Personally, I think this is an important take away. Many say - no, that’s not right. You need more focus, referrals, alumni - you shouldn’t be applying everywhere.
I disagree with them - and appreciate this student’s diligence, which helped lead to the overall success. Frustrations along the way - but in the end, success.
Thank you! Congrats to your S too!
The work trial was definitely an experience and at the end S didn’t love it for the following reasons: 1) it was definitely going to be a 9am to 9 pm job 6 days a week; 2) he was asked by the CEO if S gets excited about the particular product concept as much as he does (S was polite about his response, but BS ing is not easy for him); 3) the work trial was basically go develop something from beginning to end over two days and present it to the group; 4) the firm made return home travel logistics a bit difficult for him. After all that S didn’t receive a single reply afterwards.
“pull together a short presentation on the spot.” This! My heart feels for all new graduates. They have so much pressure than I ever did.
We didn’t have tools back then like exist today….that’s part of it.
When I interviewed for an office manager/patient care coordinator position a few years ago I needed to take a knowledge test, do a computer skills assessment, get through a group interview, as well as the one on one with the doctor who owned the practice. I thought it was a lot! I learned when I started having to do some hiring for the practice that many people aren’t super honest on their resumes. To say there was a lot of embellishment is an understatement. This process was the way the practice weeded out those folks.
My daughter says they are seeing the same with engineering resumes. Not sure if that’s a function of increase use of AI, grade inflation, or some combination but a company doesn’t want to hire someone, train them, and then a few months in find out they aren’t actually qualified.
I do know it sucks for the applicants though!
Maybe? My S23’s experience this year was that he applied to literally 100s of internship postings without a single nibble. It was very discouraging.
Then, he was directly contacted by a recruiter based on his FSAE team membership, and after a few interviews was offered an internship… at the company that had been his first choice all along! (He had initially applied to this same internship position without success!)
His teammates this year had similar stories regarding a lack of success with cold applications to postings. Breaking through to the interview stage mostly happened only through some type of referral.
(My son and his teammates were looking for internships in the general areas of mechanical and electrical engineering.)
What year is he ? It’s great he could utilize a referral but not everyone can. And not all resumes are created equal. I think we forget that too.
Obviously I’m not seeing any of them but some might be seen in better light by those (systems or people) reviewing.
It’s great he used his tools (referral) but not all have them. And many won’t hire first or second years in general.
Leading to 5 offers.
Analogous to (unhooked) applying to a college with a <=5% admission rate?
He is a junior this year.
His resume was exactly the same when he originally applied for this internship (with no success), and when the recruiter contacted him later for the same position (with success).
Teammates mostly seemed to be getting offers either through recruiters reaching out like this, or through on-campus recruiting (especially the events that were restricted based on team membership), or professional or personal relationships. My son couldn’t attend any of the on-campus recruiting events because they conflicted with other commitments, so he was really glad the recruiter reached out to him.
Some of the EE courses at his school also have dedicated recruiting staff for companies like Apple and NVIDIA and they will hire interns right out of the courses.
most resumes don’t get seen at all. so anything that makes a recruiter specifically look at a candidate gives huge leverage. congrats on the internship!
Congrats to him.
However you get a job, is great - so I’m glad he did.
Obviously, different people have access to different things - and many don’t have access to referrals.
Glad it worked out for him.
I am pretty sure the overall hit rate for new college grads is significantly less than 5%. I’ve seen numbers that suggest 250-300 applications for one offer.
I think this kid has performed a miracle to be able to compare offers!
Congrats!
I agree—but employers seem to frequently assume everyone uses (or even has access to) the same tools they do, and that can get frustrating.
This varies wildly depending on what types of jobs the student is applying for and how well connected they are to the job, such as submit a resume to random posting on LinkedIn vs previously interned at the company. In the Class of 2025 NACE survey, median number of job applications was 10 per student and average number of offers was 0.8 per student, suggesting typical was 10/0.8 ~= 13 applications per offer. This survey included students from 270 colleges and was conducted April-May 2025 (before graduating).
My son’s experience applying for summer internships has been very similar. My daughter who graduated in 2023 applied to one internship and one job opening and got both. The “good old days” apparently was only 4 years ago (smh).
It is not uncommon for an Ed major to apply for three jobs, get three interviews, accept one of the two offers. I know young nurses who only applied for one job. Their program was a well known feeder to a particular hospital — so that’s the process. Apply, interview, get a job. One of my young cousins was shocked to see his college roommate (an engineer) applying to hundreds of jobs- he was an Ed major and his advisor (also a professor) told him “The best school system in the state is X- best pay, best benefits, and they’ll pay for your Master’s degree. Let me call the Superintendent (a former student) so he’ll know to look for your resume”. One application, one round of interviews, one day on-site to teach a class, one offer.
The folks on this thread are discussing roles where colleges are not “feeders” to employers in that way. Professors can and do pick up the phone- but that will serve to narrow the denominator a bit, but not 1/1.
So keep in mind that the labor market isn’t monolithic when you look at NACE data.
Is it also possible that some of the job offers in the survey may have been return offers made to former interns? That seems to be the most common way that my son’s graduating friends are getting their first full time jobs this year. The students applying to 100s of positions are those that either didn’t receive a return offer or weren’t happy with that offer.
Yes, my post said the number of applications for offer “varies wildly” depending on different factors. My point was applying to hundreds of jobs to get one offer was more the exception than the rule. One can list anecdotal examples of students who applied to hundreds of jobs, as well as anecdotal examples of students who continued with their internship employer, without further applications. However, the most students fall in between these extremes.
Interesting way to look at it. I also thought of this but in a slightly different way - ED vs RD. Like ED, S was disappointed when he didn’t get a return offer from the quant summer internship. He mainly did not want to go through an expected tough process. We said there are so many companies that he would get to explore because he didn’t get a return offer. Like the RD process, he got a lot of rejections, faced some humility but learned a heck of lot by going through the process. The two offers he is contemplating are in the ball park he was aiming for…we said through out the process, son, first jobs don’t offer that much! Boy we were wrong.
My son is just seeing the extremes, not a middle ground, but if you averaged out his friends’ experiences you might think there was a middle ground (as an average between extremes)! Does the survey show some kind of bell curve with most students actually falling in between?
