With a slight drop in national unemployment, local job services and the Career Center on campus are better helping Bowling Green citizens and University students pursue careers.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national unemployment rate has fallen to 8.3 percent, the lowest the rate has been in three years.

Pam Fahley, branch manager for the Bowling Green Adecco employment services, has seen an improvement in the job market in the past year.

Adecco’s purpose is to help employers find employees in the industrial and clerical fields, Fahley said.

Adecco is also a temporary employment agency where people can come to work for 90 days.

“If they do a good job, what we’re finding is the [employers] are hiring them.”

This improvement has allowed employers to be more selective in whom they hire.

“The employers are being very particular … in the jobs that they want,” Fahley said.

These companies are looking for someone who works hard and shows up on time, she said. They also want someone who has experience doing the desired job and who also has a clean background.

Adecco occasionally works with students for the University, mainly athletes in the summer, Fahley said.

“Sometimes what’s hard is for employers to work with students’ schedules but we do try very hard,” she said.

Most students from the University, however, seek assistance from the Career Center to find internships, co-ops and jobs.

The Career Center, located in room 318 of the Math and Science Building, also helps students build resumes, practice with interviews and research companies, said Annette Marie Badik, the Career Center director.

“Anything we can do to help students prepare to obtain work, we will do that,” she said.

Badik said she sees more job opportunities in terms of jobs being posted but said that a lot of it has to do with the particular student.

“It’s so much about what the student will do for themselves while they’re here,” she said.

While grades are important, there are also other things students should do to make themselves marketable to employers, she said. This includes studying abroad, volunteering, interning, participating in campus organizations and learning a second language.

Badik stressed the importance of doing co-ops and internships.

“[Employers] get to see the student’s work, their abilities, their skills, their knowledge,” she said. “[Internships] will help them be more competitive in an already competitive market.”

Companies are aware that many older employees will be retiring, so they want to recruit people early so they can grow, Badik said.

“Companies are already looking down the road,” she said. “They want talented people as soon as they can get them.”

Senior Josh Simmons, a musical composition major, plans to go to graduate school immediately and hopes to one day teach at a university. He plans to move out to California because with the higher population density, that is where he thinks he will have the best chance finding a job.

“I’m just hoping to get out there, do the grad school thing, hoping to do the doctorate and then just hunt job postings,” he said.

Simmons doesn’t see the unemployment rate as having too much of an effect on him in his chosen field.

“I’m already worried about finding a job regardless of what unemployment is,” he said. “If you want a job teaching, you have to go where the job is,” he said.

Thousands of students use the Career Center to find exactly this information, Badik said.

“Once students come here, they keep coming back,” she said. “Students don’t have to search for jobs alone.”

The center helps all students and even offers a four-year-plan to freshmen, she said.

“We really help students every step of the way … so they can successfully obtain their career goals,” she said.