College Seniors and Recent Grads Face Uncertain Job Market Post-Pandemic

By Ryan Markham 
JRN100 News Reporter 

Brendan Barry, recent Stonehill College graduate and current master’s degree in education candidate at Merrimack College, is one of the millions of newly-minted graduates facing an uncertain post-pandemic job market. 

“I’m kind of keeping all my options open for jobs, but right now I’m primarily looking at residence life jobs because those are the ones being posted as schools start to go back to fully open and they’re going to need more staff to help with that endeavor,” said Barry. 

Barry said he hopes more employment opportunities will be available by the time he earns his master’s degree in the spring of 2021. He said he would ideally like a job in higher education, but will be happy to take a residence life job. 

“I think that it’s been tricky for a lot of people because obviously there was a point in time where no one was really hiring,” said Barry. 

The recovery after the pandemic is likely to take several years, according to a study by Michigan State University’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute Annual Recruiting Survey for 2020-2021. Jobs for four-year college graduates were hit hardest, while the market is better for those with associate’s degrees, the study found. 

“I think that the near to medium term is really where the difficulties are. What is the recovery going to look like? How accelerated is work going to be, and how accelerated are hires going to be over the next six, 12, 24 months?” said professor John Duggan, the chair of the business administration department at Stonehill College in Easton. 

The troubling job outlook for recent college graduates and soon-to-be graduating seniors ends a streak of several years of expanding opportunities, stunning many in the class of 2020 who had hoped to get posts in their fields directly after graduation.

Many have taken jobs at grocery stores or restaurants to help pay bills and make payments on college loans. Some plan to move home to live with parents as a way to cut expenses. 

The Michigan State University report, which was published by Dr. Phil Gardner in the fall of 2020, points out how, after a year, COVID-19 continues to cause health issues and economic problems. The hope for a quick recovery has not transpired. Many employers have bounced back, but others have had to continue cutbacks and some have closed their doors.  

Many have suffered disappointments this past year. 

Some graduates saw that the positions they were seeking canceled, some had offers revoked, others had their job search abruptly stopped, and many could not even get started. 

Many employers are not hiring as they try to manage their current payrolls. When jobs are posted, competition is high given how many people lost work during the pandemic. 

Airlines, hotels/travel, arts and entertainment, brick and motor retail, food services, and manufacturing, are among the industries struggling to recover. Traditionally, these sectors offer many jobs to college graduates. 

Traditional recruiting practices such as on-campus job fairs and company interviews have come to a halt. Virtual recruiting events and Zoom interviews have become routine. Many jobs that are available are now remote, not in person. 

Many students avoid virtual fairs or almost everything virtual as the event is outside their usual comfort zone and increases their anxiety in an already nerve-racking process. However, it is something that all students have been coming to grips with in order to succeed and stand out in the current the job market. 

While students continue to network through social media, campus contacts, and career conferences, they have had to come to terms with the changing job landscape. 

Nearly 60% of employers expect virtual recruiting to become the norm, according to the Michigan State University report, although many companies also expect they will have an on-campus presence as well when restrictions lift. 

Even for those who get new jobs, many have found they are remote workers and at a disadvantage as new hires. It is difficult to get to know coworkers and companies when not having interacted in person before. 

Andrew Leahy, the associate director of the Career Development Center at Stonehill College, said he is encouraging college seniors to stay focused on their job searches. He said the center will reach out to seniors shortly after graduation to help them get started on their job searches if they have not secured a job already. 

“Everyone approaches professional development in their own timeline. That’s always been the case and we are navigating this timeline that seniors are sort of dictating for us and kind of trying to identify what that timeline is and then pivot and then come up with a strategy to help them,” said Leahy. 

Internships may offer one area of growth, the Michigan State University report found. As employers find ways to adopt virtual internships into their work assignments, they become more receptive to hosting more interns and postings for internship opportunities have surged in recent months. 

And the uptick in remote work has some silver linings, such as becoming more virtually versatile with new technologies, flexible office hours, and shorter commute times. 

Some organizations have created remote work policies to allow recent graduates to move to other less expensive or more desirable areas. 

Most companies expect that remote work will be part of their future business models, with some companies extending their work-from-home options well into 2021 and beyond. 

As the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more widely distributed, economists are hoping for a more robust job market. So are college graduates. 

 “I think with the rollout of the vaccine and having a better grip on the virus that things are starting to trend back to where jobs are going to come back and a lot of my friends and people I know from Stonehill are starting to really get those opportunities which is great,” said Barry.