New Graduates Struggling to Use Their Majors to Get a Job

College grads expect degrees to open doors, so novice job seekers are surprised to face dead ends after investing in higher education. Despite the availability of entry-level jobs, many recent college grads struggle to find employment because they don't understand how their skills translate to a professional setting or how to search for compatible job opportunities. Colleges that make career coaching integral to education can ease students' transition into the workforce.

College is often a perfunctory stop on the career path for anyone pursuing a professional role. As a result, students tend to think about immediate concerns, such as majors and coursework, more than planning a long-term career strategy. Students who lack strong career aspirations are even less likely to follow a highly-focused path with skill-building and enrichment opportunities that all serve a specific goal. When it's time to find a job, college grads who haven't learned effective self-marketing and networking techniques have difficulty identifying positions that match their skills and interests.

In a 2016 study of entry-level job seekers, placement firm GradStaff reported that nearly 70 percent of participants lacked employment or held a full-time non-professional job out of necessity. About 20 percent had jobs and were searching for new ones, and 86 percent had no pending job offers on the table. Respondents in the study frequently relied on job boards to find openings — a strategy that prevents job seekers from building relationships with hiring managers and pursuing unadvertised positions.

Another common obstacle for college grads is uncertainty about how to start a career. Roughly 46 percent of respondents were unsure of what to do with their majors, and more than 75 percent had difficulty figuring out what positions were a good fit for them. While vocational schools often build certification prep, hands-on experience and recruitment into the curriculum, colleges rarely make career coaching a core requirement for students. Nearly 71 percent of the survey respondents visited their college career center less than three times, and only 36.6 percent rated their experiences with career services as a 4 or 5.

Employers are starting to emphasize soft skills over technical skills for professional jobs. The downside is degrees are no longer a sign of job readiness because most undergraduate institutions don't prioritize competencies such as communication, collaboration, organization and problem-solving. Educational institutions that want to produce career-ready college grads should make traditional extracurricular activities, such as internships, career coaching and job fairs, fundamental to getting a degree. Digital tools are also reshaping recruitment methods, making it essential for new workers to learn how to network with industry professionals and create professional online profiles that attract recruiters.

Millennials frequently earn a reputation for being unmotivated, but the youngest generations are entering the workforce at a time of rapid change. Today's college grads have to face more competition and stricter baseline requirements with less preparation. To land job offers, college grads need guidance on how to evaluate their skills and frame their experiences to match up with an employer's priorities.

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