How are your May 2025 college grads doing with their job hunts/job offers?

[Anonymous]

My CPA tells me there is a huge accountant shortage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My ‘25 who had built a nice little undergrad resume in work related to international development has obviously had to pivot. She’s a Fulbright semifinalist but that feels pretty fraught even if it comes through. She’s got one job offer and a grad program in Europe as options right now, still waiting on a few more things. We’re strongly encouraging any opportunity that gets her out of the country

That's not dramatic at all.

+1
My eyes rolled so hard at that statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My ‘25 who had built a nice little undergrad resume in work related to international development has obviously had to pivot. She’s a Fulbright semifinalist but that feels pretty fraught even if it comes through. She’s got one job offer and a grad program in Europe as options right now, still waiting on a few more things. We’re strongly encouraging any opportunity that gets her out of the country

That's not dramatic at all.

+1
My eyes rolled so hard at that statement.

Why? It's totally reasonable advice for a student who wants to work in international development. The US has abandoned all international development work for the next four years. What else should she do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard CS and software engineering jobs are hard to find now even for kids from top schools. Pre pandemic grads were getting competing offers from FAANG. I’m really curious about this as everything was focused on the lack of enough US kids in CS just 10 years ago. Have the schools doubled or tripled the size of their programs?

CS is a wide field. Choice of upper level electives totally matters. College does not matter in most cases.

I want to hire students who took the harder upper level electives and got a B or better (no need for an A). Examples of harder electives include: compilers, OS internals/kernel, Advanced networking protocols, real-time/embedded systems, VHDL/Verilog. Also, we specifically need C programmers, not C++ or Rust or Fortran or some other language. There is a long-term chronic shortage of the kind of recent grads I want to hire.

There is a surplus of folks who take the easier upper level electives like web programming, Python, PHP, and such like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech has been a rough industry with a lot of layoffs in recent years, including software engineers.

FAANG companies over hired during the pandemic to provide shareholders with great "growth" numbers. Now that the economy has turned, they have been cutting staff like crazy for quite some time now.

Schools have also introduced or increase the size of tech related programs. It's just another oversaturated industry with candidates also having to compete with equally skilled off-shore talent working at a fraction of the cost.

UMD halved their CS program size. Went from 1400 to 700, with only 600 direct admit, and 100 for transfer, both internal end external.

Do you think they did in anticipation of the drop in demand for CS graduates or did they do it to manage accessibility to classes?

UMCP CS became more selective on admissions, so fewer kids dropped out of CS. Also, they wanted to be sure that students could actually get into the CS courses they needed/wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Man, this is depressing. I'm so glad my DC graduated a year early. 2024 was bad but not as bad as 2025 from what I hear and see. I have another one starting college this year and interested in CS. I have been trying to steer DC from CS to another engineering field but it's hard for an 18yo to know what they want to do.

CS can be good, but they need to pick more difficult upper level electives as a Jr or Sr. The classic example of more difficult is Compilers. Those kinds of graduates are a perpetual shortage.

CS grads whose upper level electives prepared them mainly for web programming and scripting languages are in surplus.

Getting the DC to pivot slightly to a BS Computer Engineering degree would be a good option. That likely requires more advanced math and more Physics than CS would, but has more career options - adding potential hardware work in addition to software. Important to learn logic programming - VHDL/Verilog - if on the ComputerE track. My perpetual challenge is finding people to hire who can write software for real-time/embedded systems and who understand both hardware and lower level software. The C programming language and ARM Assembly language are highly desired. Other languages like C++ are not as useful in my open positions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone about to graduate who hasn't already secured a full-time job (i.e. most) should just start studying for the GRE and plan on going to grad school in hopes that the market is better by the time you finish.

There are still plenty of 2024 and earlier grads who have yet to land their first "real" job.

Grad school apps are over for this cycle; many funded programs were cut this cycle (phd and funded masters); top law and med school are still good investments but one cannot just apply on a whim to these without years of planning. Unfunded masters that cost 85k per year are usually not a good investment, though some are much easier to get accepted to if not top programs.
Funded masters and the worthwhile unfunded ones are all top-level programs with admission rates below 30% before the program cuts came. Funded phD at top programs(that lead to jobs in industry or open doors in academia) already had admission rates between 3 and 20%. Even the top funded programs admitted fewer this cycle. Admissions will be even harder next yr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man, this is depressing. I'm so glad my DC graduated a year early. 2024 was bad but not as bad as 2025 from what I hear and see. I have another one starting college this year and interested in CS. I have been trying to steer DC from CS to another engineering field but it's hard for an 18yo to know what they want to do.

CS can be good, but they need to pick more difficult upper level electives as a Jr or Sr. The classic example of more difficult is Compilers. Those kinds of graduates are a perpetual shortage.

CS grads whose upper level electives prepared them mainly for web programming and scripting languages are in surplus.

