Occam’s Razor–the idea that the simplest explanation is often the correct one–suggests that post-graduation panic is just about jobs: fewer jobs, increased competition and the soaring cost of living. However, this explanation doesn’t frame the full picture. It fails to capture the manifestations of anxiety due to the job market which starts during student life. This is evident in the rise of internship applications, career coaching advertisements and CV building workshops. College life has shifted into building a shrine of credentials.
Why is that picture framed? The Higher Education Authority (HEA) graduate outcome survey of 2023 found that 80.2% of graduates were in employment nine months post graduation, compared to the 83% for the class of 2022. This decline of 2.8% and the most likely future decreases have become a cause of concern for students.
This might be hard to understand for older generations, when a plethora of credentials wasn’t a necessity for employment. However, the situation is dire. Students want to ensure that they are not caught in the growing minority of those unemployed after college. This is evident in the rise of career coaching which has built up a vast demographic directly proportional to the rising unemployment rate. The market size for the career coaching industry is evaluated at 15.4$ billion (USD)(13.2€) as of 2025, with a growth projection of 4.7% for the current year.
It’s not difficult to see why. To take an example, in the 1990s, an Irish civil service job generally required passing competitive examinations, displaying relevant knowledge, good health and character. That was all. In 2025 candidates are required to hold a Level 8 (Bachelor’s Degree) with first or second class honours.
Furthermore, the HEA’s graduate survey outcome of 2024 depicts a decrease of unemployment for Postgraduate students – 84.1% of Postgraduate Taught Students (including graduates from Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma and Taught Masters Programmes) in employment nine months after graduation down from 89.3% of the class of 2022. This reveals that even pursuing further education after graduation is slowly becoming futile. Students are now in a situation where degrees have depreciated in value. A degree has become less of a signpost of knowledge and skills, and more a way to push micro-credentials at the forefront of the job market race.
Frankly, this futility becomes more outrageous when our centres of learning such as universities and colleges are complicit in the job market anxiety felt by students. Government policies inadvertently pressure students by pressuring universities. The increased emphasis on research publications and rankings cause universities to centre research programmes. Despite universities highlighting the programmes that cause increased employability for students, it has the countereffects of fearmongering students into applying for Postgraduate and research programmes due to fear of lack of employability. Universities can act as a double edged sword in regards to raising awareness of how students can ensure their employment. Public universities such as Trinity and UCD are funded by the government and therefore subjugated by its policies. The Irish Government fosters closer ties between universities and industries through its policies. With its primary focus on research, innovation and skills development. Legislation such as the Technological Universities (TU) Act 2018, the Higher Education Authority (HEA) Act 2022 creates a strategy to ensure that there are practical alliances between universities, academia and industries. This builds excess pressure on students as they feel in order to be ‘marketable’ they should pursue degrees that are tailored to specific industry needs. As for universities, there is intensifying competition between one another on partner collaborations and ensuring the best industries for their student body.
In the job market marathon it’s easy to see which students are behind—the ones born without personal networks and affluent lifestyles that afford career coaches, internship applications and CV building workshops. According to HEA’s graduate outcome survey of 2023, 18.1% of people in the survey found jobs through personal contacts. In comparison to 22.6% employed through recruitment sites. Meaning, the amount of people who get jobs through knowing people is essentially tantamount to job fairs where the sole purpose is employment. The concept of people getting jobs through personal connections is not unheard of. For example, the social networking platform LinkedIn specifically designed for networking and professionals capitalises on this knowledge. Projections estimate that between 2024 to 2028 the platform will gain 171.9 million users, which is a 22.3% increase for the platform. Networking holds strong allure.
The survey further shows that only 62.3% of those same graduates find their courses very relevant or relevant to their jobs. 67% for Taught Postgraduate. The students are taking what jobs they can find–even if they have different specialisations due to their postgraduate qualification.
What are the ramifications of these statistics for students? A New York Post survey shows that out of 2000 graduate students, 54% believe a job salary negotiation is more distressing than breaking up with a partner. Further ramifications include withdrawal from non-academic pursuits in college such as part-time jobs for more time to engage in employable extracurricular activities, societies, sports, and arts and culture.
The Graduate follows Benjamin Braddock, a student after graduation who is at malaise by the thought of his future. However, I believe that if Ben was a graduate of our recent times the film would have been much longer and filled with a lot more existential dread. The concept of post grad panic has been around for decades but we must face the facts. We have been told since childhood that we can achieve anything we put our minds to with hard work. Be anything we want to be. In the economy we currently exist in, our existence becomes a burden.
We ought not to succumb to said burden but we realise that life is a balancing act, in which, the equilibrium is not always in our favour. Hard work is sometimes useless and good fortune is always vital. Life is a continuous pursuit of a myriad of things, including fulfilling pursuits in college that make the experience more cultivated. College is truly a harvest, but only sometimes will you reap what you sow. Sowing in different directions leads to more promising results. Current graduates and future graduates, our futures are in the hands of a flawed system, a game almost. We have no choice but to play the game or lose by not partaking. But we must realise that the game and its results are not the sum total of our lives.
