2025 Grads on their Job Prospects

Host intro: It’s May. Students in New York are putting on their caps and gowns to graduate. But the job market is tight. And the economy is going through uncertainty. The administration is continuously changing the line on tariffs, the stock market is in flux and there’s talk of a recession. Oona Milliken headed to Yankee Stadium where NYU’s graduation is being held to check-in with students to see how they’re feeling about their job prospects. 

Milliken: Jorge Rocha is riding the 4 train to Yankee stadium. He’s an NYU senior and he’s with a group of his friends on their way to graduation. The train is packed with students like Rocha in purple robes, NYU’s school color. Rocha has a teaching job in the Bronx while looking for paralegal work in Midtown. He says the job search is challenging 

Jorge Rocha: everyone’s applying to the same jobs, if you go to linkedin you can see the applications themselves and the. Some jobs there’s 1000 applications already. You won’t even get an interview, you won’t even hear back

Milliken: Rocha’s friend Shabnam Mohammed is a biology major. She’s taking a gap year before applying to medical school but wants to get a job in the meantime to boost her resume. Despite her medical school goals, she says she can’t find work in the healthcare sector. 

Mohamed: I get interviews but no callbacks 

Milliken: Another one of their friends does have a job lined up from a previous internship. But, the rest of the group, like Rocha and his friend Isiah Blemur, says they’ve applied to hundreds without luck. 

Rocha: Probably 300 jobs 

Milliken: 300?! What about you..

Blemur: Yeah, around that 

Milliken: Unemployment is low right now. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that employers are hiring. Artem Gulish is a senior federal policy advisor at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. He says it’s a tough market 

Gulish: So overall, it’s a tough job market right. Business are facing uncertainty and are less likely to hire

Milliken: But, Gulish says he graduated during the Great Recession of 2008. He says this job market isn’t nearly as bad. Gulish points to data that shows that college graduates generally land on their feet over time. He says graduates shouldn’t get too discouraged 

Gulish: Have a plan, don’t get discouraged etc. 

Milliken: Back around Yankee stadium, graduates and their families are streaming off the train. It’s not even 11 in the morning and there’s already a pre-ceremony party happening at a nearby bar. Music is bumping. 

Milliken: Two NYU Stern students are enjoying themselves at the bar. They’re not worried. Matthew Grzyb will be a junior investment banker and his friend Lars Zeana-Schliep is about to start as analyst at the private equity firm Blackstone. 

Matthew Grzyb: I have a job starting in July so I’m less nervous than people affected by the tariffs 

Zeana-Schliep: I’m in the same boat, so not very nervous 

Milliken: Nearby, MBA students Emily Duff and Abby Lin are holding mini bottles of champagne. The two are in the tech focus track of their master’s. Tech is going through a bit of a rough patch right now. They both say it’s a slower hiring year than usual 

Lin: I think we both realized it would be different than a normal year. I think if you asked an MBA maybe 5 years ago, jobs would be flying left and right 

Milliken: Duff says they’re don’t know what the future will hold. 

Duff: I should be nervous, I’m about to graduate unemployment. But we got this, NYU’s a good school. I’m interviewing. I’ll be fine. 

Milliken: Despite all the uncertainty, the students here today are certain about one thing: they’ll be fine. 

Milliken: Oona Milliken, Columbia Radio News