‘Students are frustrated’: College seniors seeking tech jobs face a chilly hiring market

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‘Students are frustrated’: College seniors seeking tech jobs face a chilly hiring market

When the current class of college seniors started their studies four years ago, tech companies were hiring new graduates as fast as they could. Now, amid a downturn in Silicon Valley that has included thousands of layoffs, job seekers who are about to get their diplomas are scrambling to find work.

The signs of trouble are easy to spot at University of California at Berkeley, usually a hotbed for tech recruiting.

Some of the Big Tech companies have pulled out of recruitment and branding partnerships they previously had with the campus career services office.

It’s taking longer for students to land jobs. To make themselves more marketable, some students are doubling down on courses in AI and data engineering, two areas that haven’t been hit as hard as others in the tech industry.

Meanwhile, many students are applying for jobs at smaller companies now that Big Tech’s Google, Amazon, and Facebook-parent Meta have cut tens of thousands of workers over the past two years.

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