jobs are very hard to find for recent grads.

[Anonymous]

Your daughter needs to look outside DMV. DMV is very weak for biotech and pharma. If she wants to do that stuff, she needs to be in Boston or SF. Possibly Philly region.

However, the entire biotech sector is getting demolished right now. It has been horrible for the last 2+ years. Maybe she should go do technical consulting or finance.

[Anonymous]

When have jobs not been hard to get for recent grads? 2001-3 was rough for a lot of people.

[Anonymous]

Did she look into patent examining?

[Anonymous]

I dunno. Im hiring stem grads and cant find many qualified. 3.5 and up GPA, good class experience and willing to work in person every day. And this is for $80k and up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When have jobs not been hard to get for recent grads? 2001-3 was rough for a lot of people.

As well as 1991-1993 and 2008-2010…in fact both those periods were far worse (as well as 2001-03).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dunno. Im hiring stem grads and cant find many qualified. 3.5 and up GPA, good class experience and willing to work in person every day. And this is for $80k and up.

What industry? Where?

[Anonymous]

I found the career center to be useless at my University.

She needs to wait tables or work at starbucks or work retail and keep applying.

She needs to be willing to relocate. A lot of the medical device companies are in the south and the economy is growing in the south. In my southern university town we have around 4 medical device companies that are always hiring entry level.

Talk to the military recruiters. They are always hiring from the Ivy colleges. My sister could not get a job when she graduated from Wharton (Univ of Penn). She ended up joining the Marines to get a job and there were about 4 classmates from Wharton who also joined the Marines at that time as they could not get jobs.

[Anonymous]

Also have her look around the Philly/Wilmington area. There is a lot of demand for pharma in that region.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to be competitive in BME without a master's. It's such a specialized field.

[Anonymous]

If I were her, I would take any entry-level admin position with a company even remotely in her field. Just to have something while she continues to look. Has she tried applying to these?

I am surprised her internship did not garner any openings/contacts. Can she reach out to whomever she can think of at the company again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I found the career center to be useless at my University.

She needs to wait tables or work at starbucks or work retail and keep applying.

She needs to be willing to relocate. A lot of the medical device companies are in the south and the economy is growing in the south. In my southern university town we have around 4 medical device companies that are always hiring entry level.

Talk to the military recruiters. They are always hiring from the Ivy colleges. My sister could not get a job when she graduated from Wharton (Univ of Penn). She ended up joining the Marines to get a job and there were about 4 classmates from Wharton who also joined the Marines at that time as they could not get jobs.

I have literally never heard of a Wharton grad that joined the Marines to get a job. I know ROTC kids that have to serve after graduation.

What does it even mean to join the Marines to get a job…isn’t that called enlisting?

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why so many kids major in this field. I don’t know anyone who works in it. But I know tons of accountants, sales people, doctors, nurses, finance people etc. Why major in an area that has so few jobs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why so many kids major in this field. I don’t know anyone who works in it. But I know tons of accountants, sales people, doctors, nurses, finance people etc. Why major in an area that has so few jobs?

It’s kind of a mystery with hard sciences majors (biology, chemistry, etc.)…they are tough majors but jobs with just a BS pay like $20/hour. Of course many go to med school…even PhDs don’t make much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found the career center to be useless at my University.

She needs to wait tables or work at starbucks or work retail and keep applying.

She needs to be willing to relocate. A lot of the medical device companies are in the south and the economy is growing in the south. In my southern university town we have around 4 medical device companies that are always hiring entry level.

Talk to the military recruiters. They are always hiring from the Ivy colleges. My sister could not get a job when she graduated from Wharton (Univ of Penn). She ended up joining the Marines to get a job and there were about 4 classmates from Wharton who also joined the Marines at that time as they could not get jobs.

I have literally never heard of a Wharton grad that joined the Marines to get a job. I know ROTC kids that have to serve after graduation.

What does it even mean to join the Marines to get a job…isn’t that called enlisting?

I am sure they commissioned rather than enlisting. It actually offers decent pay, great benefits, and good networking. I am not at all surprised. Being a military office is prestigious, gets you a security clearance, and can open a lot of doors. It’s not “below” someone just because they’re an Ivy grad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD recently graduated from an Ivy with a degree in Biomedical Engineering with an internship in her junior, and she is still looking for a permanent job. She has been looking for a job since January 2024. She also has twelve friends from HS, five from Ivies, four from UVA, and three from Virginia Tech, which also graduated in 2024. Of those twelve friends, eight are still looking for jobs. Those four that actually have jobs, they get them through family connections. Two have jobs with a government contractor because their father/mother is a fed SES in the government. The other two have jobs because their uncle/aunt is SVP in the company. My DD is very depressed at the moment. I feel so helpless that I am not in a position to help my DD and her friends.

It is a tough year for a lot of graduates. it was for me in the early 1990s, eventually they will get an opportunity, it does work out.

I hope the SES employees who had contractors hire their kids are reported to their agency’s IG office. It is not ethical.

Class of 1990. Top of the class in Liberal Arts College from state flagship in Rust Belt.

No job at graduation. I got a paid summer internship at a non-profit through a professor. Looked for a real job from graduation to the following year. Same with many others in my class. There was a stock market bobble and the Persian Gulf War.

Had three full-time job offers in May 1991. Two through career center. One through an interview with a college friend of my dad's. Two involved moving to DMV. The stay home one had tough conditions so I decided to move.

The Internet makes things at least easier to investigate now. Today I would definitely do a cold e-mail campaign with relevant alums. Through LinkedIn or school portal.

go where the jobs are.

I was lucky to get a job from an internship after graduating from a no name B state school in '93 in CA, with pretty good pay at a non profit. Of course, a year later I got laid off since the economy was not that great.

I pivoted careers and moved to where lots of jobs were in that field, then started making six figures after a couple of years. This was 20+ years ago.

I have been telling my kids that they need to move to where the jobs are. One is a junior in college the other is a junior in HS. And yes, to make connections. In some ways trying to find a job is a lot easier today than pre internet days when we had to literally cold call. I also remember looking through the classifieds in the newspapers for jobs.

It's tough to move where you have no support system and friends, but do it for a year and get some experience. A job begets a job.