Coming Home To Work A Possibility Though Opportunities Are Few, Grads Can Find The Jobs They Want, Where They Want

Although opportunities for college graduates in North Idaho are few and far between, some dream jobs do exist.

Jennifer Moore moved back to Coeur d’Alene when she got tired of Seattle’s rain. She prefers her water in lake form.

She worked in Portland and Seattle for almost 2-1/2 years after graduating from the University of Idaho, then tired of big city life and decided she was ready for North Idaho.

“I really missed it over here,” she said. Originally from Bonners Ferry, Moore lived in Coeur d’Alene for four years before she went to college.

The Coeur d’Alene job market is small for recent college graduates who return to look for work, but Moore and 1999 Gonzaga University graduate Sheila Stone did land jobs they like in Coeur d’Alene.

This article is part of a series about North Idaho natives returning to the area after college to look for jobs. Neither Moore nor Stone felt she was taking a pay cut to stay in North Idaho, and both women are doing what they had hoped to do.

Moore got her degree in public relations in 1996 and quickly landed a promotional job working for a professional women’s basketball team in Portland.

“I knew I wanted to try a city and Portland was pretty manageable,” she said.

Her job was less-than-challenging, she said, and she moved to Seattle nine months later, where she worked as a recruiter for the Art Institute of Seattle.

“I got interviews right away,” she said of her job search there. She liked her new job but eventually decided to leave Seattle.

Moore moved back to Coeur d’Alene in January. She wasn’t even looking for a full-time job when a recruiting position opened up in Coeur d’Alene’s University of Idaho office.

Her new job as the Assistant Director of New Student Services for the Coeur d’Alene Area pays more than what she was getting in Seattle. She starts next week.

“I’m totally thrilled,” she said.

Sheila Stone got the job she loves at Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d’Alene by reading the classified ads.

When she went back to school in her late 30’s, Stone, a North Idaho native, said she was determined to get a job in the Coeur d’Alene area.

She has been a faithful reader of the employment section of the classified ads for three years.

“I knew I wanted to teach because I just like teaching,” she said.

Her degree trained her to teach special education, and she wanted to work in the private sector. When Kootenai Medical Center started advertising for help in its new Behavioral Health Institute, she applied and got the job. She started working a month before she officially graduated from Gonzaga.

“My philosophy is, if you want to work, you can find a job,” she said.