climate modeling (usually) = meteorology
Which isn’t a huge major nationally (and students who get a degree in it often don’t do it undergrad, just graduate-level, usually a masters), and it often doesn’t go by that name, but it isn’t precisely what I’d call tiny.
How many math kids work for multi-national pulp and paper companies working on forest management strategies with their sustainability teams? How many math kids work for the FBI, CIA, NSA, Interpol(a LOT actually) on everything from Cybercrime to money laundering? How many math kids work at shipping companies, trucking companies, etc?
What’s your point here? I get it. Finance pays more than logistics. And nobody wants their kid in a civil service job (even if it’s the CIA) after college when the kid across the street just bought their parents a summer house in the Hamptons with his bonus from DE Shaw. But there really are more careers out there. And some of them REALLY interesting, and less subject to the ups and downs of the market (both the “markets” and the labor market). Even the high speed trading folks understand that they’ll be replaced by something better and faster at some point.
My point is that all these other sources of jobs are very small. I am not talking about the pay.
Seismology – you need a masters or a PhD in seismology.
And here is the FBI story. Google thinks it is a 100 jobs a year. We have 25k new grads.
People go where there are jobs. I am sure teaching has the potential to be the largest employer. All these other jobs sound as if they are plenty. They are not. Again, I am not talking about the pay.
Finance is not a huge employer, but it is likely not a small employer in all its flavors – insurance, credit cards, trading, risk management, asset management etc.
And here is Google’s opinion on the matter:
Those numbers sound reasonable/ plausible.
For new/recent grads, sometimes one just happens upon a career/profession. Sometimes people don’t have multiple job offers to select from…they just have one. And they take that offer because they have bills to pay if they’re not going back to living with their family. And sometimes it is perfectly aligned with what they thought they wanted to do and sometimes it’s only very peripherally. But through that peripheral experience they gain more specialized expertise that can then be leveraged in fields where there may be smaller numbers of positions overall, but because they already have related experience, they’ve already got a foot in the door.
All to say, keeping one’s interest broad rather than very niche lets one take advantage of any niche that becomes available, rather than aiming for a niche and hoping it becomes available at just the right time.
There is a recent book Messy Jobs: The Work That AI Cannot Reach where the authors argue that most jobs involve tasks that can be automated by AI and tasks that involve judgment, coordination, responsibility, and relationships, where humans are needed.
It is up to us to decide which jobs have more of the latter and pivot in that direction.
Simplistic examples:
#1: Generating code would be an AI task. Resolving conflicting code and deciding which is better for the system would be a human task.
#2 Preparing possible treatment options with tradeoffs/comparison would be a AI task. Understanding the patient’s priorities, coordinate care, and take responsibility for clinical decisions is the human/doctor’s job.
On the AI question, entry level business work seems to be changing more than disappearing. Much of the routine analysis a first year analyst used to do now takes far less time, so employers care more about whether a new hire can structure a messy problem, explain their reasoning and talk to a client without a script. That is one reason consulting interviews still rely on live cases rather than take home assignments. For current students, the safest investment, whatever the major, is building those judgment and communication skills. Practicing structured problem solving out loud, through case clubs, debate or mock interviews, is a better hedge than guessing which technical skill will last.
The Chicago Federal Reserve was actively promoting their paid summer internships during Open House Chicago this weekend. The signage said they are looking for undergrads, grad, and PhD Students Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
It’s anecdotal, but an interesting read: a bachelor’s from Rice, a STEM PhD from Princeton, research cited by the Nobel Committee, and alumni connections to leverage. He has what many on CC claim are the “golden tickets” to success, yet he still can’t find a job. If the full Wall Street Journal article is paywalled, Entrepreneur offers a synopsis. It’s a tough job market.
Sometimes PhD students are woefully prepared for the job market. Did this kid not have internships? Can he not get a post doc job? There are always a handful who end up with these kinds of outcomes - not sure it says anything meaningful about the job market
I read this yesterday too, and I did find myself wondering what’s going on, I had more questions than answers after reading it. Did he have internships? Does he have a business (not academic) mentor? Has he worked with a career counselor? Has he reached out to the career center at Rice and/or Princeton for help?
One example: He should not have done that McKinsey online test unprepared (it’s not clear if he did/did not prepare). And by prepare, I mean find out what type of test/case study the consulting firms are currently using in early interviews and practice those. With someone who knows how to coach them.
