Undergraduates might be clutching their Natty Light and graduation caps a little tighter this year compared to prior graduating-class cohorts. Facing waves of uncertainty after a chapter closes isn’t a new story, many a successful and cloying coming of age movie has been made on the subject. But the class of 2025 is wading into especially trying waters.
So finds student job platform Handshake in a newly released report which surveyed 1,925 members of the incoming senior class. In a temperature check, the undergraduate career platform got back a resoundingly lukewarm result. Over half (57%) of the class of 2025 reported feeling pessimistic about starting their careers. Last year, that number stood at just 49% of the graduating class.
The source behind these darkening clouds is the uphill job market, and students are applying to extra jobs and working harder to get a foot in the door. Also contributing to this increased sense of gloom is anxiety surrounding student loan debt, the wave of AI, and current state of politics, the report found. Confronted with a different set of circumstances, this cohort is shifting their priorities.
“Facing a challenging economic landscape, recent Gen Z graduates are taking a markedly different approach to their career goals compared to their older peers who graduated before 2021,” Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at Handshake, told Fortune. “I’ve noticed that previous cohorts prioritized flexibility and work-life balance; the more recent classes have demonstrated a growing preference for stability and purpose-driven work.”
In other words, this microgeneration of Gen Zers is looking to nab a steady gig. It makes sense, given the difficulty they’ve found in simply getting a job. Reports of a progressively frustrating and elongated job search have cropped up over the years. In part, the situation has been attributed to the growing leverage of employers after layoffs and the automation of the hiring process, wrote Hillary Hoffower for Fast Company.
“Success in this market requires a strategic and intentional approach and seniors are already taking proactive steps to stand out,” said Cruzvergara, who described the ambitious class as “short-term pessimistic, long-term optimistic. Fears of a different market are not unfounded, as Handshake reported that this year job creation on its platform has “has trailed behind 2023 levels, consistent with national trends.” In response, “the number of applications per job has been significantly higher than in any of the past five years,” generating higher frenzy.
Even so, undergraduate students have faith in the institution. They might be gearing up for a more trying end to their four years, but that doesn’t mean they’ve lost belief in the system itself. A whopping 88% said college contributed a lot or a fair amount to their personal growth and development, and 85% said the experience shaped their career goals. Students are buckling up for a longer and perhaps bumpier ride to their dream gig. Many students, 45%, expect to make a pivot at least once in their career.
That being said, the yellow brick road to an entry-level position has become all the more elongated these days. The current class has spent upwards of 30 hours looking into potential career paths already. That comes after the class of 2024 last year sent 64% more applications to jobs than the seniors before them. The Class of 2025 is set to continue the new tradition, already submitting on average 24% more applications per job than the class of 2024 at the same time last year.
While this competition for gigs is the main source of stress (64%), with additional concerns about job security and sufficient pay, concerns regarding student loans (54%), generative AI and the upcoming election (45%) added fuel to the fire.
Anxiety regarding loans increased among women, Black students, and first-generation college attendees, as Handshake pointed out these groups are more likely to hold debt. And while the fate of federal relief is up in the air alongside a myriad of other socioeconomic issues, almost half (46%) of respondents say the fate of the 2024 presidential election will impact their career. Adding to the uncertainty is the implementation of AI, which much of the class of 2025 would like to slow down, please. Most (70%) say that generative AI should be regulated more strictly.
“I applied to more than 100 openings before I got my current internship,” a class of 2025 student majoring in finance told Handshake in the report. “ I’m going through the process with one company right now and it’s going well, but if that doesn’t work out I’ll start applying to as many jobs as I possibly can,” they added.
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