IT’S HARD TO BLAME THEM GIVEN WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING ON CAMPUSES: Companies Want Fewer Grad Hires This Year: Companies are hiring fewer fresh graduates and rethinking their needs for entry-level talent.
Employers plan to hire 5.8% fewer new graduates than they did last year, according to a spring survey of 226 employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. And what those bosses want from entry-level workers is changing, students and recruiters say, from years of experience to sophisticated artificial-intelligence skills. Some companies say AI is taking over part of the work fresh graduates used to do.
It’s just the latest challenge for the graduating seniors who began their studies with Covid-19 lockdowns and Zoom classes and finished them amid protests that disrupted campus life nationwide. . . .
HealthEdge, an insurance-software company, is among the companies hiring fewer new graduates this year. It’s bringing on five new graduates in the U.S. compared with 20 in 2023. Overall, it’s hiring fewer entry-level employees, and a greater share of them are in India, said Stefani Coleman, who leads early-talent recruiting and programming.
Demand for such jobs, meanwhile, has been overwhelming, she added. At one point, she received about 2,000 applications within 24 hours for an associate software-engineering role.
“The market has changed so drastically,” she said.
The supply of computer-science majors continues to grow as hiring demand for software programming roles appears to be cooling. Two other major campus job recruiting sectors—consulting and finance—are also retrenching after pandemic hiring sprees.
Graduates looking for jobs must meet a higher bar because the market is already crowded with junior workers who recently lost jobs, says Jay Killough, who leads Texas Tech University’s career center.
“Learn to code” turns out to have been bad advice.
Plus: “Some career advisers are also advising graduates to refrain from opining about campus protests if asked in job interviews.” That seems like good advice.