Young Professionals?

Ok - I'll admit it! I am a boomer (mind you on the very back end but still there ). I read a great article today about engaging younger members at meetings and was wondering if this is an area that we should be exploring?

Do we need to have a group for young professionals to network and engage at the meeting? How should such a thing or area be set up? Should we have a forum for young professionals? Is it different for Career Services and Recruiters?

Wow, I am full of questions....anybody want to comment?

Exploding Offers: Here They Come Again

Less than a week ago I wrote that there have been exploding offers this year and will be more but there won't be as many as there were in the 2001-03 recession. An exploding offer is a job offer which an employer makes to a candidate, which the candidate accepts, and which the employer later rescinds usually because of changing economic conditions.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal included an article about how a year ago law firms were falling all over each other to recruit and retain entry level lawyers for their summer associate programs (sort of like internship programs) and as first year associates (entry level lawyers). Now some of those same law firms are cutting back:

• Some law firms like New York-based, 800 attorney Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP shrunk the duration of their summer associate program from 12 to 10 weeks. That effectively cuts the pay of their summer associates / interns by almost 17 percent.
• Other law firms are delaying the start date of some of their first year associates. In addition to Pillsbury cutting its summer associate program, it is also delaying the start date of its first year associates.
• Chicago-based, 700 lawyer Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP is taking an even harsher approach. It admits to exploding the offers for two summer associates and two first year associates who had accepted offers to work at its Charlotte, North Carolina office.

Exploding offers are not confined to law firms. Over the next couple of months we'll see many more examples emerging from employers large and small, public and private, urban and rural.

I get why these employers believe that they should not pay money to employees whose work is not needed. But what I hope that all employers get is that their long-term viability depends upon these interns and entry level hires for college recruiting is strategic and without college hires entering the employment ranks, an organization is doomed to a lack of managerial and executive talent within a decade. If the organization manages to survive it will need the success of some very highly paid headhunters to acquire the talent that the organization could have brought on board at much less expensive rates through its college recruiting program.

It will be interesting to hear from the experts in New Orleans about this issue. When potential presenters were submitting their proposals last summer, the economy was humming and exploding offers were about the furthest thing from anyone's mind. Today though, the situation is quite different as virtually all lay people and many economists believe that we're in a recession and with recessions come exploding offers. I suspect that the The 2008 NACE Graduating Student Survey: Student Perceptions and Approaches to the Current Job Market session will be quite informative on this topic. I'll be in the audience. Will you?