Employment experts expect that graduate students coming into the workforce may not face difficulty in landing a job, but in landing a job suited to their degree.

“It depends on (their) field, but this year it’s going to be pretty tough all over (for students with graduate degrees),” said Phil Gardner, director at MSU’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute, or CERI.

According to a CERI report on the Michigan college labor market for 2006, an average of 5.89 master’s degree holders were hired by the nearly 900 companies surveyed nationally – 115 of which were located in Michigan. The same companies hired an average of 24.96 graduates with a bachelor’s degrees.

Graduates with a doctoral degree face a situation in which there are more candidates than jobs available, said Matt Helm, graduate career consultant of the Graduate School.

“There are way more Ph.Ds now than have been produced for decades,” Helm said.

On top of this, he said there is a glut of baby boomers in the academic field who have held onto their job because of an uncertain economy.

When baby boomers retire, it will open the door for doctoral students, but that could take years, he said.

Nevertheless, graduates with doctoral degrees fare better than those with a master’s. In 2006, the same employers included in the CERI report hired an average of eight candidates with either a doctoral or professional degree.

Teager is looking to land a teaching position at a community college. However, Teager said he is nervous about his prospects.

Lauren Bailey, a wildlife ecology master’s degree holder, said she can relate.

Though she landed a job with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Bailey said the position is only temporary until she can find something more in line with what she wants to pursue. And she is not alone.

“There are a lot of people in my position, they’ll take something that looks good because getting a full-time job somewhere is getting increasingly difficult,” she said.

Increased competition makes the job hunt more difficult, she said.

“Just because you have more people getting more advanced degrees doesn’t mean that there are more jobs,” Bailey said.

“It’s more competitive. A job that 20 years ago you need a high school education to get, you now have masters and Ph.Ds fighting for. The educational ante has been upped, so to speak.”

Simply having a graduate degree in some cases won’t be enough, Gardner said. Getting hired is largely dependent upon the demands of the market and the applicant’s field of study.

“If you’re in humanities, you’re going to have a tougher time than someone in business or engineering,” he said.

George Erickcek, an analyst for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, echoed Gardner’s assessment.

For those looking for a job in Michigan, Erickcek said jobs related to boom markets like medical care and finance would be ideal.

While doctoral students are trained to enter the academic field, graduates will have more success in their job search by broadening their scope to other fields, such as scientific research, Erickcek said.

“What you have to do is you have to help them focus on what their mission and scope for these jobs is,” he said.

Teager said although he hopes to get a job related to his major, he’s prepared to take a job outside of the teaching field and continue his search.

While Teager isn’t pessimistic about his prospects, it’s important for graduate students going into academics to have a clear head, he said.

“The academic track is not as prestigious as people might think,” Teager said. “There’s a profound misconception of how it is.”