I heard several reports (here is the NBC version) over the last week or two claiming that only 25% of college graduates had a job lined up by graduation. This bothered me. So I dug a bit deeper, looked past the headline and found that this statistic was based on a Monster.com survey of 350 soon-to-be graduates. We need to be a little skeptical of surveys, but even if the survey is off by a factor of 100%, and half of all graduates had no job by graduation, the number is still puzzling given that unemployment has been so low.

Why are graduates having a hard time landing that job (before they graduate?) Back in my day (the dark ages), recruiters came to campus in the fall and most folks had a job in the bag by spring break! Today, the national on-campus recruiting seems to be limited to higher tech/higher skilled industries. According to reports in the NPR series “the Divided Decade,” recruiting for teachers, health care workers, energy-related industries and some finance fields is still widespread. Students not in those fields, particularly those in liberal arts, should be looking hard and casting a wide net for their job search on their own. One theory posited is that students are too busy with school and possibly work to add an intensive job search to their load while still in school.

I also wonder if colleges and universities are set up to support students adequately in this new age of widely distributed/diverse job searches. They probably support them with resume writing workshops and interview skills, but effectively looking for and pursuing jobs in the digital age is world’s different from the days when you would mail a cover letter and your resume to tons of large employers. Are they providing adequate support for creating a student’s digital image to present to potential employers, or how to conduct an effective digital job search? How would Joe in Ohio even know about the perfect job waiting for him in a small start-up in Arizona? Would he even think to consider jobs in remote locations, much less know how to look for them? Another possible issue is that the students have trouble figuring out what sort of job they actually want. Maybe I am not giving college grads enough credit, but I imagine it can be overwhelming.

Another issue raised in these articles is how student debt may be impacting graduates’ actions, given that outstanding student debt has doubled over the last decade. Are they moving home and looking for work near home so that they can remain at home to save money and manage their impending loan payments? Is this one of the reasons why there is a mismatch geographically between job openings and qualified employees? Or are some students just unwilling to consider moving to some of these places?

We have mentioned supply and demand, so let’s look at recent jobs numbers. Despite the seemingly strong economy, job growth in the first four months of 2018 showed the lowest (seasonally adjusted) growth since 2010. But consistently low unemployment suggests that new graduates (and other new entrants) will have less competition than in the past to fill these jobs from previously displaced workers. It may take some time, but there should be enough job creation to absorb the graduates. This brings me back to the mismatch explanation.  There is a mismatch geographically, there is a mismatch of skills, and job search and employee search channels are not aligning effectively to ameliorate the situation.

What can we do as educators to help our students? When we talk about careers, maybe we can help them match their strengths and preferences to specific jobs. The NGPF Create a Career Roadmap, based on the Tedx Talk video How to Find and do the You Love, will help your students do exactly that. The entire NGPF Careers unit has lots of other helpful resources as well.  

My own kids benefited tremendously from a high school sponsored internship program. It helped them figure out what they wanted to do (and didn’t want to do) before heading off to college. The school found the first semester internships for each student, but the students had to find the second semester internship on their own….a valuable task itself!

Maybe we should also encourage our students to be open to moving to places they might not have considered in order to gain employment and experience. Remind them that it doesn’t have to be forever….

For the record:

What jobs are the most popular among college grads? LinkedIn published a list of the top jobs in 2016-17 and what each job earns (I’ve listed the top eight). This LinkedIn blog post goes further to explain which majors would make sense for which jobs, and which soft skills are the most important as well. (US News published their own list of hot jobs.)

• Software Engineer ($92,300)
• Investment Banking Analyst ($85,000)
• Marketing Coordinator ($45,000)
• Graphic Designer ($45,000)
• Assistant Media Planner ($58,000)
• Account Executive ($60,000)
• Business Analyst ($70,000)
• Recruiter ($48,000)

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