ADA, Ohio — "Three months out is a little early to know, but I understand with COVID and what's going on, it's important to kind of see where we’re at,” said Andrew Domachowski, about the Class of 2020 job rate.

Domachowski is the director of career services at Ohio Northern University. She’s in charge of gauging how many of the school's graduates are finding employment — especially right now.

What You Need To Know

  • The Class of 2020 entered the job market during a record 14.7 percent unemployment rate and 25.7 percent for ages 20-24

  • Ohio Northern University is collecting the job placement rate and they have preliminary numbers

  • 70 percent of ONU students have responded and 62 percent have found jobs. The typical rate is 98 percent

“We have about a 70 percent response rate and right now we’re at about a 62 percent placement rate," she said.

When they graduated in May, the Class of 2020 was entering one of the worst job markets on record. The national unemployment rate was at 14.7 percent, and, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate was at 25.7 percent for those ages 20 to 24.

“Because they’ve had an unusual year, we’ve done some other things above and beyond. We’ve done phone calls to our graduates, we’ve also reached out via emails, texts, social media, to find out where they’re at and what they’re doing,” said Domachowski.

Ashley Competti is a 2020 ONU graduate. She accepted a position back in February as a registered nurse for OhioHealth, but even she is being impacted by COVID-19.

“So my start date was initially supposed to be in June. However, due to the pandemic, there was a couple hiring freezes, so it was delayed until the beginning of August,” said Competti.

Competti says while a lot of her nursing classmates have been able to find jobs, it’s been more of a struggle for those in other fields.

“A lot of people that my friends who haven’t been able to find jobs, they were actually in the process for interviewing for the jobs and they said those positions were no longer available due to coronavirus, and basically everyone was kind of on a hiring freeze.”

This is why Domachowski believes this year's job rate will rise eventually.

“With where we’ve been at Ohio Northern University, in the past, our placement rate was at close to a 97, 98 percent every year. I don’t feel we’re going to have a lot of problems reaching that this year. It’s just going to take us a little bit more time.”

And as for her advice to those still job hunting — 

“If they’re having a little problem finding that job, that dream job, they need to broaden the area they’re looking in, in terms of geographic location, they have to broaden the types of opportunities they’re looking for."