Study: Nearly half with college degrees are overqualified for their jobs

<p>

</p>

<p>I’m, as usual, with poetgrl on this thread and I couldn’t agree more with the comment above. The class of 2011 I know best are working. One female teacher, downtown Chicago, private school background, ended up in New Mexico teaching a year on a reservation post college and has now transferred to a high school in a NY state resort area that is quite lovely and very different from the reservation. My son is doing his time in the resort industry, which was his preferred industry and has had 2 raises and a promotion after doing the grunt thing for almost year at minimum wages and paying his dues during the holidays. While he started side by side with people with no college degree, he is now supervising those same people and on his way to another promotion in the spring to a manager. And I can go on and on and on about the class of 2011 I am familiar with. But these were two good examples and teaching seemed to come up. Oh, there are teaching jobs, but they just might not be where Billy or Suzie wants to be.</p>

<p>I’ve already stated that graduating in the middle of horrible recessions of the 70s and into what at that time were the “largest college graduating classes” was no piece of cake. I wanted to work in Boston or New York or Chicago and industry people were say “No don’t come here there are no jobs.” I got my first job because I could type. I earned half of what my dad’s secretary earned which infuriated him a tad after he paid four years of private LAC tuition/room and board. But this first jobs don’t last long…you move along and ahead if you are any good. You had to move to places you might not want to live but you did what you had to do. I have little sympathy for kids that don’t “get” that you might not be able to live where you want to live or might not understand that your job is going to most likely be entry level and pay a minimal wage or that you might have to scrimp, save and live in not upper middle class housing or that you might be working shoulder to shoulder with someone who didn’t go to college but has 3 years experience under their belt. If you’re any good at that job you won’t be doing it for a long time.</p>

<p>If parents want to support their kids and keep them close to home, then so be it that is their decision but know full well, that doing so could greatly limit their ability to find that first job which will lead to the second job which will lead to the third job. </p>

<p>Bel’s on the right track now looking for low unemployment areas. Find the jobs…don’t wait for jobs to find you and don’t put so many conditions on your job hunt that you effectively squeeze out any ability to locate a job.</p>

<p>reading the Australian shortage, again no different than here. They want experienced engineers, not new grads.</p>

<p>Ok relocation to where the jobs are is fine, however, what my kid has dealt with:</p>

<p>California about 4 phone interviews—>we went with someone local
Alabama a job that was travel to various sites(basically told a job for new grads, sleeping in hotels, paid travel home once a month) D thought it was a great opportunity. Opportunity to sock away all the earnings because of no rent. Company—>we went with someone with 5 years experience.
Many many OOS design/engineering positions midwest,Illinois,Indiana all hiring locally. All required 3 + years experience. Don’t want to pay for bringing people in for interviews. She has about exhausted all avenues, major engineering firm my husband has contacts in, they told her unless it is local hire, they aren’t hiring kids from afar. This one we have contacts in, currently only want applicants with experience.
Another contact in the medical device industry, also told her, (this was hiring manager) companies are not willing to take kids far at this point, the local markets can supply enough qualified people. This one was in Colorado.
I have a close contact with another medical device company, who is employed as a rep, he told me his company has phantom postings, always interview, but never hire. His hiring manager is interviewing 2 weeks out of every month, never hires anyone. This is the reality for some kids. As far as OOS applications here, I would say they are the majority of what she has applied to, by no means has the search been restricted to only the “hip” areas, in fact not one application in Boston area because in reality those areas don’t have anything local universities can’t fill.</p>

<p>I have another friend whose child went to a top 10 engineering school, graduated under 3 years ago, working part time as an online payday loan underwriter. $9.75 an hour.</p>

<p>And the school where she got this degree from cannot help her? I thought engineering was one of those degrees where you were fully supported up to hiring.</p>

<p>Sad.</p>

<p>Does she have any other ideas of what she might want to do for a career?</p>

<p>I think most “good” Engineering schools do have facilities to help students, however in the current environment ( except for certain local markets) – it is a total sellers market even in Engineering … which means the bar has raised significantly. For many companies this means they first raise the “screening” criteria higher … i.e.

  • GPA Floor ( maybe top 10% or higher etc)
  • target Schools only get first priority
  • priority given for priors interns at their Co or interns with specific experience
  • local area (don’t want to pay for relocation )</p>

<p>Meaningful internships and good grades are more important than ever. </p>

<p>I have personally seen the first 2 above keep applicants out of the pool unless sponsored by an Exec.</p>

<p>Poet…“relo” is not always in the package for entry/low level positions even in engineering. Sometimes (if it’s a hard to fill position) but not always. Several years ago I worked for a large Fortune 50 company that had a hard time getting entry level software engineers (because they all wanted to go to Silicon Valley) so those open jobs were sweetened with relo, better starting pay and all kinds of things to get kids to come to Michigan to live. But a plain 'ole vanilla mechanical engineer would have to Skype interview at minimum and eventually get themselves to Michigan for a final interview and/or to start the job.</p>

<p>Another thing that helps someone advance professionally is support and especially mentoring (from senior managers, professional organizations, etc).</p>

<p>Many successful people whom I know had professional mentors/advisers early on in their careers.</p>

