Most people don’t understand what college is actually for. Most people think college is to learn something and then you make a career out of it. Well, it’s not, unless you want to go into academia.
College is a way to socialize and meet other people. This means you need to get into the right crowds and meet the right people. You use this time to do things like internships. What you learn and what your GPA is does not matter to any employer. Who you know, does.
To be fair, your degree and GPA can be helpful in landing your very first job. After that though you’re right, nobody cares about anything but your work experience.
Not just work experience but connections as well. I graduated back in the 90’s to a slow market. It took me months and sending out 100 or so resumes for a whopping 5 interviews, and eventually one job offer. Luckily for me I made a number of good connections at that place. After 2 years there I quit to join a startup where 4 of the 5 people there were all former coworkers. Over the past 25+ years I’ve worked at close to 10 companies, most of which came from connections from those first two companies.
When I started my current job, the CTO and cofounder was somebody I first met back at my very first job, and (including mergers) this is the sixth company where we’ve worked together.
Sage advice! I’ve also never applied for a job beyond my first one - always just followed a friend and former coworker into a new company. Connections really do open doors.
I was greedy. I never did any of the internships because the money I made as a delivery driver was orders of magnitude higher than what they were offering. I almost couldn’t afford to stop making that kind of money. But I got hella lucky to be in my current position. I often wonder what life would be like had I interned at Cisco or IBM.
Your take would make sense if internships weren’t completely swamped
My cs internship took about 300 or so applications to get one (after about 5 months of looking). It’s even worse now, and knowing people doesn’t mean much in this industry unless it’s a small local company or you somehow know the vp of a company.
This is where having a good GPA matters and going to a good school. If you want to go to school to learn, that’s cool, but don’t think it’s going to get you a good job.
If you were in the same Greek house as the hiring manager, your chances go up. If you went to the same school or went to a prestigious school like Yale, your chances go up. No one is looking at your GPA at this point though.
You really have to go out and socialize. It’s not enough to just have a degree anymore. You need to do projects. Contribute to open source projects. Go to meetups.
If you have Google on your resume, you’re good. It doesn’t matter how good you did there. Employers look at this. If you start your career off on the wrong foot, it will follow you around for the rest of your career and it may be difficult to get out of it.
Any employer hiring based on who you know is an employer you don’t want to work for.
And I mean sure, if you’re in fashion or politics, it matters who you know. But if not, you’re at the mercy of recruiters and overworked people from your field who have seen literally hundreds of others who can do better.
Why would college students not be getting jobs? It means people with more experience are applying for those same jobs and getting them. And why are people with more experience doing that? Most simple answer is because they’re coming off a layoff from their previous job, and their industry isn’t hiring as much.
As more and more business outright fail because they’re not competitive enough, or downsize to reduce costs, you’ll see more and more unemployment in experienced workers. Their availability on the market will mean less jobs for students and college graduates. It doesn’t have to be a complicated answer - college grads are just in too much supply and not enough demand these days.
Most people don’t understand what college is actually for. Most people think college is to learn something and then you make a career out of it. Well, it’s not, unless you want to go into academia.
College is a way to socialize and meet other people. This means you need to get into the right crowds and meet the right people. You use this time to do things like internships. What you learn and what your GPA is does not matter to any employer. Who you know, does.
To be fair, your degree and GPA can be helpful in landing your very first job. After that though you’re right, nobody cares about anything but your work experience.
Not just work experience but connections as well. I graduated back in the 90’s to a slow market. It took me months and sending out 100 or so resumes for a whopping 5 interviews, and eventually one job offer. Luckily for me I made a number of good connections at that place. After 2 years there I quit to join a startup where 4 of the 5 people there were all former coworkers. Over the past 25+ years I’ve worked at close to 10 companies, most of which came from connections from those first two companies.
When I started my current job, the CTO and cofounder was somebody I first met back at my very first job, and (including mergers) this is the sixth company where we’ve worked together.
Sage advice! I’ve also never applied for a job beyond my first one - always just followed a friend and former coworker into a new company. Connections really do open doors.
Business major posting
I’m so happy to see that others read that as well.
This, but also internships are HUGE.
I was greedy. I never did any of the internships because the money I made as a delivery driver was orders of magnitude higher than what they were offering. I almost couldn’t afford to stop making that kind of money. But I got hella lucky to be in my current position. I often wonder what life would be like had I interned at Cisco or IBM.
Your take would make sense if internships weren’t completely swamped
My cs internship took about 300 or so applications to get one (after about 5 months of looking). It’s even worse now, and knowing people doesn’t mean much in this industry unless it’s a small local company or you somehow know the vp of a company.
This is where having a good GPA matters and going to a good school. If you want to go to school to learn, that’s cool, but don’t think it’s going to get you a good job.
If you were in the same Greek house as the hiring manager, your chances go up. If you went to the same school or went to a prestigious school like Yale, your chances go up. No one is looking at your GPA at this point though.
You really have to go out and socialize. It’s not enough to just have a degree anymore. You need to do projects. Contribute to open source projects. Go to meetups.
If you have Google on your resume, you’re good. It doesn’t matter how good you did there. Employers look at this. If you start your career off on the wrong foot, it will follow you around for the rest of your career and it may be difficult to get out of it.
Nobody ever cares about anyone’s GPA except to get into grad school.
Any employer hiring based on who you know is an employer you don’t want to work for.
And I mean sure, if you’re in fashion or politics, it matters who you know. But if not, you’re at the mercy of recruiters and overworked people from your field who have seen literally hundreds of others who can do better.
Why would college students not be getting jobs? It means people with more experience are applying for those same jobs and getting them. And why are people with more experience doing that? Most simple answer is because they’re coming off a layoff from their previous job, and their industry isn’t hiring as much.
As more and more business outright fail because they’re not competitive enough, or downsize to reduce costs, you’ll see more and more unemployment in experienced workers. Their availability on the market will mean less jobs for students and college graduates. It doesn’t have to be a complicated answer - college grads are just in too much supply and not enough demand these days.