The Newest Face of Long-Term Unemployment? The College Educated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being book smart doesn’t bring much value to an org when practically every piece of information you want is at your fingertips.

It isn’t hard to find college educated employees. Finding college educated employees employees that can think, analyze, process and apply that is a rarity.

How do you know what information you need to look up? How do you know which questions to ask, what's relevant and not relevant? How do you know which sources to trust? How do comprehend the nuances of the answers you find "at your fingertips" and which are flat out wrong or intentional misinformation? And so on...

[Anonymous]

My department posted two Cybersecurity analyst positions, and we are looking for recent college grads with some internship experience. We received over 3700 applications. Of those 3700 resumes, 99% of the candidates were rejected. From 99% of the resumes, there were 75 of those applicants graduated from Ivies, Northwestern, UCLA, UVA, Michigan, etc... We looked at 37 remaining applicants and phone-screen about eighteen of them. We brought nine candidates for on-site final interviews. As a technical interviewer, I asked "off the record" how many jobs they applied for and the number of interviews they received in the past twelve months. Almost all of them told me that they had applied for over 500 jobs, received less than 5% of phone interviews, and less than 1% for final interviews. All nine candidates qualified for the two positions, but we only have two slots available. In the end, my manager selected one from Brown, and the other one from UVA.

The job market is horrible. I know many people who were making 300K/yr from Amazon and Microsoft, and they got layoffs. They are looking for jobs that only pay 150K/yr, and are still looking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being book smart doesn’t bring much value to an org when practically every piece of information you want is at your fingertips.

It isn’t hard to find college educated employees. Finding college educated employees employees that can think, analyze, process and apply that is a rarity.

People with these skills usually have personal characteristics that employers may find undesirable. High critical thinking skills tend to come with less willingness to simply follow orders, not wanting to do grunt work and more friction when there is disagreement on how things should be done with other employees who may not want to look stupid in comparison.

Our workplace isn't well adapted to using talents of these people efficiently. A lot of them end up unemployable, we have a lot of waste of brainpower because of how our corporate culture is structured. And you, as a hiring manager end up with people who are just ok but have to be babysat, and holding on to that one employee who can babysit them dearly and hoping they never quit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My department posted two Cybersecurity analyst positions, and we are looking for recent college grads with some internship experience. We received over 3700 applications. Of those 3700 resumes, 99% of the candidates were rejected. From 99% of the resumes, there were 75 of those applicants graduated from Ivies, Northwestern, UCLA, UVA, Michigan, etc... We looked at 37 remaining applicants and phone-screen about eighteen of them. We brought nine candidates for on-site final interviews. As a technical interviewer, I asked "off the record" how many jobs they applied for and the number of interviews they received in the past twelve months. Almost all of them told me that they had applied for over 500 jobs, received less than 5% of phone interviews, and less than 1% for final interviews. All nine candidates qualified for the two positions, but we only have two slots available. In the end, my manager selected one from Brown, and the other one from UVA.

The job market is horrible. I know many people who were making 300K/yr from Amazon and Microsoft, and they got layoffs. They are looking for jobs that only pay 150K/yr, and are still looking.

Wage deflation. Tech companies had been laying off their higher paid workers and importing foreign labor for decades now, they aren't stopping now. I am afraid that the usual road to upward mobility through education and entering formally high paying fields may be no longer accessible. I am not even sure how to advise my kids in this situation. There are very few fields left where there is upside. It's also uncertain they will continue being lucrative years later given how fast things are changing. Degrees may not be worth the cost anymore, and once the stream of parents with fat 529 accounts dries up our education system may look completely different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being book smart doesn’t bring much value to an org when practically every piece of information you want is at your fingertips.

It isn’t hard to find college educated employees. Finding college educated employees employees that can think, analyze, process and apply that is a rarity.

People with these skills usually have personal characteristics that employers may find undesirable. High critical thinking skills tend to come with less willingness to simply follow orders, not wanting to do grunt work and more friction when there is disagreement on how things should be done with other employees who may not want to look stupid in comparison.

Our workplace isn't well adapted to using talents of these people efficiently. A lot of them end up unemployable, we have a lot of waste of brainpower because of how our corporate culture is structured. And you, as a hiring manager end up with people who are just ok but have to be babysat, and holding on to that one employee who can babysit them dearly and hoping they never quit.

So much truth in this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just started as a substitute teacher. On the day we did the intro workshop (8-4), I looked around. Here were 75 underemployed people who are willing and able to contribute to society.

The 10 people I talked to, all were
-laid off
-or able to work ft/pt, but due to family circumstances can’t do hours outside of our own flexibility. (Like me)

The problem we have in the USA is health insurance being tied to full time permanent job employment. And the fact that healthcare costs are too exorbitant for people to afford on their own making them seek government benefits instead of working part time, and part time work being generally unavailable anyway outside of the service sector low paying jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being book smart doesn’t bring much value to an org when practically every piece of information you want is at your fingertips.

It isn’t hard to find college educated employees. Finding college educated employees employees that can think, analyze, process and apply that is a rarity.

People with these skills usually have personal characteristics that employers may find undesirable. High critical thinking skills tend to come with less willingness to simply follow orders, not wanting to do grunt work and more friction when there is disagreement on how things should be done with other employees who may not want to look stupid in comparison.

Our workplace isn't well adapted to using talents of these people efficiently. A lot of them end up unemployable, we have a lot of waste of brainpower because of how our corporate culture is structured. And you, as a hiring manager end up with people who are just ok but have to be babysat, and holding on to that one employee who can babysit them dearly and hoping they never quit.

So much truth in this.

"Idiocracy" is not just a movie.. We are living it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s always firefighting and law enforcement.

Early retirement, pensions, decent salaries and excellent benefits with next to no anxiety about AI.

Of course you did not read Project 2025

Those jobs are about to be crushed in terms of annual salary and benefits.

Really? How so? Trump’s OBBB just created up to a $25,000 tax credit for overtime. This contradicts your assertion that benefits are “about to be crushed.”