<p>My first “real” job (military), there was no expectation of a relocation package. What does a new college graduate have anyways? You shove it all in the car and drive to wherever they tell you. Then you decorate with furniture from Goodwill or consignment stores.</p>

<p>For so many of these jobs nowadays, contacts are everything. Whether it is through friends, family, internships, or the school.</p>

<p>I felt I was completely unqualified for anything after graduation. All I had was half a brain, physical fitness, and willingness to endure whatever stress, danger, or humiliation that was required. Salary wasn’t even a consideration. Today’s graduates have completely different expectations.</p>

<p>S2, a 2012 college grad. is the only person with a four year degree at the very small company he’s working for. It has nothing to so with his major but pays much better than entry level jobs in his major.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>If, after finishing college, I ended up in a job as a cashier at a grocery store, I would feel very over qualified. </p>

<p>IMO, you’d have a better argument if you said “career” rather than “job.”</p>

<p>My niece’s first job after graduating was working the wine and cheese section at Whole Foods to pay the rent. She then turned herself into an expert on cheese, has had numerous, more challenging jobs in the field, eventually becoming an account rep for a large importer and her clients were upscale restaurants & wineries throughout northern CA. She just moved to Pittsburgh so her BF can get his Masters at CMU, and made contact with a similar company in PA who created a job just to be able to hire her - where she has even more responsibility than her last job. Had nothing at all to do with what she majored in - which was Math with a minor in religion. I am sure becoming a cheesemonger was nowhere on her radar screen when she was in college.</p>

<p>emilybee–your DD is smart. Too many kids (and their parents) want that job she has now right out of college. Your first job should be getting your foot in the door, THEN prove your worth and move up.</p>

<p>^ It’s was my niece, not daughter.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>This is true but you have to actually be smart and hardworking then. I’m seeing at my school, any idiot who studies Computer Science can get a good job. You just have to pass your classes. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Probably… Considering all of us engineering majors were drilled with “Engineering is the right major because when you graduate you’ll have a good career.” from the start. I imagine English Lit majors have a lot less of that.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Maybe one of those sort of “Happiness is relative” types of things? If everyone around me is homeless I’m pretty happy with a minimum wage job. If everyone around me is making 100K/year I’m disappointed with 80K. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Okay, now that’s a cool story.</p>

<p>Engineering is a good career choice IF you study the right specialty, IF you know people to get an internship, IF you go to a good school, IF you’re willing to relocate, IF you’re willing to work 60+ hours a week, lots of travel, layoffs, and so on.</p>

<p>Also, engineering works well only if you have a bit of the ‘spark’ otherwise it’s a drag…</p>

<p>I think that an engineering grad should have a reasonable expectation of getting a job, considering that everyone says we need more kids to study math and science, employers claim that they can not find enough qualified people, and the push is on to allow many more (300,000 more?) technical student green cards.</p>

<p>I hope those engineering grads get good jobs before we increase our imported labor force.</p>

<p>Reading this thread hauntingly reminds me of when I prepared to graduate back in 1991. I majored in electrical engineering from a major non-Ivy East Coast school. The job market was abysmal and for the first time engineers were being laid off. Westinghouse, Digital Equipment Corporation, and AT&T laid off engineers. I was in full panic mode. I was under-qualified for an EE entry position because I didn’t have experience. My friends who had experience through internships or previously electronic technologists associates degrees had multiple job offers. I had none. I purposely dropped out of one of my classes so I could delay my graduation, and found an internship paying me $10 per hour. Yes, it sucked, but it finally gave me the experience that my education didn’t come close to providing. At the end of that year, I completed my remaining class, and had multiple job offers due to my experience, my connections, and an improving economy. By then, I had found medicine to be a new career goal that I pursued instead. When I attended night time premed courses, about half of the students were working engineers like me who wanted to pursue a career in medicine. The similarities between now and 22 years ago are striking. I would only add that there are more college graduates in the current market and that the college debt is significantly more.</p>

<p>I think the students of the 21st century need to minimize their college debts while maximizing their job experiences through internships. They need to be viable assets to their future employers on day one. Today’s engineers are competing with Chinese and Indian engineers for the same jobs that can be off-shored. Until we have a robust economy, and I doubt that will ever happen with cheaper labor overseas, the competition for full-time employment will be fierce.</p>

<p>turbo93,</p>

<p>What do you mean by “a bit of the 'spark?”</p>

<p>Turbo93 I’m also curious. To me, spark is that little thing that tells you the person sitting across the desk is willing to get in and get their hands dirty. That they will be just as interested in what other people are doing as they will be in what they are doing.</p>

<p>We’ve gone through the worst economic times since the Great Depression, so I find it risible that so many parents declare that un- or under-employed grads are somehow at fault. All the Back in the Day stories make my head hurt. It reminds me of an old Broadway musical, Bye Bye Birdie…“What’s the matter with kids these days…Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way…”
It’s a genuinely terrible job market for newly minted college graduates, especially those with degrees in the humanities. Not finding a job doesn’t necessarily reflect a deficit of character; it more probably reflects a deficit of jobs. The fact that these grads are willing to take dead-end low wage jobs speaks to their willingness to try anything to get a true career started.</p>