Really worried about my college senior graduating into this environment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in the tech field, and my employer is looking to hire two junior SWE positions. I've received over 9,500 applications for these two positions. Let's assume only ten percent of those applications are legit, we are talking about 950 applicants for two positions. There are so many resumes from Ivies, Michigan, Northeastern, UVA, VA Tech for these two positions. Absolutely insane.

My kid works for a well-funded AI startup (billions raised and $100BN+ valuation) and they can’t find any good ML or computer vision engineers.

They are hiring 100+ people.

There is always a bull market somewhere. My kid is also constantly hounded by recruiters and just started at this company.

Where is your son's company located?

[Anonymous]

There is always the military.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel the only industry of grads that are guaranteed to have job offers is healthcare. I have two kids one that is a PA and one that’s an occupational therapist. Both have graduate degrees and had a job before even graduating

OT jobs are going to become scarce once they cut Medicaid funding for school based services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is always the military.

Not for my son. He was diagnosed with HFA as a preschooler, so the military will not take him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is always the military.

Not if you need adhd meds to focus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in the tech field, and my employer is looking to hire two junior SWE positions. I've received over 9,500 applications for these two positions. Let's assume only ten percent of those applications are legit, we are talking about 950 applicants for two positions. There are so many resumes from Ivies, Michigan, Northeastern, UVA, VA Tech for these two positions. Absolutely insane.

My kid works for a well-funded AI startup (billions raised and $100BN+ valuation) and they can’t find any good ML or computer vision engineers.

They are hiring 100+ people.

There is always a bull market somewhere. My kid is also constantly hounded by recruiters and just started at this company.

Where is your son's company located?

One guess...San Francisco...that's where all the hot ones are based now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in the tech field, and my employer is looking to hire two junior SWE positions. I've received over 9,500 applications for these two positions. Let's assume only ten percent of those applications are legit, we are talking about 950 applicants for two positions. There are so many resumes from Ivies, Michigan, Northeastern, UVA, VA Tech for these two positions. Absolutely insane.

OMG. That is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel the only industry of grads that are guaranteed to have job offers is healthcare. I have two kids one that is a PA and one that’s an occupational therapist. Both have graduate degrees and had a job before even graduating

This comment is spot on. Majoring in business or CS no longer leads to reliable employment and things will only get worse as AI expands.

Majoring in business - as a general field - or business management - was always a dud. They need actual skills in finance, accounting, digital marketing, sales or whatever discipline they want to pursue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If posters could share their child’s major, I would be grateful. I’m so sorry the market is terrible and kids aren’t finding jobs or are having them rescinded. It’s scary. I have a HS student thinking about college, and I don’t know what to tell them in terms of their tentative major choice in STEM or what majors might be better. My kid has zero interest in healthcare and would be terrible at it.

My son just graduated from Virginia Tech with a major in Computational Modeling & Data Analytics, that's their "data science" major. He starts a data scientist job next month in DC. It's at the firm he interned with last summer (and got his initial security clearance then too). He says most of the people he knows who graduated with jobs got them from last year's internships. But he did have a 2nd offer from the company he worked with on his capstone project.

What helped with the internship was doing an on-campus program where he worked with several professors on data analytics to support their research. Through those, he learned industry current tools to work on a variety of real programs, giving him solid experience to talk about in interviews. Also, he took a lighter load junior year fall so he could really focus on internship applications, essentially applying to internships was like a part time job. He accepted an internship by winter break.

In a world where even "entry level" jobs seems to be asking for a couple years experience, the most important thing IMO when evaluating colleges is determining how the school will build real experience into the education- research programs, capstone projects, industry partnerships, etc.

[Anonymous]

Happy to say my UVA ‘25 grad finally got a job today after 19 first round interviews, 8 second
rounds and two third + rounds. She had great internships but in nonprofit where they just don’t have the ability to create entry level roles like the bigger corps. Hang tough class of 2025!

[Anonymous]

It’s tough out there OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD had three offers over $80k, she is going to Chicago. She had the offers in the Fall to start late summer. She graduated in May from T25 but not T10 with very average grades. But she is good in interviews, very good.

And other than your not-so-humble bragging, what is the point of this message? How does it respond to the concerns everyone who is posting on here is expressing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of us living in the DC area, the trade off for our kids might be saving money living at home but poor job prospects vs better job prospects but spending money on rent.

Funny, I grew up in a small town (5000 people) and this was our tradeoff always. I was a bit envious of my college friends from big cities who could live at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of us living in the DC area, the trade off for our kids might be saving money living at home but poor job prospects vs better job prospects but spending money on rent.

Funny, I grew up in a small town (5000 people) and this was our tradeoff always. I was a bit envious of my college friends from big cities who could live at home.

Isn't it a leap to think that living in DC area would mean poor job prospects for their children? I would think the opposite. Job prospects in DMV is quite good or will become good after Trump is no longer in power.

My kids are going to be staying with us and saving money.