Class of 2025 says market, student debt will affect job expectations

For students, entering their final year can be a stressful time as they prepare for the next step after graduation. Within Higher EducationThe 2024 Student Voice survey found that 68 percent of fourth-year students (n=703) feel at least somewhat stressed when thinking about their life after graduation, while 25 percent feel ‘extremely stressed’.

This year’s graduating class is less hopeful than their peers, with nearly three in five students saying they are pessimistic about the near future, according to new data from Handshake.

Two-thirds of students say this is due to a competitive job market, and more than half are concerned about a lack of job security. Similarly, 54 percent of students say student loans contribute to their pessimism about the future, as do the current political climate (45 percent) and generative artificial intelligence (45 percent).

“There’s obviously anxiety when you’re in your senior year, almost graduating and thinking about your next job, let alone when you have all these other things buzzing around you,” says Christine Cruzvergara, Chief Education Strategy Officer at Handshake.

The findings highlight the challenges in the labour market for recent graduates, the role of affordability in higher education and the way institutions support students as they start their careers.

How is it? The class of 2025, like their peers in 2024, faced several disruptions to their education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the class of 2024 was slightly more optimistic about their short-term future, with 49 percent of students pessimistic about starting their careers.

Despite the low numbers, more students say they are optimistic about their long-term careers, Cruzvergara says.

According to the report, employment at Handshake has declined year over year, in line with national trends.

“Things have definitely slowed down, particularly in certain sectors,” Cruzvergara said. “Technology jobs, for example, are down 20,000 (positions) this year compared to last year … for someone who maybe went into college thinking, ‘That’s where I’m going to work,’ they now have to go in a different direction.”

However, the number of applications per job has been significantly higher, far exceeding trends over the past five years. As of last month, students in the class of 2024 had submitted about 64 percent more applications per job compared to the class of 2023. Seniors graduating this year have further increased the number of applications submitted, with a 24 percent increase in applications per job compared to the class of 2024.

Cruzvergara attributes this wave of applications to the pessimism of students and the social pressure to find a job before graduating. He also finds the quantity of applications more important than the quality.

“I think there’s just bad advice about jobs, where people say, ‘It’s a numbers game; you should just apply to as many jobs as you can,'” Cruzvergara says. “What that ends up with is students sending their resumes out to all these different places, without doing their research, without tailoring their materials, and then wondering why they’re not hearing back.”

Return on investment: Handshake’s survey found that graduating seniors believe their college careers contributed to their personal growth, but less to their ability to improve their socioeconomic status. While 88 percent of students say their college experience helped their personal growth and development at least moderately, only 68 percent of respondents say college contributed to their ability to find a well-paying job.

“The number one reason students and their families send them to college is to get a better job and a better career, because they equate that with a better life,” Cruzvergara says. “Now, ‘better’ is subjective, of course. But the point is that that’s why they’re going, and the first thing schools can do is actually acknowledge that.”

Of a list of options, four in five students also say college has helped them understand their own career goals (85 percent) and their ability to achieve personal goals (80 percent). Seventy-two percent of students believe college has helped them find meaningful employment.

The Student Voice survey asked students whether their education and college experiences prepare them for success after graduation, with similarly positive findings. Among fourth-year respondents, 77 percent are “somewhat” or “very” confident that their education and college experiences prepare them for success after graduation. However, fewer than half of students said their colleges’ efforts to support their career exploration and development are good (34 percent) or excellent (11 percent).

Working on the future: To stand out in the job market, survey respondents say they’ve attended career fairs and networking events (68 percent), applied for more jobs (63 percent), worked part-time (62 percent), completed an internship (61 percent), and considered more industries, companies, and roles (57 percent). Less popular answers include participating in student organizations (48 percent) and taking additional courses (36 percent).

Seniors also report spending more than 30 hours researching possible career opportunities.

However, not all students take advantage of institutional career development offerings. Among Student Voice respondents, a third (36 percent) of fourth-year students said they had no experience with their university career center or careers staff. (The next most popular response was the 31 percent of final-year students who said their career center was “welcoming.”)

How can you help: To counter student pessimism, career center staff and other higher education professionals can help graduates in their job search, Cruzvergara says, by:

• Collecting data on the labor market. One of the biggest factors weighing on students’ pessimism was a competitive marketplace. Career professionals can gather and disseminate up-to-date information about different industries and the roles available to students to combat misinformation and encourage career decisions. This information is also useful for those working in academia, such as the provost, deans, or faculty members, and can be disseminated throughout the university.
• Providing supportive support. Colleges can help students stand out in their job search by providing intentional career services throughout the student lifecycle, not just in their senior year. This might include reflection on their values ​​and skills, experiential learning, or guided conversations in student work about their work-related learning.
• Encourage students to do research. Before applying, students should research the position, the company, and how the job would support their long-term goals. Not only does this make the applicant more competitive from the start, it also saves them from having to do research later in the application process. “I think a lot of students sometimes short-circuit the actual job search process and they don’t do as much research, networking, or self-awareness (work),” Cruzvergara says.

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