Expert: Softening job market keeping employers on the fence with hiring new college grads

BOSTON — In a few weeks, college bubbles across the country will burst, sending millions of young adults into the workforce -- or not.

“I’m a journalism major,” said Boston University Senior Bella Gonzalez. “I’m looking to work in communications in any sense.”

But so far, Gonzalez hasn’t found anything.

“The process is not easy to apply, and I know I’m not alone,” she said. “You don’t hear back from places, or it’s just so competitive that you don’t end up with an offer.”

Gonzalez has a summer job at BU lined up, but admits she’s apprehensive about the fall.

“I’ve had quite a few internships, I’ve done a ton of networking with people I know or that my family knows,” Gonzalez said. “But to no avail.”

That is not surprising. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said the job market for new college grads deteriorated significantly in the first few months of this year. While the overall U.S. unemployment rate is around 4%, it’s at least 50% higher for young adults, college-educated or not.

Bill Driscoll, an employment expert at Robert Half, says the needs of employers haven’t changed -- but the timeline for satisfying those needs has.

“Most companies are taking a wait-and-see approach,” he said. “Over the last 30 to 60 days, things have gotten a little uncertain, to say the least.”

Driscoll said that’s translating into a ‘subdued and elongated’ job market.

“The biggest problem recent graduates have is, how do you get a job with no experience and how do you get experience without a job,” he said.

That conundrum is made all the more difficult to resolve, Driscoll said, when new graduates make the mistake of focusing their job search too narrowly.

“Oftentimes, new hires get too narrowly focused on one specific thing or what their major was or what specifically their internship was,” he said. “And when that doesn’t work out they’re not sure where to go.”

Driscoll said it’s important to understand that satisfying careers sometimes grow out of seemingly imperfect situations.

But some soon-to-be-grads would welcome any employment situation bearing even a faint resemblance to their dream job.

BU Student Maggie Schnieder is majoring in film and television, with a concentration in screenwriting.

“I’ve been looking for work for the summer, and then for work just after graduation,” she said. “I’m not finding a lot of opportunities.”

Schnieder said internships for screenwriters are scarce -- and some of them are freelance positions that don’t pay.

“I don’t have the luxury of accepting an unpaid internship,” she said. “I thought it would be better after the writer’s strike a few years ago, but unfortunately, work is still very hard to find in the film industry right now.”

Yet, internships can be a door-opener for full-time work.

BU Senior Colby Sheehan is starting a position in the banking industry after graduation -- a return offer from an internship he did last summer. But many of his classmates still haven’t found work.

“There are definitely some who are struggling despite being qualified,” Sheehan said.

Nathan Basman is also graduating from BU this year with a business degree. He landed a job in Boston, but it wasn’t easy.

“It was pretty stressful,” he said. “Obviously, the job market is pretty tough right now. I really relied a lot more on connections that I had, people I knew who had graduated previously. That helped a lot.”

Basman said those who haven’t yet found work might take comfort in knowing offers come after graduation, too.

“I’d say it’s important to keep working, keep looking, and keep your head up,” he said.

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