When you graduated college, did most of your friends get jobs straight away?

[Anonymous]

I feel very bad for today's graduates. When I graduated (1988) I think every one of my friends had a job coming out of college. It must be such a depressing experience to have worked really hard and then have to work even harder to find an entry level job.

[Anonymous]

Most went to graduate school.

[Anonymous]

Yes, as receptionists, assistants and secretaries.

[Anonymous]

No. It was 1993, and economy was a bit like it is now. Then, like now, we were still recovering from Republican mismanagement of the economy.

[Anonymous]

1992. The only people who had jobs were engineers or had graduate degrees. My first job paid $22,000 a year and I was flush compared to my friends.

[Anonymous]

When I graduated in 1988, most of us went to graduate school, but those who didn't had good, entry-level jobs that eventually led to good careers. My classmates have done very well, in general.

By the time I was done with law school a few years later, good entry-level legal jobs were tough to find. I had a low-paying, no-benefits public interest legal job for several months before I got a good position. I was making about $25,000, which was what others were doing straight out of college a few years earlier.

When recent law grads were getting $150,000 starting salaries a few years back my contemporaries and I marveled at how much better they had it and how unsustainable that was. Right now, grads probably have it worse than we did in the early 90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, as receptionists, assistants and secretaries.

This.
Graduated in 1994. Few friends went to grad school straight out of college. Most went within a few years.

[Anonymous]

Yes. 1989 graduate of a small liberal arts college. Anyone who did not go straight to grad school found a job and many of my friends had majors like English, History, Art History and Political Science. The jobs didn't pay much, but everyone was working or in grad school. Totally different world now.

[Anonymous]

1996 grad - MIS degree from Business School. I had a ton of opportunities, and so did all of my friends.

[Anonymous]

1991 - about 75% of classmates had decent professional jobs within 6 months of graduating. I was in the undergraduate business school of a highly selective university.
Many of my liberal arts friends went to law school or took receptionist type positions.

I have a bunch of neighbors that have children who graduated from college over the past few years. The children who went to more selective colleges and applied themselves through internships during their time in college have all landed good jobs. The ones that spent the 4+ years in college finding themselves are struggling to find jobs.

[Anonymous]

1997. I can't remember anyone who didn't have a professional job to go to.
I made $36,500, and I thought that I was going to be RICH. Hahahaha!

[Anonymous]

Early 80's. Pretty much all did.

[Anonymous]

1991. Most had decent jobs fairly soon after graduation. Some close friends had many to choose from prior to grad (engineering). With my lowly communications degree, I landed a job in about 3 months. $23k Thought I was rolling in it. Good thing I learned to type and knew MS Word and Excel!

[Anonymous]

2008- i would say 90% of my good friends either had entry level type jobs in their field, went on to graduate school, or did something like peace corps or teach for america. Of those who had jobs in their field, I'd say half of them started right after graduation and the other half had the jobs within 4 months. This is a group of about 25 people.

[Anonymous]

1987 BA - it's an Ivy, and almost everyone who wasn't a complete blow-off had at least something, and essentially all of those who were employed had FT, full-bens positions. Again, this is an Ivy. People I knew just a few completely meaningless rungs down the name-ladder had much, much less fortune.

1990 JD - a bad, local law school. A good 75% graduated without work, and most of them had no prospects of any kind. Multiple loan defaults and personal bankruptcies ensued from 90 to 97. I suspect that this situation persists and is the permanent-normal for lawyers not from the top 2-3 dozen schools.

2011 BA - Two neighbors, both attractive and energetic and very capable. These are people I would consider hiring. One, from a relatively good state school, no debt, female college jock, very observant, near-native fluency in a foreign language (not Spanish). She had a FT, full-bens job shortly after graduation and is still in it. Another, very smart but a little less on paper, is basically a long-term office temp.