The time that different careers, professions and/or companies recruit new college grads does not line up neatly with college graduation dates. Public accountants and engineers are sought out in the fall, while new teachers are stuck waiting for the contract renewal time period in their state—summer where I am—before they can even get an interview. This can cause stress for both grads and parents. Please share the normal hiring “season” for the careers, professions and/or types of companies of which you have knowledge. Let’s not rehash the “most employable majors” discussions but share what we know about normal hiring timelines. Not EVERYONE will have a job lined up by Christmas of senior year.
Your question assumes a student is recruiting senior year, ie, excluding all those starting senior year with offers locked up from their summer internships. For students recruiting senior year for accounting, finance, consulting, marketing, marketing, insurance, rotational programs, and other positions in business, most companies are recruiting them in the early fall.
Nursing: hires in february -April of senior year most common for big famous hospitals with residency programs ( Georgetown Northwestern, Mayo, Cleveland Clinic) except in places like New York where they seem to hire only after licensure.
S went to career fairs from freshman year onward. He interviewed and had a job in his field every year from sophomore year forward. He did a lot of interviews in SR year, including interviews in HNL when he was home for Christmas. He did accept a job offer in Feb of SR year. It was NOT the place he interned JR year but recommendations from his supervisors were helpful.
Other folks I know did get job offers after their summer of interning—both accounting and CS/engineering.
My older son had a job from his junior year internship (CS). So easy!
Younger son looked for jobs all spring senior year, without luck. He ended up as a lead student supervisor working on the job he’d had previous summers and during the year at his college . In the fall he got a prestigious (unpaid sigh) internship in NYC, then he got another internship at another prestigious NGO. They ended up offering a job, but by then he decided he did not like the direction the organization was taking, so he finished up the project he was working on. He spent most of the summer studying for the Officer Candidate School exam for the Navy. He became a commissioned officer a good two years after graduating from college.
It really depends, doesn’t it? On the person and the willingness to venture out of their comfort zone and how aggressive they are in searching for a job.
Restrictions such as- location in the country, which country, amount of pay, if the job type is a good fit, etc. are limiting.
Job market, not season in general, is also a factor. Up to 6 months to a year and 100 applications for a design job.
My niece is finishing up a fall student teaching in Iowa and will be able to work full time starting in January. It used to be that mid year teacher graduates would only sub for the second semester and then interview for full time jobs for the fall.
She has had at least 2 interviews for permanent jobs, with call backs to both. I am not sure why there are permanent jobs open in January, though I guess it is possible for a variety of medical or pregnancy related reasons.
Also, April/May seems to be the hiring season for teachers in Iowa. If a school hasn’t filled something for the next fall by the end of the school year then they may be struggling to find something.
School person here.
The teaching job openings can happen at any time. In most places, there has to be an internal posting for a couple of weeks, and then public advertising can take place. Teachers resign at varying times (spouse job transfers, decisions not to return after maternity or other leaves, relocating to a place too long a commute). So…really openings can happen any time during the year.
The bulk of openings are posted once budgets pass and school is either near ending or over. This is when schools know their staffing needs…and most resignations and retirements have already been submitted.
BUT the good news is, with the online applications, you can usually complete them and ask that the be kept in the event of an opening. And many allow porting over data to other districts using the same online application platform.
Most new teachers are hired where I am between May and the end of July.
My DH hires engineers. New grads usually are hired between January and March. Their interns usually get a first shot.
D1 was chosen for a public service job by roughly February of senior year. The app deadline, iirc, was December. Later, she got an international grant, instead.
On the other side, as the grant was finishing, she was applying online from abroad, did some skype interviews, was a finalist. Once home, she interviewed in person. Thing is, that’s when the clock stopped, radio silence. At least a month, maybe longer.
So I just want to point out that processing delays can be common. She had given up on that first home job when they suddenly came through. Interesting lesson for her, to be patient, but keep moving.
Sometimes, we think is their timeline is more fixed than it is, while they wait to set a training class or hire a few people together, etc.
That type of thing suggests that she was considered hirable, but not the first choice (or within the N top ranked choices for N openings), and that she was given an offer after the more preferred applicant(s) chose not to accept the offer(s).
The college admission analogy is like being put on the waitlist, but without being told anything at all until either getting the offer after preferred applicant(s) chose not to accept the offer(s) (rare), or getting rejected after the preferred applicant(s) have accepted offer(s) (the common case).
@ucbalumnus maybe this candidate was a second choice…but likely that wasn’t the scenario at all.
But in many places, there is a process for hiring. And sometimes there is a rather lengthy time period between the interview and hiring because others are being…interviewed as well. This applicant might have been their top candidate, but they had a dozen more applicants to interview. You don’t know. Don’t make assumptions you really can’t back up about a specific job candidate.
Ugh, ucb. It does show that sometimes, some think there’s a cloud in every silver lining. Lol.
This was paperwork and coordinating 2 other hires (one remote) who would train together. They had made the verbal offer. D1 knew the other hire for her office and when she interviewed.
Sometimes, the delay is while paperwork passes through its multi channels. I meant the example as encouragement, not a ball toss. k?
Back in 2011, D worked at Starbucks following graduation for 8 or 9 months before landing a professional job. She is not a science grad - her engineering friends had jobs sooner, and most of her non-science friends went to grad/professional school rather than getting a job. S graduated with a biology degree in 2014 & worked several “blah” jobs before landing something he wanted to do (I think it took about a year). Young people I know who took office-type jobs , such as project management, purchasing, logistics, social media, etc seemed to get jobs pretty quickly. (Neither of my kids was interested in that sort of thing.). So I would definitely say, “It depends.”
Son had leads on two jobs when he came home for a visit just after his college graduation (still had his colle apt for a few months). Software developer/engineer with math and CS majors. The good job offer came through via telephone while he was home. He chose to start the first of the next month instead time off- the company hires in huge waves with training that could have begun later.
We felt relief that he found a job- we were kept in the dark about his plans and happy he decided what to do. Long story i won’t get into here. A couple of years later he was recruited for a big leagues position after honing his skills.
It is important for our kids to understand that not hearing back immediately does not necessarily mean being off a company’s list. Each has its own internal process to complete. The Fortune 50 that I worked for right out of college had to accelerate its own hiring process of accounting majors to compete with the public accounting firms because it kept losing good candidates. The company’s normal cycle resulted in offers in Jan-Mar for June start dates, but first round campus interviews were in Sept-Oct.
It depends on so much. When my daughter was looking for her new-grad job in spring of her senior year, the jobs she was applying to were a mix of ones designated for new grads and others that were being filled due to turnover, expansion, etc. In at least one case, they needed to fill a job ASAP and my daughter wasn’t graduating for 2-3 months and she lost that opportunity. In her field (econ major), it was mostly the training program jobs that were filled in the fall (there were many of these in financial companies, etc.)
Data scientist kid experience was similar to @kiddie - two offers in March for new grad programs and one that would have loved to get her earlier - had been looking to fill the position with higher qualifications for months. They were willing to wait for her to graduate…but only like a day.
She had to wait until January of senior year to apply for the one she finally took, that was one of the ones that hires a bunch of new grads and starts them all at once in the summer.