Job upgrade tough for underemployed grads

Katie Hennes' dream had been to become a Spanish teacher after college, not take the job she did as a receptionist/translator in a county food stamps office.

But like many in what's being called Generation R, Hennes, a 2010 grad of St. Joseph's College, took on a survival job. Generation R, for Generation Recession, refers to those who graduated into the recession's dismal job market.

"I worked at the front window. I was the first person people saw and yelled at," said Hennes, 23, of Lake Grove, who later left that job for a fill-in high school Spanish teacher position, which lasted only a few months.

As the economy and entry-level job market picks up, hiring experts say these underemployed professionals have special issues to address when looking to upgrade, one being to put a positive spin on that detour job, be it cashiering, stocking shelves, waiting tables, answering phones.

They need to see that "R" as standing for resilience, says Kathy Kane, senior vice president of talent management at Melville-based Adecco Group North America, whose U.S. division commissioned research on how 2006-2010 grads fared careerwise. Employers want to hear how young professionals made the most of an adverse situation and what learning they took away from it, she says.

Last month's telephone survey of 503 graduates nationwide, ages 22 to 26, found:

57 percent working full-time

43 percent of full-timers in jobs not requiring a college degree

18 percent of full-timers in fields outside their majors.

Close to 30 percent said that within six months of graduating they had taken part-time jobs, and 19 percent took temporary assignments.

Caitlyn Pace, a 2010 finance graduate of the University of Scranton, has done both, having just signed on for a 5 1/2- month administrative assignment with a financial services firm in Edgewood, where she says she's "learning what it is to be in the corporate world, how people interact." Up until March, Pace, 23, of Merrick, had been baby-sitting and doing part-time administrative work.

Hennes, who is doing substitute teaching and job hunting, says she's grateful for that receptionist job, because it taught her how to deal with people who are frustrated, a skill she can carry over into the classroom.

She says she learned to respond to patrons by letting them vent and reminding them, "Sir, I'm here to help you."