Career Services to Alumni: 'For the Love of God, Please Hire Our Graduates'

We've been talking lately about career services officers who don't seem to know, or just plain deny, that it's their job to find jobs for law students. Apparently one career services official has taken our words of wisdom to heart. At least this guy is trying to find jobs for graduates....

We’ve been talking lately about career services officers who don’t seem to know, or just plain deny, that it’s their job to find jobs for law students. Guess what? You might not like it, but that’s the job that you signed up for. You have to find jobs for these people. We don’t really care how you do it (and you probably don’t, either), but you have to do it.

Apparently one career services official has taken our words of wisdom to heart. At least this guy is trying to find jobs for graduates.

Alas, his efforts made us realize how sad it is when a law school that claims to have a 92% employment rate nine months after graduation literally has to beg its alumni to employ recent graduates….

The school we’re talking about is Penn State University Dickinson School of Law. A tipster forwarded to us an email that he received from the law school’s Assistant Dean for Career Planning & Development:

Yes, it’s great that Penn State Law is trying to find employment opportunities for the Class of 2011. It’s even greater that the Assistant Dean for Career Planning & Development is making a conscientious effort to do his job.

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What’s not so great is that the school is seeking out temporary employment for its graduates. Yeah, yeah, we know: a job is a job. But in the eyes of a law school, a job is especially a job when it allows administrators to claim that a graduate was employed nine months after graduation so the school can get a guest spot on Pimp My Employment Statistics.

And if that job is over at the end of February?

Recall that back in July, after the New York Times eviscerated the broken law school business model, Penn State Law was bragging about the fact that it had “decreas[ed] its 1L enrollment by approximately 20 percent in order to maintain high academic standards and help ensure appropriate placement opportunities for Penn State Law students upon graduation.”

Some members of the Class of 2011 probably wish Penn State Law had done them the same “favor” right about now.

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But hey, as our tipster noted, at least “some law schools are trying to get their graduates hired…”