Consulting could be a great target career for him. Hopefully the WSJ article will result in some leads and ultimately a job for him.
This article is also being discussed on the More bad news for science majors thread.
Not everyone is a good candidate. Maybe he doesn’t present himself well - resume and all.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s an incredibly bad job market for new entrants.
I feel like there’s a lot of whistling past the graveyard in this thread, and so bad news about any given individual gets whistled away as necessarily the result of a failing on the part of that individual.
But there remains the possibility that the system is broken right now—not that it will remain broken forever, but we are in a low-fire low-hire cycle, as any economist will happily verify while pointing to all sorts of employment data that backs up that characterization.
Like, sometimes bad things happening to someone might actually not be their own fault, you know?
True - we have no idea - but it does seem suspicious - but one never knows - especially from afar.
I have a friend who - finds a job at my company, asks for a name and sends the hiring person an email. I always say - did you apply on the website.
Nope
Will never get a call.
One just never knows anything - but i suspect if you sent 2300 apps, something is off. But it’s a suspicion - I don’t know.
Perhaps they need a professional job coach and to work with their PhD advisor.
Seems like they have abandoned their career before it started, probably because they got rejected for any job related to their education, since there is mention of studying for the LSAT.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he has been employed at Mercor for the past year. However, this may not be full time or the type of position he is looking for.
When I hear about this type of anecdote, I think is says more about the applicant than it does the overall job market. If you look at aggregate stats for chemical engineers at all colleges at either bachelor’s or PhDs, it doesn’t suggest anything remotely resembling the experiences of the person described in the article, nor do aggregate stats among grads at the listed colleges. I suppose the typical grads that find quality employment within a reasonable time frame don’t get written about in news stories.
This leads to questions about why did this particular student had experiences that were so dramatically different from the aggregate? The are countless possible explanations. For example, his LinkedIn profile doesn’t list any internships or experience beyond the recent position at Mercor. Perhaps employers are reluctant to hire someone for a PhD level position who doesn’t have any work experience. His LinkedIn profile also doesn’t list any research experience, publications, awards, accomplishments, endorsements… even though he apparently has some. Perhaps he doesn’t package himself well. Perhaps there is something in his history/background/references that makes employers reluctant to hire him. Perhaps he has a problem in interviews. Perhaps he is mostly applying to jobs that are expected to have a low hire rate for a student with his background. Perhaps he has been getting some offers, but is holding out for a better offer/position. There isn’t enough information to draw conclusions.
I am not saying all grads have good experiences when looking for a first job after college, or that it is not a challenging job market for many students. I am saying that there is not reason to assume this particular student’s experiences (Princeton chem eng PhD applied to 2300 jobs over 2 years and still looking) are representative of anything beyond an bizarre anecdote.
I think both things can be true. I do think there is a tendency in this thread to dismiss anything that points to a less than stellar job market - doubly if a story undercuts the idea that grads from elite schools may also find a tough market despite the golden ticket. At the same time, this one individual seems to have been a little cavalier in his approach to getting a job - maybe that is because he mistakenly believed that it was enough just to have gone to Princeton and didn’t realize you still need to do all the “things” when you are looking for a job.
Too much education can also be a red flag. I was talking with a colleague who was hiring for a position, and there was one candidate who had a Master’s in an education field (our field), a Master’s in a religious field, a J.D., and perhaps one other advanced degree. The candidate was not one of the original ones selected for an interview, as this educational history seemed off to my colleague. When a subsequent set of interviews was being scheduled when the first set didn’t pan out, they decided to interview the candidate in case their suspicions about the candidate were unfounded. Then they did a quick Google search of the applicant and found a recent mug shot for assault.
So it’s not to say that people with lots of education have some major issue, but when there is a series of unrelated degrees, it can raise questions in an employer’s mind as to why the candidate keeps getting more education rather than a job.
I’m curious what people are actually seeing in their circles. All of my friend’s kids that are current students, across many disciplines, secured internships last summer, and I don’t know any recent grads that aren’t employed. My daughter’s company can’t find enough engineers to fill their openings.
That said I feel like I’m hearing kids having to do a lot more leg work, really using their alumni networks, career fairs, friend connections, mentors, profs, etc…
Definitely seeing that. My S who graduated last December has a major related job, but there seem to be plenty from his school’s Class of 2025 and 2026 (not highly rejective) who are seeking work or who are underemployed. My S isn’t loving his job, so I expect he will test the market come late winter/spring, so I’ll be interested to see how that goes.
