"I can't get a job because of the economy"
"This economy sucks so I'll just stay in school"
"I'm not even using my college degree and I'm underemployed"
Does this sound familiar in your circle of friends? Has blaming the economy become an excuse for not working as hard as you should? How much of an impact does this actually have on recent college grads?
I do understand that recent economic data hasn't been great but what I'm really after is the true impact of life after college for the majority of Americans. I live and work in Los Angeles and I see both sides of the argument. I have friends that have graduated from UCLA and USC. From what I can tell, they have been applying non stop and yet it's been two years and they are still unemployed. On the other hand, I do have friends that have done great things after college.
I'm 25 years old, so most of my peers would be the same age, give or take a year. If I took a sample of 100 of my peers I graduated college with, I would say 50 have jobs in their field, 30 are working part time and/or interning, 10 are going to grad school and the last 10 people are truly unemployed. Is this true in your area?
This is just a small slice of reality since I am only taking into consideration of my peers in Southern California. I just want to know what it's like everywhere else.
I was actually talking to my friend about this other day. I occasionally peruse LinkedIn to see what our class is up to, and like no one we graduated with has a "good" job. Now I understand what a "good" job is, is one of the douchiest conversations that you can have on this site (right up there with conversations about prestige and "alphaness"), so its kinda vague. So lets just say like regional retail banks and audit, for simplicity sake. Also mad grad schoolers bcuz they were afraid to enter the real world unemployed... pussies
Irrelevant, but funny story. My friend is doing big 4 audit, and his client is GS, so he tells everyone he works at GS. At first this made me mad, then it just made me laugh. The best part is, he's not even doing it to be a dick- like he srsly thinks thats how that works
^^He works for Goldman Sachs, at BIG 4. Lol what an idiot.
I know exactly what you are talking about though, OP. It seems like it was the case that the majority of my peers waited until graduation until they even started looking at jobs. Several had never even had an interview before.
And those that did get jobs didn't get very good ones. Some are teachers, other are waiters or bartenders, some are "Account Representatives," and lastly are the ones who got sales or financial advisory jobs. It's fucking terrible, but whenever I look at how they treated their undergraduate career I honestly don't feel sorry for them. Whenever someone slacks off in class, doesn't network with alumni, and has no internships, then they don't even deserve a "good" job IMO.
Same here. I was stunned during senior year; a ton of people had 0 work experience.
More surprisingly, just a handful of people in the entire class networked. I went to a pretty good school, and we have a few alumni high up in banks, hedge funds, etc. In my emails, I would sometimes state how "I realize that you must get a lot of email from students"...they would often reply that I was the first student to email them in years. How does this happen?
And I'll echo the late job search thing. I would ask people after winter break where they would be working, and they would say that they plan to apply to some places. Then, near graduation, I would get responses like "I plan to take a few months off, then start applying". Again, wtf are they thinking?
Its simple, they dont have any real world sense. Grew up in a sheltered home life where everyone gets a trophy and everyones a winner. No one tells them that they are fat wortless slobs and that if they want to get ahead in life they have to work for it and take shit. For 90% of my peers it is exactly like this. They might have jobs but they were all extremely hurt when they found out the world is a cruel bitch.
A lot of these kids were "smarter" than me. They got better grades and probably were more studious. But they completely dropped the ball here. Almost without fail. I can literally name the people from my class who "succeeded", whether by getting a good job or into a respected grad program.
I always saw college as a means to a job. I literally picked colleges by looking at their alumni directories...I wasn't thinking of networking at the time, but I realized that past success is the best predictor of future success.
Now that I am an adult, I realize viewing college as one giant job placement exercise is a little unusual.
I would guess that only half of my graduating class at my college has jobs. Of those that don't, there seems to be a general sense of "things will work themselves out," which simply baffles me. They don't seem to realize that their art history degree won't magically get them a job (other than barista, naturally), and that the summers they spent abroad travelling instead of working their butts offs in internships won't help, either. They definitely blame the economy, and justify their degrees with something along the lines of "you may have a job, but at least I had fun in college," as if having an econ/finance or science major excludes you from having fun.
It might be at least a little excusable if my class (which was the last class to graduate that didn't start college post-crisis) were the only ones who think this way, but the younger classes still have this same mentality--i.e. that their crappy choice of major has nothing to do with their post-college life, just however the economy is at the time. They also don't seem to fully understand how difficult the job market is, especially for people with "soft" skills...I don't know if it's a result of entitlement or just general naivete.
I definitely see underemployment as a big issue among recent grads I know, but I can't say that I know a lot of unemployed people either from HS or college. It's also rough to see people going to grad school without a good idea of what they want to pursue after. Statistically, though, the rise in unemployment is still individuals who lack bachelor's degrees the hardest.
Agree with this am very happy I took my internship instead of summer school
Blame Canada
Blame Canada
Went to a state school with a solid business program (not Michigan). People in the B school were on top of their shit and the majority got at least "good jobs", but it felt like no one from the other schools did aside from those going into grad school. Guess this kind of echos the rest of the thread so, in other words, I concur.
I think we should all make it a rule that if the lower deciles are allowed to blame the down-economy for unemployment, then they have to acknowledge in boom-times that they're only employed because of market conditions.
Until that happens, I'm going to remain entirely ambivalent to their plight.
I think a lot of companies layed off a lot of senior emplyees to hire entry level grad in their place so they wouldn't have to pay them as much for doing the same tedious tasks. It was part of a cost impprovent plan to save money becuase of the down-turn. And those companies became more picky on who they wanted to hire to fill those position because they were looking for people who would advance quickly into high-valued roles and could still be paid entry level salaries. Sucks for some of use, but props to the companies who captitalize on this. That's just buisness.
For the people who blame the economy, I think it's pathetic. If you didn't work hard to be on top when you were in school or major in somehting practical, it's because you were stupid and didn't make yourself competitive enough.
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