Budgets and Hiring

On top of all the bad news about state budgets, the recent release of a report by Moody’s Investors Service on the financial health of private colleges and universities whose bonds it rates adds still more budgetary gloom to the new hiring season.

Private institutions face multiple challenges in the current economy. Problems with student lending, shrinking endowments, financial disruptions in families with children in college, and credit scarcity all make meeting enrollment targets and managing budgets even more difficult than usual, particularly at the great majority of private institutions that are tuition driven.

All those developments are bad news for job seekers. Colleges and universities are already canceling searches and, in some cases, laying off faculty members. Renewals of existing positions and allocations of new ones will certainly receive extra institutional scrutiny this year.

In such a market, the candidates who will have the best chance of succeeding in their searches will need to be flexible, creative, and professional. I hope that hiring institutions will be the same.