Getting a job straight out of college is hard — and it's getting harder. Only 30% of the Class of 2025 had found a full-time job by the end of the year. About 52% of recent graduates end up underemployed — in jobs that don't require a college degree — within a year of graduating, and nearly half of those who start underemployed are still stuck there a decade later. Among college students from low-income, first-generation backgrounds, the odds are even steeper.

Yes, some of this is systemic and requires structural solutions. But meaningful policy and economic change takes time. In the meantime, there are concrete steps that workforce nonprofits and career coaches can take to help the graduates they support. These steps start with recognizing that the job search itself isn't set up for students to succeed – and that it can be changed for the better.

Many students apply to jobs in a way that feels productive but doesn’t actually work. Luckily, evidence-based tweaks to the context surrounding their search can help students redirect efforts toward strategies that actually work. At ideas42, we’re exploring why students struggle with job search and what support they need. A couple of months ago, we shared our early findings on how the fear of failure keeps students from starting their job search early enough. Now I want to talk about what happens once they do start, how to help, and what we've learned.

Students Are Working Harder — But Not Smarter

When we ask students about their job search strategy, we tend to hear a similar reply. As one graduate told us:

"I want to say [I’ve applied to] around like the hundred to 200 mark because at some point I was just clicking apply on LinkedIn, click apply, click apply."

She's not alone: 32% of recent grads we surveyed had submitted over 100 applications. When you're anxious about landing a job, casting the widest net feels safest. The more you apply, the greater your chances of getting an offer, right?

Our data tells a different story: students who applied to 100+ jobs didn't get any more interviews than those who applied to just 10 or 20. The issue isn't effort — it's that students need to submit better applications, not more of them. Better means two things.

Read the full article about job searching by Niko Silva at ideas42.