After four long years of classes, extracurriculars, internships, volunteer opportunities, jobs, and professional publications, I’m finally graduating with my bachelor’s degree this May. Yay! However, as I prepare for postgrad life, a seemingly unconquerable feat lingers in my mind: navigating the job market.
While I haven’t turned the tassel just yet, I began applying to job postings a month ago. I’ve submitted upwards of 30 applications, and while that number isn’t staggering, it’s a steep figure for someone who’s still taking classes full-time and engrossing herself in career-building opportunities. I’ve only received responses from a handful of companies, all of them rejections (and some of them were unnecessarily pointed).
It’s hard to admit that my job search is impacting my mental health as much as it is. I believe myself to be a driven and qualified worker, so getting turned down for entry-level work as a postgrad with relevant experience definitely stings. However, I’m not the only one struggling with job hunting.
The New York Times reports that, at the end of 2025, the unemployment rate for college graduates between 22 and 27 rose to 5.6%. 40% of college graduates with jobs could have gotten their positions without a college degree, which is the highest percentage in six years. While college graduates still have better luck finding jobs than non-college graduates, Gen-Z applicants are facing one of the roughest job markets in years. Why is the job market so difficult to maneuver? What makes this market worse than those from years’ past?
A phrase that’s been circling the world of economics is “low-hire, low-fire” hiring, which, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, means that “firms have substantially reduced the number of workers they are actively hiring while also reducing the number of workers they are firing.”
In keeping teams contained, employers publish fewer job postings, perform fewer interviews, and attend fewer job fairs, which postgrads rely on for networking opportunities. The chances of a recent graduate getting hired at a low-hire, low-fire company are slim, as each job posting brings monumental competition and a lack of inclusivity for entry-level applicants. For companies with such restricted workforces, hiring teams gravitate towards people with several years of experience and success, instead of those looking to achieve such.
There’s also the impact of AI on job hunting. In industries like customer service and software engineering, applicants between 22 and 25 are facing close to a 20% decline in finding jobs due to AI capabilities. Employers are also implementing AI in determining candidates for interviews; by putting resumes into an AI scanner, employers can filter through applications based on specific keywords or skills. While this can streamline the hiring process, it strips the personalization from applicants and can potentially lead to important contributions or experiences being dismissed.
And then, there are the AI interviewers, who interview potential candidates in the place of recruiters or company representatives. For job hunters, interviewing for a program instead of living, breathing people can be downright frustrating, especially considering the difficulty of getting an interview in the first place.
Recent years of job hunting have also brought an increase in ghosting from employers, something unfortunately relevant to my own job search. The Atlantic states that almost two out of three candidates have been ghosted for an interview at some point in their job search, and there’s no sign of stopping. Josh Millet, CEO of the hiring website Criteria, tells Yahoo! Finance that recruiters are “seeing a surge in application volume, largely fueled by AI tools” and “hiring teams are spending more time reviewing applications, but getting less meaningful signals from each one.” Under Millet’s reasoning, ghosting serves as a reciprocation of lacking energy or passion that applicants first display, which leads to a never-ending cycle of applications and absences of responses.
So what hope can be salvaged from the job market right now? For me, the most foundational motivation is that everything will work out in time. Most days, it’s hard to open LinkedIn and apply for jobs that I will most likely not hear back from, but something will work out. Considering how many people are also struggling with the same issue, it’s soothing to know that my lack of fruitfulness in job searching is not a personal attack. The job market is rough right now, but that doesn’t mean it will always be.