If you have a son or daughter graduating from university in the near future, you may sympathize with parents like Monique Patenaude. Her daughter Chloe graduates this year from the State University of New York and has already had a series of part-time jobs and unpaid internships. What she doesn’t have is a job offer.
“I’m exhausted just watching her,” Patenaude told The Wall Street Journal. “She just turned 21 and she’s had more phone interviews, Skype interviews, in-person interviews, first, second and third interviews, than I’ve ever had.”
The job market has changed
Career coach Lesley Mitler of Early Stage Careers in New York says it’s important for parents to realize that things have changed since they entered the workforce in the 1970s and 1980s. Mitler says it’s better for new graduates to try a variety of jobs and internships rather than settling early for a job that they will soon abandon because it doesn’t suit them. She advises students to complete two to four internships during their studies to develop skills they do not learn in the classroom. In addition, they should apply for at least 30 jobs, she says.
Network, network, network!
“There is so much more noise now than there used to be, and you have to break through all that to actually connect with somebody,” says parent Melissa Sayer, a lawyer in Ventura, California. Sayer’s son Jon graduated with a degree in video-game design in 2018. He applied for internships and worked for a start-up, but when that company failed, he and four friends designed their own video game. Now, he has a full-time job, which Sayer says is a result of his own contacts, plus a few names that she provided.
Get some real-life experience
In the past, many students in the sciences went directly to graduate school after getting their bachelor’s degree. Now, professors are advising them to get some research experience first. Zach Plante, who graduated from Dartmouth College last year, is working as a research assistant at Stanford University. Housing prices there are high, so he’s living with his parents in Menlo Park.
Zach’s father, Thomas, is a psychology professor at Santa Clara University. When he and his wife graduated, they were able to buy a house in the area. That is no longer possible for young people like his son, he says — and parents need to accept this. “Your reality back in the 1970s or 1980s is just not the world of 2019. You’ve got to get over it.”