Getting the DC to pivot slightly to a BS Computer Engineering degree would be a good option. That likely requires more advanced math and more Physics than CS would, but has more career options - adding potential hardware work in addition to software. Important to learn logic programming - VHDL/Verilog - if on the ComputerE track. My perpetual challenge is finding people to hire who can write software for real-time/embedded systems and who understand both hardware and lower level software. The C programming language and ARM Assembly language are highly desired. Other languages like C++ are not as useful in my open positions.

This is a great post and is why one CS graduate can't get one offer and the next has five offers.

Not sure if students are getting really any advice from college career services on these kinds of distinctions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man, this is depressing. I'm so glad my DC graduated a year early. 2024 was bad but not as bad as 2025 from what I hear and see. I have another one starting college this year and interested in CS. I have been trying to steer DC from CS to another engineering field but it's hard for an 18yo to know what they want to do.

CS can be good, but they need to pick more difficult upper level electives as a Jr or Sr. The classic example of more difficult is Compilers. Those kinds of graduates are a perpetual shortage.

CS grads whose upper level electives prepared them mainly for web programming and scripting languages are in surplus.

Getting the DC to pivot slightly to a BS Computer Engineering degree would be a good option. That likely requires more advanced math and more Physics than CS would, but has more career options - adding potential hardware work in addition to software. Important to learn logic programming - VHDL/Verilog - if on the ComputerE track. My perpetual challenge is finding people to hire who can write software for real-time/embedded systems and who understand both hardware and lower level software. The C programming language and ARM Assembly language are highly desired. Other languages like C++ are not as useful in my open positions.

The head of dept at kid’s ivy gives the same advice as above. “CS” there is a thorough degree that is more inline with computer engineering elsewhere, same with other top CS programs he investigated. Advanced math and physics with courses well beyond programming are built into the curriculum. They are all getting hired for internships, beginning after sophomore year, then into jobs with little difficulty the past two cycles. DS and his peers are headed into their second summer of paid internships in the field, working on broader experiences for the resume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech has been a rough industry with a lot of layoffs in recent years, including software engineers.

FAANG companies over hired during the pandemic to provide shareholders with great "growth" numbers. Now that the economy has turned, they have been cutting staff like crazy for quite some time now.

Schools have also introduced or increase the size of tech related programs. It's just another oversaturated industry with candidates also having to compete with equally skilled off-shore talent working at a fraction of the cost.

UMD halved their CS program size. Went from 1400 to 700, with only 600 direct admit, and 100 for transfer, both internal end external.

Do you think they did in anticipation of the drop in demand for CS graduates or did they do it to manage accessibility to classes?

UMD did it (I believe) to manage accessibility. If you admit kids to a major, they (shockingly) want to actually be able to get the courses they need and electives they want to graduate on time. Funny how that works. If you don't have the staff to provide it, it's smart to scale back

Just like UCB is great, but sitting in entry level CS courses where there are not even enough lecture hall seats for everyone registered is a bit off putting. And the kids I know who attend complain about not being able to get the electives in CS that they want. What's the point of a major if you cannot even focus on your interests?!?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone about to graduate who hasn't already secured a full-time job (i.e. most) should just start studying for the GRE and plan on going to grad school in hopes that the market is better by the time you finish.

There are still plenty of 2024 and earlier grads who have yet to land their first "real" job.

And if they don’t have the money for grad school?

[Anonymous]

I hire CS and engineers. I see a ton of resumes and transcripts. I don't hire anyone under a 3.5 GPA. But all the kids above 3.8 want $100k and aren't getting that unless they are truly superstars. Oh and you have to be willing to work in person.

[Anonymous]

Anybody with kids graduating in the humanities seeing success during this job market. I ask because all the responses so far have been parents of students graduating from the schools of engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My ‘25 who had built a nice little undergrad resume in work related to international development has obviously had to pivot. She’s a Fulbright semifinalist but that feels pretty fraught even if it comes through. She’s got one job offer and a grad program in Europe as options right now, still waiting on a few more things. We’re strongly encouraging any opportunity that gets her out of the country

That's not dramatic at all.

+1
My eyes rolled so hard at that statement.

Why? It's totally reasonable advice for a student who wants to work in international development. The US has abandoned all international development work for the next four years. What else should she do?

+1 These PP's are in their bubble and have no clue. It's going to be a rough ride for public health, international development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My ‘25 who had built a nice little undergrad resume in work related to international development has obviously had to pivot. She’s a Fulbright semifinalist but that feels pretty fraught even if it comes through. She’s got one job offer and a grad program in Europe as options right now, still waiting on a few more things. We’re strongly encouraging any opportunity that gets her out of the country

That's not dramatic at all.

+1
My eyes rolled so hard at that statement.

Why? It's totally reasonable advice for a student who wants to work in international development. The US has abandoned all international development work for the next four years. What else should she do?

+1 These PP's are in their bubble and have no clue. It's going to be a rough ride for public health, international development.

To add, also rough for university-based scientific research.