Recent college graduates eagerly entered the job field in May with varied success. As of May 2012, the unemployment rate for young adults ages 20-24 was 12.9 percent, and 12.1 percent for adults ages 18-29.
According to Michael Walden, a William Neal Reynolds distinguished professor and extension economist, the 12.9 percentage is slightly lower than the rate for May 2011, which was 14.6 percent, but much higher than the 8.2 percent current unemployment rate for all workers.
Walden said there are two main reasons why young adults have a higher unemployment rate than workers across a broader age spectrum.
“The higher rate for young adults has two causes: one, lack of work experience — with so many jobless workers, employers prefer to hire workers with more experience, and two, the fact that more young workers have not had a full-time job, so they haven’t been able to have their ‘foot in the door’ of employment,” Walden said.
Economic forecasts suggest the jobless rate for young workers will gradually improve, but very slowly, according to Walden. This means young workers will take longer to become established and economically independent.
Allison Harriett , a recent graduate in agricultural and environment technology, is currently looking for a job to begin her career. She works as a nanny during the summer and at an after-school childcare program during the school year part-time.
About two months before graduation, Harriett decided she wanted to stay in Raleigh for her job search and used resources such as ePack , usajobs.gov and emails from her department. She said the country’s economic situation has affected her current job situation.
“Most employers are not willing to take the risk to hire a recent college graduate with no prior experience. They want someone who can come in ready to start,” Harriett said. “Also, since I’m looking more heavily into a government/ state job, their budgets dictate whether they can hire someone or not. The end of the budget is around the corner, so job opportunities are slim right now.”
Other graduates like Raina Enand , a recent Wake Forest University graduate in business and enterprise management, started her job search well before graduation was in sight. Between her junior and senior year she said she applied to about 50 internships, hoping a good internship would lead to a job offer.
“With this job market, I applied to many places, but in terms of how many interviews I got and how many offers I got, those numbers were in the single digits. Most people apply to 20-30 jobs during their senior year, and I did that during my junior year for internships because I knew a good internship would help me get a good job,” Enand said.
An internship with L’Oreal USA in New York led to a job offer two weeks after Enand’s senior year began.
“With the job market, you just have to be really aggressive much earlier and people don’t realize that. The more you put in the work, the more you get out of it,” Enand said.
Harriett’s advice for future college graduates is to not wait until the last minute to decide what you want to do with your life.
“Utilize the resources on campus and exploit those professors for names of employers that are willing to hire. In the end, I find time and time again, it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know,” Harriett said.
