{"id":131454,"date":"2025-08-09T10:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T10:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/131454\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T10:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T10:14:10","slug":"degrees-used-to-open-doors-now-even-grads-with-masters-degrees-are-sending-60-job-applications-a-month-to-no-luck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/131454\/","title":{"rendered":"Degrees used to open doors\u2014now even grads with master’s degrees are sending 60 job applications a month to no luck"},"content":{"rendered":"

Going to college and getting a degree was once a ticket to white-collar success\u2014but now graduates are up against \u201cghost jobs,\u201d<\/a> AI agents, and a fiercely competitive<\/a> labor market. Job-seekers are sending out applications in droves to try and land a gig, and even people with multiple degrees are having a hard time<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Job-hunters sent out an average of 45 job applications per month in May 2025, according to data shared exclusively with Fortune from employment platform Simplify<\/a>, which tracked its one million job-seeking users and 150 million applications over the past year. That\u2019s more than double last year\u2019s average of 22\u2014a surge that shows just how desperate the job market has become.<\/p>\n

But the situation was even more dire for professionals with multiple degrees, despite going above and beyond expectations<\/a> to achieve the American Dream. Master\u2019s students sent out an average of 32 to 60 job applications per month, while bachelor\u2019s students typically applied to around 15 to 38 open roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even those who studied college majors that once guaranteed six-figure salaries are having to work harder to land a gig. Computer science graduates are sending out an average of 22 to 51 applications monthly, compared to non-computer science majors applying to 21 to 41 gigs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fierce job market<\/a> competition for highly lucrative roles<\/a> like computer science should come as no surprise. Computer-programmer employment has dropped to its lowest level<\/a> since 1980\u2014before the internet even existed\u2014as Meta<\/a> CEO Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> says that<\/a> AI can now even do the coding work of mid-level engineers. Instead of humans competing with each other, they\u2019re now vying for roles as AI takes over the work of entry-level jobs<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They could be applying to ghost jobs<\/p>\n

As well as an extremely competitive white-collar job market<\/a>\u2014as AI only continues to come for more entry-level roles\u2014hiring managers aren\u2019t making it any easier on job-hunters: One common thread is candidates applying to over 1,000 roles<\/a>, only to receive radio silence<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About 81% of recruiters say that their employer posts \u201cghost jobs,\u201d positions that either don\u2019t exist or are already filled, according to a 2024 report from<\/a> MyPerfectResume. Common HR reasoning for posting these fake listings include: maintaining a presence on job boards when they aren\u2019t hiring, assessing the effectiveness of their job descriptions, and wanting to build a talent pool for the future. But job-hunters are fed up with being left in the dark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe often hear job-seekers saying, \u2018I\u2019m tired, I\u2019m depressed, I\u2019m desperate,\u2019 using these very harsh words when it comes to the job market,\u201d Jasmine Escalera, a career expert for MyPerfectResume, told Fortune<\/a>. \u201cThis is one of the reasons why they are losing faith in organizations and companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The majority of job applicants say employers have flat-out ghosted them<\/a>, according to a 2024 Greenhouse report. And on the flipside, they\u2019re also being \u201clove bombed\u201d during the process. Over half of candidates say interviewers showered them with excessive praise and flattery during hiring rounds, only to be offered a low salary and unfit job title.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, Gen Z say their degrees are a \u2018waste of money\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fresh-faced graduates are being frozen out<\/a> of the workforce; about 58% of students who graduated within the last year are still looking for their first job, according to a recent report<\/a> from Kickresume. The labor-market and hiring situation has become so bad that more than a third of all graduates now say their degree<\/a> was a \u201cwaste of money,\u201d according to a 2025 survey from<\/a> Indeed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gen Z graduates are so massively unemployed, despite making up only 5% of the workforce, that they\u2019re even pushing up the U.S. jobless rate\u2014having an \u201coversized\u201d impact<\/a> on America\u2019s unemployment rate.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, the youngest generation of workers is especially downtrodden by their prospects, with 51% expressing remorse for getting their certificates, compared to 41% of millennials and 20% of baby boomers.\n<\/p>\n

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500<\/strong>, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Going to college and getting a degree was once a ticket to white-collar success\u2014but now graduates are up…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":131455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[10181,738,31364,64,16778,16028,31067,16720,26265,16721,46419,3991,79872,7414,6361,605,23990,420,3628,72451,7798,340,39623,17343,6214,14580,766,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-131454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-applications","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-bosses","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-careers","13":"tag-chatbots","14":"tag-coding","15":"tag-colleges-and-universities","16":"tag-computer-science","17":"tag-engineering","18":"tag-entry-level","19":"tag-gen-z","20":"tag-graduate-school","21":"tag-hiring","22":"tag-human-resources","23":"tag-job-hunting","24":"tag-job-seekers","25":"tag-jobs","26":"tag-management","27":"tag-managers","28":"tag-mark-zuckerberg","29":"tag-meta","30":"tag-millennials","31":"tag-retention","32":"tag-students","33":"tag-talent-acquisition","34":"tag-unemployment","35":"tag-united-states","36":"tag-unitedstates","37":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}