Job Prospects for ‘24, ‘25 Grads and beyond?

Parents Forum
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That wasn’t and still isn’t my D’s experience with career fairs, nor how my husband’s company operates with recruiting. D is on the recruiting team for her company so has been on both ends of the process, at a number of different schools. There may be formal paperwork to complete online with HR, but interviews are offered day one of the career fair, interviews conducted day 2, and offers go out generally within a week.

And yes to what Blossom said. Schools with big career fairs have apps that show and describe the company, majors they are recruiting for, if there are restrictions on who can apply (some say no freshmen), and students can sign up for a certain number of slots. Gone are the days of just waiting endlessly in line for a 5 minute conversation.

Companies also do pre-career fair meet and greets the night before with students. If you are a female engineering student, don’t skip the SWE pre-career events. And everyone should attend their department pre-career events.

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I wonder if these students were seeking STEM roles? Or were they coming from arts and humanities majors?

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Mostly CS, some engineering. Different schools.

Maybe it varies by college or industry.

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FWIW at my kid’s STEM school the career fairs still have the long lines. They clearly need to up their game.

Last career fair he looked at the people planning to attend, identified one that he really wanted to speak with, got duded up and skipped class to go - because the career fair was only scheduled for two hours and it was when he had a two hour class - got there only to find out that the company didn’t show. It was a very very frustrating experience for him. He ended up walking around just to see if there was any way to salvage the time lost, but the other places he was somewhat interested in had very long lines.

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Son works at a BB IB and goes on campus for networking events. They don’t conduct interviews on campus and require applicants to go through the hiring portal. However S also screens resumes that get past some level of filters. It helps if it is someone he has met and was impressed with to push the candidate to the next round.

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I think career fairs are great for kids to meet folks - but they are often limiting in types of companies - and yes, this is correct, often times it’s just a local / area person with zero relation to hiring. And too many kids, especially for internships, are concerned with finding the perfect - this is what I want to do role or I want to live only here role. It’s 10-12 weeks - get the job, get experience, get a name and work responsibilities on your resume - which will make your goal next year much easier when you look for full time work vs. striking out!!

Career fairs are another “tool” and their impact likely varies by major but the reality is today, that most kids are getting jobs from online posting - and schools that post the “how did our students get the job” back this up with their stats - and that includes top schools.

Networking, knowing someone, alums, profs, it’s all great.

And the online postings might be inefficient but guess what - that’s the way the world is today and kids will have to fight through it - until the next thing comes up.

Many companies do what @momofboiler1 said - post even if going internal. My last company posted outside after 5 business days of an initial posting. Unless they “tagged” someone upfront internally, jobs that were filled internally got posted.

If kids limit themselves out of frustration or inefficiency (better to do something than nothing), then they will struggle.

But the other thing I think this goes back to is - you need an internship or experience. It just makes it that much easier.

And kids that don’t grind to get one - no matter the method of finding a job - they’re going to have to struggle that much more.

So I think, while the focus should be on finding a job (of course), finding an internship is even more important.

Why? Because experience begets experience - employers want to hire someone who has seen success and had experience prior.

Still, it will be interesting to see final placement #s, because schools aren’t apt to publish #s that don’t sell their product.

I’ll just say this - finding a job is not for those who are soft.

It’s sales. As my first boss in outside sales told me, every no is one step closer to a yes.

Good luck to current and future grads.

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This, unfortunately in this day and age for many positions, especially high paying jobs. If the hire is going to make high double digit or triple digit compensation, most companies would prefer a hire that can hit the ground running with just a bit of training and have proven that they can work in a structured corporate environment.

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I’ll push back a bit on the posting business.

I’m working now with a kid on his job search strategy (graduating senior). He reports spending “hours” a day looking for opportunities online. Find and good. But he’s too busy to attend office hours (one of his professors consults for one of the companies on his target list), he’s too busy to show up at a job fair (hey, you might think that the regional utility which supplies electricity to the area your college is in doesn’t have any interesting jobs in Sustainability but you’d be wrong), and he’s too busy to do a video interview at career services to see how annoying it is when he leans in and out of camera range during a Zoom interview.

His parents are desperate, cannot believe how the economy went from “any idiot can get a job and then quit if they don’t like it” to “my kid can’t find a job” in just four years, but hey, that’s what the labor economy is. A complex tapestry which is hard to predict.

