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New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

randalolson.com

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Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

ilamont wrote: post #25
Rotdhizon wrote: post #12

This is the easiest niche to pick on but I am mid career for cybersecurity. I spend a decent amount of time trying to advise people away from this career field for college. So so so so so many people are going to college for cyber not realizing when they graduate, they are in totality unemployable. Really I'm not sure how new people to tech could even enter the industry, it seems like at the lower levels the entire i…

> I spend a decent amount of time trying to advise people away from this career field for college. So so so so so many people are going to college for cyber not realizing when they graduate, they are in totality unemployable. My spouse knows a recent grad who took this path through an undergraduate program at the University of Maine ( https://www.uma.edu/academics/programs/cybersecurity/cyberse... ). As you said, he…

> Universities, local governments, local legislatures, the federal government, and whatever industry lobbying orgs that pushed for this are at fault.

It’s an industrial complex that uses students as fuel and when the winds shift, they get left holding the bag. Schools want revenue from student loans, employers want the best talent at the lowest cost without expending any resources to train and develop talent. Colleges are also desperate for students due to structural demographics and an ever shrinking pool of potential student customers, so they’ll sell whatever dream students want to buy. Cybersecurity? Sure. AI? Sure. Whatever gets you into the pipeline. Give us your money and we’ll give you a piece of paper of little to no value.

Edit: If you need a sure thing, go into healthcare. The world is going to keep getting older, and the demand for care will not end in our lifetime.

(day job is cybersecurity and risk)

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#32

Post by rfgplk »

delfinom wrote: post #20
rfgplk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies sadly don't care about security whatsoever.

Yep, I think my megacorp's cybersecurity department is just a bunch of checklist punchers that now just copy and paste any of our technical writeups into ChatGPT, and I am not even joking. Fucking infuriating. They are doing the bare minimum for cybersecurity insurance requirements, thats it.

I know _for a fact_ that most companies don't care. There might be a select few out there that genuinely do, but most don't. I've literally reported numerous GLARING vulnerabilities to companies in various different industries, only for the vulnerabilities to remain unpatched for MONTHS. Few of the most comical examples, one major game studio was compiling their Linux binaries with FULL DEBUG SYMBOLS AND INFO plus they were shipping a 600M .sym file with practically full paths and all source info. Literally all the paths and function signatures to every single one of their functions was in there. I had to submit FOUR bug reports before they patched it (didn't even receive a bug bounty). The second one was with a major multinational telecom that was distributing routers that _had an open telnet port to the wide internet_ ... with a default password. And there were countless more. The telecom one I had to BEG them to ship me a new router, or to at least do an over the air update, because "they didn't understand what the problem was".

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#33

Post by QQ00 »

OutOfHere wrote: post #7

Outside of medicine, a non-CS engineering degree, preferably also a masters, remains a good pathway to a reasonable non-parasitic job, although relocation may be required.

law is a parasitic job, with shit life-work balance, if you want a job, unless you want to work solo, good luck finding a law firm that wants you.

medicine will always be the most secure and stable career, still has a shit life-work balance too.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#34

Post by bluefirebrand »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #12

This is the easiest niche to pick on but I am mid career for cybersecurity. I spend a decent amount of time trying to advise people away from this career field for college. So so so so so many people are going to college for cyber not realizing when they graduate, they are in totality unemployable. Really I'm not sure how new people to tech could even enter the industry, it seems like at the lower levels the entire i…

> Yes the more involved jobs in information security do require widespread knowledge that can't necessarily be taught on site

It certainly can, companies just don't want to pay for that training. That's really where the "maniacal obsession" with job experience comes from. Companies just want to save money on training.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#36

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

827a wrote: post #21

I would postulate that there are two reasons why this is happening. 1. Pessimistic, harsh, etc: the quality of US graduates has been falling. Reading comprehension has been on a downward trend over the past decade. Mental illness, depression, and attention disorders are on the rise. Grade inflation, social media, AI availability, we spent years talking about how all of these things would be bad, and now the experimen…

> Pessimistic, harsh, etc: the quality of US graduates has been falling. Reading comprehension has been on a downward trend over the past decade. Mental illness, depression, and attention disorders are on the rise.

Is your assertion that if fewer graduates struggled with these things, companies would post more jobs? Asking because there aren't enough actual¹, realistic² jobs to employ the current pool of job seekers.

¹ Not ghost jobs, not fakacancies, not agendas that are anything other than hiring as advertised.

² Qualification requirements that align with what the position actually needs.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#37

Post by rfgplk »

z3c0 wrote: post #29

Interestingly (and anecdotally), as a 10-year+ experienced college dropout, I still see challenges getting hired for jobs that list degrees as a requirement. The only time I get a call back on "front door" applications is with the fateful addendum of "OR relevant work experience". (I wonder if agents and their lack of human discretion is amplifying this.) The article's assertion that a college degree still offers an…

If you haven't got a degree on your resume, it just gets autodropped at the application stage by an ATS. No human sees it. Same if you're missing keywords.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#38

Post by [deleted] »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #28
OutOfHere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those with a CS degree, I think the issue is that we aren't correctly using CS and AI to amass power as we rightfully should. We literally hold in our hands the power to delete many desk jobs from existence, also to offer various original new services, but somehow we're feeling crippled. This disconnect requires bridging.

Deleting those desk jobs requires understanding those desk jobs. Which means either working them or teaming up with someone who does

[deleted]

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#39

Post by SlinkyOnStairs »

andy99 wrote: post #8

Are there people who think college education is a shortcut to generic employment? This seems like a very misleading statistic. Average earnings (including those unemployed), etc might be better. Telling me that it’s harder to get a professional job that I’m qualified for than it is to walk up to a McDonald’s or whatever and get a job is not shocking.

> Telling me that it’s harder to get a professional job that I’m qualified for than it is to walk up to a McDonald’s or whatever and get a job is not shocking.

This is so very easily said but how else is this supposed to work, exactly?

People have to start somewhere, and McDonalds experience doesn't count for any specialized job. Fuck, the "McDonalds-tier" jobs will often turn down graduates because they'll obviously walk the moment they get something better.

If no employer is willing to take a chance on graduates, then they just can't get any job experience. "A job that will pay for a roof over one's head" really isn't that extreme an ask.

As has been said a trillion times about AI and tech before AI: Senior level staff is going to age out, it has to be replaced or the entire industry gets sent offshore.

In terms of general unemployment across fields, youth unemployment is extremely corrosive to society.

This is already visible in how anti-AI sentiment is starting to boil over and the lurch rightward in politics. If this continues to escalate, the outcome will be nightmarish. Half of them bombing datacenters, the other half cheering as ICE raids the tech workers.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#40

Post by chucky_z »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #12

This is the easiest niche to pick on but I am mid career for cybersecurity. I spend a decent amount of time trying to advise people away from this career field for college. So so so so so many people are going to college for cyber not realizing when they graduate, they are in totality unemployable. Really I'm not sure how new people to tech could even enter the industry, it seems like at the lower levels the entire i…

The absolute wild opposite (for cybersecurity) to this is that higher level individuals are in such insane demand that if you are underpaid even during the current wage suppression, going to over market should be almost completely trivial.
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