So You Have a College Degree? Great, but Good Luck Finding a Job!

We here it every day, unemployment rates are rising and the amount of people having to rely on governmental help rises with them. You see adds, commercials, signs, and if your one of the unlucky few who continually get sales phone calls, you will see that every college out there says “Get a degree for a better future.” Speaking from personal experience of my family members and friends, don’t jump on the band wagon just yet! Sure, a degree looks great on an application, and yes there are tons of ways to go to college without having to pay a dime now, or even with getting overpayment back for living expenses while you are attending, but all of those things can also come back to bite you in the rear once you have your degree. This is in no way intended to deter people from going to college, but simply to make you really think about it before you do.

First of all, we all know its true, if you say you have a degree most people automatically give you respect. They know you aren’t a quitter and that you have done something to better yourself, along with getting a better education than over half of the rest of the population will have. All these things are great, but what happens when you get a degree in something that has been cut back in times of a rough economy? Social workers, police officers, and other government officials have been getting laid off one by one, yet there are thousands of college students who are going to school for these occupations, only to get out of school and still not be any better off than when they started. The same goes for accountants, computer technicians, and other related professionals, who now have a degree, no job, and student loans to start paying back in 6 months.

What is your first thought if you have just graduated from college and cannot find a job using your degree? Find anything that pays until you can? Sure, that makes perfectly logical sense, except places like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, gas stations, other fast food restaurants, and other retailers won’t always hire you if you have a degree. Imagine having 2 college degrees and just needing something to put food on the table, and being turned down by not one, not two, but six major chains saying that you are “overqualified” for the job. In reality what this means is that the manager most likely has never went to college, or in some cases even finished high school, and hiring a person who is more adept at work than they are puts their job in jeopardy. Illegal you say? Perhaps, but it is happening more and more every single day.

Another factor is bigger companies when faced with having to lay workers off, will occasionally lay off the people who have been there the shortest amount of time, who have families, and who have better education. This is because the shorter amount of time a person has been at a job, the less unemployment benefits are paid for them and because people who have families and an education generally work harder and are paid more. This is not always the case, but in recent experience corporations laying off the people who are qualified for the job, and keeping teenagers or hiring in less experienced people the same week of the lay off, have proven this fact time and time again.

Another thing to consider is that not only are you going to have to start paying back student loans, not only is it hard to find a job, but the jobs are hiring want someone with “experience”, and just graduating from college is not the experience they are looking for. Another thing is not being able to draw unemployment if you didn’t work while in college, and now that makes things all the harder. You don’t have the money from school to depend on now, and it takes money to drive to interviews, use internet to apply online, and for living expenses while you look. The lucky ones will have jobs lined up and be looking while they are in college, but the sad thing is that 40% of those people will not have a job at those places for more than a year, and most accept entry level jobs for minimum wage, and have to work a second job to make ends meet.

Some people find jobs at other locations and work for half of what they would make working somewhere that they would need their degree. Even more people settle for jobs with temp agencies using their degree, only to get laid off or never be hired on permanently by the company that the temp agency has a contract with. Temp agencies can be just plain dirty in this aspect. They make their money based on how many employees they have at a company. For instance, if they have 35 employees at said company, and they pay them $10 an hour each. The company pays the temp agency $13 an hour for each employee, leaving the temp agency $3 per employee as profit. If all of those employees are hired on permanently by the company after their 30, 60, or 90 day contract period, the temp agency doesn’t make money off of them anymore. They see the solution to be laying off those people, and hiring new ones, without the parent company even knowing what has happened or why they have to continually train new people.

Going to college is definitely a plus for anyone wanting to better their lives, but these things need to be thought about ahead of time. Good ideas to curb this seemingly endless bad luck that can occur after graduation can be to look into the job market for the types of jobs you will go to school for before going. Check local papers, online job openings, go to local businesses that hire people in that field and ask how often they have jobs open up, and stay aware of how the market changes in those positions. Begin setting up internships to build your resume the year before you graduate, or volunteer at local businesses that include your degree field in exchange for letters of recommendation. Most importantly, don’t loose hope, eventually the economy will turn around, and then all of us that have degrees will be able to finally find jobs again.


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