Graduate hiring softens
Recent reporting finds many U.S. college graduates are struggling to find entry-level jobs as hiring tightens and AI reshapes work opportunities. (theguardian.com) This gap is widening a split between a weak broad graduate market and highly selective frontier labs that increasingly prize demonstrable math, ML judgement and deployable code. (theverge.com)
New college graduates are running into a tighter job market, even as a small slice of artificial intelligence labs keeps hiring for far more specialized roles. (newyorkfed.org) (naceweb.org) The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said unemployment for recent college graduates rose to about 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from an average of 5.3 percent in the third quarter. Its underemployment measure reached 42.5 percent, the highest level since 2020. (newyorkfed.org) Employers also pulled back on campus hiring plans. The National Association of Colleges and Employers said on April 23, 2025 that its spring update cut projected hiring for the Class of 2025 to 0.6 percent growth from a 7.3 percent increase forecast in fall 2024. (naceweb.org) That slowdown has been most visible in the jobs that traditionally absorbed new graduates, especially junior office and software roles. The New York Fed says many recent graduates are ending up in jobs that do not typically require a degree, even though some of those positions still pay reasonably well. (newyorkfed.org) At the same time, the best-funded artificial intelligence companies are advertising for a different profile. OpenAI says its research engineers need strong programming skills, experience with large distributed systems, and the ability to write machine learning code at scale. (openai.com) Google DeepMind describes its research engineers as software engineers with deep knowledge of machine learning and deep learning, plus engineering, mathematical, and research skills. Its careers page says the job is to design, build, and scale systems that test new ideas. (deepmind.google) Anthropic’s current job listings show the same pattern. A machine learning systems engineer role says candidates should build and improve the systems that train Claude, while a safeguards role asks for engineers who can build defenses against misuse of the company’s models. (anthropic.com 1) (anthropic.com 2) The split is leaving graduates with a narrower path into tech than the one many students expected in 2021 and 2022. NACE said employers are relying more on skills-based hiring, with less than 40 percent screening by grade-point average for a third straight year and nearly two-thirds using skills-based hiring for entry-level professional jobs. (naceweb.org) That means a bachelor’s degree alone is buying less certainty than it did a few years ago. The broad market for graduates has softened, while the firms spending most aggressively on artificial intelligence are asking for proof that applicants can already do the work. (newyorkfed.org) (openai.com)
