Hy-Vee said Hy-Vee will still be hiring more employees. Wal-Mart personnel manager Jackie Weiss said the company will soon be hiring 10 to 15 Christmas-time employees.

“Sometimes you have to work a little harder to find that part-time job,” Popowski said.

“Students have more skills than they think. They may think they don’t have any skills, but when you look at their work history, you see, yeah, they do have these skills,” she said. “You’d hope that [the students] won’t get frustrated this early in the season, this early in the year.”