{"id":7606,"date":"2026-05-09T09:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T09:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7606"},"modified":"2026-07-02T09:58:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T09:58:34","slug":"its-a-tough-job-market-these-college-grads-are-optimistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7606","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a Tough Job Market. These College Grads Are Optimistic."},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/span>Christopher Alam<\/a><\/p>\n

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Vincent Lee estimates sending out 100-200 job applications since graduating from San Francisco State University last year. Having grown up in Los Angeles, he dreamed of working in television, majoring in broadcast and electronic communication arts.<\/p>\n

But for job seekers like Lee, today\u2019s market can sometimes feel like a house of mirrors where what looks like an opening one moment turns out to be another dead end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s super rough,\u201d said Lee. He noted how a lot of the job openings he encountered were actually fake \u2013 so called\u00a0\u201cghost jobs\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 where recruiters post openings for non-existent roles.<\/p>\n

Practitioners say such posts allow companies to collect resumes for future positions. They also create the illusion that a company is expanding. For job seekers, they are one more source of frustration in what is already an emotionally fraught moment.<\/p>\n

According to Lee, when he did start landing interviews, the experience was equally discouraging. He recounts one interview where, after logging onto a scheduled Zoom call, the prospective employers got three questions in before telling him, \u201cYour role is actually going internal, so we don\u2019t need to have this interview anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee says the Zoom call ended as abruptly as it started. \u201cThey just turned it off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Grim employment data<\/strong><\/h2>\n

California ranks among states with the worst job markets in the country. The unemployment rate hit 5.6% in December, compared to 4.3% nationally. Only Washington DC ranked higher at 6.7%.<\/p>\n

Much of the blame has fallen on AI and the wave of layoffs that have come in its wake. But analysts say the entry level market specifically has been contracting for some time and that AI simply accelerated the trend.<\/p>\n

Nationwide the picture is just as murky. The labor market added 178,000 jobs in March,\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But that\u2019s the only encouraging news in months \u2013 losses in February were higher than initially reported, with 133,000 jobs lost. Employers added just about 9,700 jobs a month in 2025, the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002.<\/p>\n

Layoffs across tech, journalism, and the public sector have added to the anxiety. Businesses have also been reluctant to bring on new workers partly because of uncertainty arising from President Donald Trump\u2019s trade and\u00a0immigration policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Leaning into the fear of unemployment<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Nicole Szeto<\/a>\u00a0graduated from SF State in August with a major in marketing and a minor in visual communications. Despite having built large followings running fan pages on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok\u00a0\u2014 from Shawn Mendes to various K-Pop stan accounts \u2014\u00a0she says she still feels the pressure of being unemployed.<\/p>\n

She described a recent interview she had with a local marketing company.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were like, you\u2019re in the K-pop club,\u201d she said, after showing some of her social media pages. \u201cAnd I was like, yeah, and they\u2019re like, um, okay? And then they assumed that I was Korean. I was considering saying no if they offered me the job. It was that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she didn\u2019t ultimately get an offer, Szeto (who is Chinese American) says she remains undeterred. She is continuing to build up her online presence and has even started mentoring friends on doing the same thing. Their hope is eventually getting press access to shows and interviewing musicians.<\/p>\n

Leaning into her experience, she also started a\u00a0TikTok page\u00a0<\/a>to publicly document her rejections, applications, and personal finances.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything about being unemployed that you\u2019re scared of, I\u2019m probably doing it,\u201d she said. \u201cSomeone actually commented and was like, \u2018Hey, my company is looking for a social media intern if you\u2019re looking for that.\u2019 She sent me the link for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Szeto, it was a revelation. \u201cI was like wait, is this another way of networking?\u201d<\/p>\n

Affordability<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Arya Zarrinkelk has spent over 13 years coaching arts and media students \u2014 fashion, photography, film, and graphic design \u2014 across the Bay Area. He says the dread students describe today sounds familiar.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of things students are telling me they feel now are very similar to what I was experiencing when I first started in 2013,\u201d he said, a time when the country was just beginning to drag itself out of the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n

Still, Zarrinkelk says much of the anxiety young job seekers feel is driven more by public discourse than by the reality of work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe narrative in the mainstream media has never been one of ease,\u201d he noted. \u201cIt\u2019s always been like, \u2018You better watch out for these things happening.\u2019 Honestly, 95% of the time \u2026 it\u2019s never a question of\u00a0if<\/em>\u00a0you\u2019re going to get a job. It\u2019s usually a question of\u00a0when<\/em>\u00a0you\u2019re gonna get a job, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

For Salvador Victoria, a career counselor at Skyline College in San Bruno, the question is less about whether a student will find a job or not and more about whether they\u2019ll be able to afford living in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was graduating high school, it was the great recession. Housing mortgages collapsing, bailouts, this and that,\u201d he said, adding that despite the dim employment prospects, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t even on my radar that much\u2026 I was just excited to be doing something new and just having some independence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students he sees today, in contrast, have families to support, rents to pay, pressures that as a young man he didn\u2019t have to confront. \u201cThere\u2019s no easy answer\u201d for a lot of these students, he acknowledged.<\/p>\n

Human centered work<\/strong><\/h2>\n

And while the AI boom has stoked fears of a looming employment \u2014 or, in some cases, literal \u2014 apocalypse, some of the young people interviewed for this story seemed surprisingly optimistic.<\/p>\n

Diego Paniagua, 21, is a junior majoring in business management at San Francisco State University \u2013 a field he chose because he loves sports, coaching, and mentoring.<\/p>\n

Paniagua currently has two jobs: interning for San Francisco\u2019s Carnival festival, and a peer advising role, helping fellow students with their resumes and applying to jobs.<\/p>\n

He says he\u2019s a little worried about the growing presence of AI. In addition to his own job prospects, he points out that resumes don\u2019t initially get read by people anymore \u2014 an automated system scans resumes for buzzwords that \u2018match\u2019 the applicant. So he finds himself advising students on how to appeal to the AI, rather than a human \u2013 a problem for someone whose passion is people.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>I trust in my personal skills, I trust the journey that I\u2019m taking now, and I just kind of trust that things will fall into place, whether that\u2019s AI or not AI,\u201d he said. \u201cI think a lot of my work will be done through interpersonal communication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paniagua loves to plan and organize events, skills he believes rely on leadership quality and creativity more than simple efficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>I think we\u2019ll soon realize that AI can\u2019t replace humans. Humans are what drive performance, what drive engagement, what drive people to come into a business. Humans are ultimately needed, so don\u2019t lose all hope and faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee eventually did find a job working AV, setting up projectors at a hotel. He\u2019s still focused on achieving his dream of working in TV. In the meantime, he films when he can and hopes to continue to pursue the career that he is passionate about.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>Sometimes you have to take detours to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Alam is a\u00a0California Local News Fellow<\/a>\u00a0with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: Published without changes from American Community Media<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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