When Jenny Flora Wells graduated from Ohio State University in 2021 with her master’s degree in social work, she applied to 400 jobs. From that crop, she got three interviews.
“I was told that the MSW was a golden ticket and that I would be sure to get a job. I did everything by the book, had a 4.0 GPA, worked with career services, and quadruple-checked my resume. I did everything by the book, and I still couldn’t get a job,” Wells said.
Wells now helps recent graduates traumatized by their job search. She is a licensed social worker practicing in Los Angeles. While looking for a job, Wells landed an internship in OSU’s career services department, which helped her build a specialty in jobseeker counseling.
“What we’re seeing from these younger generations is that they’re working harder than ever, but they have nothing to show for it because no one will give them a job,” Wells said.
What Wells experienced personally and now sees professionally – graduates confused and mentally exhausted by an unforgiving job market – is confirmed by job analysts and academics.
A new bifurcation in the robust labor market
“What we’re experiencing right now is a bifurcation of the labor market. The roles that need to be filled are often heavily skewed toward those with less than a bachelor’s degree,” said Rachel Sederberg, senior economist and research manager at the labor analytics firm. The light.
“We’re hearing that from students, but we’re also seeing labor market data that backs it up,” said Sederberg, who is also an economics professor at Stonehill College, adding that she sees student frustration at the hands of first.
For example, Lightcast data shows that job postings for bachelor’s degree holders with two years or less experience from Jan-May ’23 to Jan-May ’24 saw little change in major occupations, industries and skills required. However, there were 148,500 fewer jobs in that period for ’24 than in ’23.
For jobs that don’t require a degree, openings are up slightly from last year, from 65.75% of postings in 2023 to 65.98% so far in 2024. However, according to Lightcast data, 8 of the top 10 job postings in March were those that did not require a college degree.
“For jobs that don’t require a degree, we don’t have enough workers, and they have a lot of experience trying to find work,” Sederberg says, adding that there is high demand in trade, retail, hospitality and free time.
“That’s partly because we’ve come back to life after four years of Covid and we’re seeing a lot of the baby boomer generation aging out of the workforce, leaving a lot of openings. The average age of those in the main trade is quite high, and we have to fill, for example, we can’t go without plumbing,” Sederberg said.
Not a job crash, an applicant mismatch
Part of what Sederberg says we’re seeing is a job market that’s just coming back down to earth for graduates, but it’s hardly crashing.
“We’re not in a weak labor market at all; we’re used to the incredible strength and chaos of the last two years,” Sederberg said. She noted that there were new college students who had already taken a job waiting to finish their degree because so many companies ramped up hiring during the immediate aftermath of the pandemic.
Not only is there a divide between degree holders and those without, but there is also a similar gap in the degree skills market, with some jobs attracting many applicants while others remain unfilled, making competition for the last job. ranks want even more intense.
It’s a dynamic that Cindy Meis, director of undergraduate career services at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, says she’s also seeing in what she described as a fragmented and uneven job market. There are a record number of job postings on the platforms her office uses to help graduates connect with potential employers, such as Handshake, but the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“The jobs out there don’t always match the wants and needs of the candidates. There’s a mismatch between the needs and the talent pool,” Meis said.
This means some jobs get an avalanche of applications while other applications’ inboxes remain empty.
There are a lot of applicants for marketing jobs, “but accounting degrees? We can’t produce them that fast,” Meis said. She added that most recent graduates have different experiences trying to get out of a job than their slightly older counterparts. Recent graduates want to return to the office, while older workers are more open to keeping work in the pandemic-era home office.
Don’t rely too much on college as a change maker
“Employers are very aware that non-traditional paths to the workforce, not just college degrees, provide people with the skills and experiences to qualify for many jobs,” said Christina Schelling, Verizon’s Chief Talent and Diversity Officer, who oversees the pipeline of talent entering the company. .
Schelling says the 2024 job market for graduates is strong, but focusing too much on just getting the degree is a mistake. Approximately 99% of the over 100,000 jobs at Verizon do not require a college degree. She added that soft skills – such as collaboration, critical thinking and empathy – are more important than ever.
“It’s easier to teach someone a technical skill than to be flexible and find creative solutions to problems,” Schelling said. “That’s why, in interviews, candidates should highlight their appetite for continuous growth and intellectual curiosity. Great companies, now more than ever, are investing in employees and are committed to building skills.”
Some labor market experts see heavy application demands among undercurrents clouding an already tough job market for graduates.
“The hiring process is broken,” said Justin Marcus, co-founder and CEO of Big 4 Talent, which matches college graduates with some of the hardest-to-fill positions in finance and accounting.
Marcus says new graduates don’t have the patience or time to trudge through some of the extras required to work with applicant tracking systems that require uploading a resume and manually filling out questions. Marcus also says that everyone – employers and graduates alike – are pickier. Companies are more selective and look for experience even for “entry level” roles.
“Of course it depends on the vertical, but a lot of ‘white collar’ jobs are increasing their requirements due to a large number of applicants,” Marcus said.
Ultimately, he says a graduate’s job market prospects will vary depending on where they are, what they’re applying for and what they want. A single unemployment number no longer tells the same story.
“Unemployment trends are highly sectoral, geographic and level-specific,” Marcus said.
Wells, meanwhile, finds a lot of mental health anxiety among her clients, who expected a slippery slope to prosperity after earning their degrees.
“Everybody told you that if you go to college, get your master’s degree, you’ll be successful and you can have a comfortable life and live the American dream, but what I’m finding is that it’s much more complex than that,” Wells. said. “In 2024, the job market is changing drastically.”