When you graduate college, what job do you usually get?
I am wondering what you do when you leave college (What jobs, housing, life, etc). #college #jobs
2 answers
Jared Chung
CareerVillage.org TeamJared’s Answer, CareerVillage.org Team
Wow what a question! It's an exciting question, because I get to tell you a wonderful truth: there is no single "usual" job after college. In fact, the fragmentation of career options after college is HUGE. Students who graduated from NYU (where I got my Bachelor's degree) ended up working in over 30 industries. The largest five were Entertainment/Media at 16%, Finance at 13%, Teaching at 9%, Healthcare at 7%, and Fashion/Retail/Consumer Products
at 5%. But that doesn't even cover half of the class! So there's obviously a huge amount of variety in what you can do. Fortunately, there is one way you can narrow things down a bit: by focusing one major at a time. For example at NYU students who majored in Finance usually end up working in finance, students who majored in social work became social workers, and students who majored in chemistry ended up being chemists. So my recommendation to you is to start thinking about what types of jobs you might be interested in and work backwards to make a short list of majors you might be interested in (2-3 should be a good list to start with).
Ursula’s Answer
A lot depends on what you majored in and how you plan on applying that education. Internships and fellowships are great stepping stones to jobs because employers would rather hire someone that they know and have established a reputation for being a great employee. How a person lives their lives after college is as individual as the person. It is easier to get a job with a salary and benefits with a degree than without one.
I have actually found that working temp to perm is very successful. In addition to letting the employer try you out, you get the opportunity to see how you like working for employer. You can do both long and short-term assignments. I did that with a couple of jobs and once hired, I was able to move up the ranks fairly quickly. Make sure that the employment agency gets its fees from the company seeking employees and not you.