The University’s Career Center will launch a new program next month to help seniors with their job searches, in response to sky-high unemployment rates for college graduates.

The new program will focus on resume writing, interview techniques and the transition from the college lifestyle to a workplace environment.

The program was created after the Career Center saw a spike in the number of seniors looking to the Career Center for advice, Ann Mills, assistant director of career learning and experience at the Career Center, said.

The unemployment rate for those with bachelor’s degrees or higher reached a staggering 5.1 percent last November – the highest since the 1970s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last year, recent college graduates ages 25 to 34 saw an unemployment rate increase from 4.8 percent in 2009, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Newer college graduates, from 20 to 24 years old, faced an 8.6 percent unemployment rate.

The new program offers seniors the opportunity to join a job search group that meets every other week from February through April. It is exclusively open to seniors – who can register through GWork – and has a cap of 25 students.

“The meetings will be highly interactive with exercises the students will use to help them improve their self-marketing and target their job searching efforts,” Mills said.

Employers and alumni will attend the last two meetings to offer a “real world” feature to the group, Mills added.

Senior Laura Suarez-Hewitt said the Career Center has helped her with her job searches throughout college.

“They helped me with my resume, especially back freshman year to get it together and make myself sound better,” Suarez-Hewitt said. “Other than that, they read my cover letters, gave me advice to on what to say in interviews, and it’s generally helpful.”