The 2016 group of graduates from U.S. universities found that career counseling and job placement services offered by colleges were at most helpful but not very helpful according to the third annual survey conducted by Gallup and Purdue University. The telephone interview study included 11,483 participants who had a bachelor’s degree or higher and were at least 18 years of age.
The study indicated patterns of behavior in recent graduates, university career services, and the job market that have not been adequately defined prior to the study or addressed in a meaningful manner by colleges and universities that offer career services.
Recent graduates rated their career advice as poor or good at exactly the same percentage level even though more students approaching graduation and the job market took advantage of career advice and placement services that ever before.
Older workers did not use career advice as much as present day students do. This fact is explained in part by a 25 percent report of lack of memory of any career advice from a college, the lower rate of career advice and placement services offered prior to 1960, and a more robust job market for college grads up until 1980.
An individual’s analysis of their college experience played a more definitive role in their evaluation of career advice from career services offered by universities. Those persons who felt that their college experience prepared them well for a career and those who felt that their college education was worth the cost rated career advice from universities 23 percent more positively than those who did not feel their college experience was positive in terms of a career.
The students who would recommend their alma mater to others also rated career advice from universities as more helpful that students who did not desire to recommend their college to others.
The poll does indicate a direction for college career advice and college education in the future. The fact that unemployment rate for college graduates in 2016 is nearly twice what it was in the middle of the “Great Recession” indicates that the value of a bachelor’s degree and the need for college educated people has decreased.
Another factor that may have influenced recent graduate’s low rating of career advice from universities is the high rate of employment that exists at present in the United States. The low evaluation of the value of career advice from universities can also be correlated with the lower entry level pay that the majority of people who graduate with a bachelor’s degree can expect in 2016.
The study indicates that colleges and universities must alter their career advice, counseling, and placement services to more adequately prepare graduates for the economic realities that exist at present and that are expected to continue.
Additions to the advice given should include a lower expectation in pay, advancement, and status for people with a bachelor’s degree. The data indicates that universities should be more proactive in offering advanced degrees and enlarging advance degree programs.
