She helps new grads find ‘great careers’

College can be rigorous and demanding, but finding a suitable job after graduation requires a whole new skill set. Seeing an opportunity, new companies are stepping in to help ease the transition.

Catie Ryan graduated from Elon University in North Carolina last spring with a desire to put her sports management degree to work. She found an internship at a nonprofit organization back home in Washington but was stuck in her quest for a job in her field.

Ande Murray, who graduated from the University of Southern California last year, thought her summer internship working for a company that produced equestrian events was going to lead to a full-time job. Shortly before graduation, she found out the company was moving from Los Angeles to New York.

Alex Ghaffari, who grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, headed west after graduating from Duke University in 2014 to seek a career in entertainment. He landed a position as a personal assistant to an actor. But when he wanted to move back to the New York area, he realized he was not sure what he wanted to do.

“I was all over the place in terms of my thinking,” he said.

After struggling with their job searches, Ryan, Murray and Ghaffari all sought the help of a company called Raising the Bar, which is run by Sandy Golinkin, the former publisher of Departures, Allure and Lucky magazines.

Golinkin promotes herself as a mix of ad hoc therapist, master networker, recruiter and job whisperer. She draws on her experience in publishing, where, she said, she hired more than 200 young adults.

“I managed them and coached them and brought them on to some really great careers,” she said. “I helped them realize their full potential.”

On the surface, college graduates have it good. The unemployment rate for adults 25 and older with a college degree dropped to 2.0 percent in May, compared with 3.9 percent for those in the same age group with a high school diploma and 5.4 percent for those who did not graduate from high school, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall unemployment was 3.8 percent in May, an 18-year low.

But what those statistics do not show is how workers feel about the quality of their jobs and whether the jobs are leading to a career. They also do not dip into the pressure graduates can feel to find a job that is meaningful.

Golinkin’s help in that regard does not come cheap: She charges $8,000 for 20 hours of sessions, or $400 an hour. But she stands by her process.

“Every moment I’m with my clients, I’m thinking about where they are and what makes them tick but also where they need to be more comfortable in talking about their strengths,” she said. “It’s helping people understand how to develop themselves as a brand. I’m there every step of the way.”

Part of Golinkin’s process is helping her clients figure out what they want to do.

After graduating from Trinity College in Hartford, Will Fox moved to Brooklyn and began working at a technology startup. Golinkin helped him find that job but stayed in contact. After a few years, he began to get a better sense of what really inspired him, and Golinkin helped him think it through.

“Part of what she does is ask the questions: Where have you been that really excited you?” Fox’s mother, Libby Delana, said. “What she does is she asks really gentle yet probing questions to try to elicit good answers and to get really excited.”