There’s a reason why the folks who work the job fairs at colleges get a huge bottle of hand sanitizer. It’s because they will shake a LOT of hands, most of which belong to kids whose body language and affect communicate “your company is boring and I have no interest in living in Columbus Ohio”. So if YOUR kid is the one who shows up sparkling and motivated- hey, you never know.

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Your description of your son’s experience remains the approach of mine and most I banks.

We use resume screening as a starting point, but alumni interaction and on campus personal meetings (although often informal) drive who gets in person interviews post the initial automated “thinning of the heard”.

In my industry “carpet bombing” out resumes and applications simply will not work unless something extraordinary happens.This is particularly the case from non target or less prestigious schools.

We do the same and make sure we have recent graduates attend who are typically alum plus a team leader who is an MD that sits in on all in person invite days. This ensures a candidate that stood out on a personal level isn’t over looked, “local” relationships are leveraged, and or that the decisions are nuanced beyond stats.

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Not our experience at all. My d’s company flies the recruiting team, which makes the decisions, to their target universities twice/year. My H’s company does the same, as did his previous companies. The people who are making the decisions or at very least, making the recommendations on who to hire, are there on the ground.

Totally agree with your point that for some kids perfect is in the enemy of good. There are plenty of companies that no one has heard of that yield tremendous work experiences and have fabulous internship/co-op programs. And, my motto is you can live anywhere for a semester!

Also 100% that internships and work experience matter, and employers expected kids to have those experiences during college.

And to @blossom’s point - nothing irritates me more than hearing people complaining their kids can’t find jobs when they put up every obstacle in the book to looking. Career fairs are days long - get up an hour early and go, eat lunch on the run if necessary, skip a club meeting. And use the career center to polish your elevator pitch and resume before hand so you are prepared. And do 5 minutes of research on the companies you plan on talking to. The number of kids who show up completely unprepared, even to interviews, is staggering.

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I have a kid graduating this year. I’m immensely worried about their job prospects. They found their Electrical Engineering program challenging and while they persisted and made it through, their GPA isn’t the greatest (but also not the worst). They also weren’t able to land an internship. As a result they have minimal experience to put on a resume. Add to that the challenging employment prospect and the fact that they’re introverted and not a “go getter”, and I’m deeply concerned.

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Just wondering what the kids at non-target universities are supposed to do, other than apply online though.

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My D’s company flat out won’t hire new grads outside of their target schools, but I don’t believe they advertise those positions anyway. I don’t think that’s the norm for engineering though. My H’s company has only a few target schools but they’ll hire the right person from anywhere and their openings are all on line.

My overall point is more that students should make good use of all their school’s resources! Even though my d’s company many not recruit at your child’s school, there are plenty of companies that do!

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Internships become even more important. Maybe the kid doesn’t swing for Goldman, Bain or Google summer of sophomore or junior year, but there should be plenty of local and regional companies or plain Main Street companies looking to hire interns. Don’t turn your nose at that because having some relevant job experience will be important for their permanent job search.

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That kid then has a time management issue and prioritization issue - and that’s a skill that for many, takes a long time to develop and some of us never perfect it.

But the data shows how kids are finding jobs - and by quantity the Internet wins. And my son, when he first went to the job fairs, reported exactly what @DadOfJerseyGirl said - apply on the Internet. Many companies are simply in attendance for presence and nothing else.

There are many methods of finding a job - the one that finds a kid a job is the best method.

For those adept at networking, etc. it may (or may not be) that way. Not everyone is - or not everyone is connected, etc. - and not everyone has a prof consulting in industry, etc.

I’m just going by what the data suggests - but like in my industry - we sell more white cars than anything. So we build more white.

That’s not necessarily the way to look at it though. We sell more white because we build more white - but perhaps a white car takes 100 days to turn and a silver car 20 days and perhaps we should build more silver.

But for most kids, they will end up finding their job the less efficient way. They will be the white car, because that’s how the new hires are most companies found their jobs.

This is the CC - and we have posters with Ivy kids or high level corporate jobs. That you are working with a kid right now and some of us has - makes us 1 in I dunno - 1000 or 10,000. The masses don’t have access to that kind of support and expertise that you might provide.

So again, I think a lot of what people say here comes from the CC bubble - but the CC bubble is very far from the real world which 99.9% live in.

Thanks

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Does the engineering college have its own office for career services? Handshake app?
Alum are looking for him.
Practicing interviews will help, I’m sure. Good luck! Hope he can get some confidence and keep at it.

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I have a family member in the same boat with a less sought out major.

Has your child talked to professors on campus about working in their labs? There is still this semester left to get something meaningful on the resume and possibly stay and work through the summer, which would give more time for the job hunt.

Have them go to the career center to practice interviewing. Most will offer tips and the ability to do mock interviewing. My D found that super helpful as it was initially hard for her to “sell herself” because it felt like bragging. The career center should also be able to pull things out of his classes to highlight to employers.

Does your child’s school have peer mentors with recent grads? If so, have them tap into that as well.

I’d also suggest working the alumni network now. Even if someone doesn’t have a position, they may be also open to mentoring, which could open doors in other ways.

Also join the EE professional societies for additional networking.

Good luck to your student!

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Hopefully you’ve had those chats to stress the importance of the now - whether it’s getting a “push” from the career center, getting ready for the career fair (not all schools have gooe ones) or going it alone.

Have they set up an indeed search? They should be applying to 3 jobs a day. It takes longer at first but they’ll get into a rhythym - maybe 30 minutes a day. In 30 days, that’s 90 jobs.

They can set up a search that emails them daily - it may have 20 jobs on it some days and I’m saying - apply to 3. Those same jobs will come in each day for a week or two on the daily feed but so will others. It takes 30 seconds to set up an indeed search. In 30 days, he’s done 90 job apps. Yes, inefficient but it yields results - and others on the CC have done the same and DM me to tell me - thank you.

When you say the GPA is a struggle, most (but not all) seek a 3.0. Some a bit higher and some a bit lower.

A school can/will only help so much but yes, he doesn’t want to wait. I know you know that - but hopefully he’ll figure it out. And hopefully he worked during the summer, even if he didn’t intern.

But he has to do something - because nothing will just pop up and hit them int he face but two many kids don’t realize that - or they are focused solely on academics - and that goes back to the prioritization in life skills, etc. that are hard for many to develop (including me).

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I have an upcoming graduate. Career fairs have been so-so for her, mostly just being told to apply online, but a couple of times resulting in an interview (after applying online).

Her situation is that she had an internship with a great company last summer, and they seem to be stringing the cohort along with assurances that they will be making FTE hiring decisions “soon.” She would be very happy to work there, so she hasn’t made much of an effort to look elsewhere.

Do we parents think she should be making more of an effort in the job search? Yes, but it’s her life. Sometimes she prefers to figure things out the hard way.

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Folks, it does NOT need to be an internship! It’s like fetishizing coops to the exclusion of all else!

There are plenty of “just a jobs” that provide solid and relevant work experience to a college kid. And a kid who doesn’t land an internship can just make up his or her own.

Kid has solid programming skills. Your local hospital is in the news because it just landed a grant from HRSA to take the medical records it has going back ten years and tease out longitudinal public health statistics on obesity and type 2 diabetes (I’m making this up… but HRSA invests billions in public health data analysis so plug in your own hypothesis). Hospital is frantic because its already overwhelmed data function is understaffed. Your kid proposes a 12 week job as a “public health analyst” (needs statistics, programming, solid communication skills) and voila- a high quality summer job which can substitute for an impressive sounding official internship.

Your kid is an English major and a terrific and creative thinker and writer. Your local historical society is going to celebrate the bicentennial of the town’s founding on Jan 1 2026. Except nobody knows about it, even though a donor has stepped forward to fund a three day celebration over New Years. Your kid reaches out to set up a virtual interview to review his/her ideas- a multi-media presentation to be sent to every member of the Chamber of Commerce; a short curriculum sent to every fourth and fifth grade teacher in the school system on “how to tie the history of our town to your module on civic participation”, a photo exhibit and competition at the local library, signage for the grocery stores and dry cleaners, a “clean up our historic sites” program targeted to HS kids and Scouts which includes the WW2 Memorial, old cemetery, etc. Boom- historical society hires its first “Event Planning Intern” and even at minimum wage, it’s a win/win for your kid.

It doesn’t need to be Goldman Sachs to become a launch pad for a professional career!

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