Spring quarter means it’s “Senior Season” at the Career Center, and students are searching for support while feeling a mix of optimism and uncertainty about landing a job after graduation.

To help students with the job search, the Career Center cohosted the “Thrive After DePaul” event series with University Counseling and Psychological Services that covered topics in networking, mental health and skills assessments.

 Marketing senior David Raskaj has attended several events in the series — with related events to come this summer — and said he will continue to focus on finding job opportunities that align with his values.

“Even though I am lost, I know I am on a path of deeper exploration of figuring out what’s important to me — and where I want to make a contribution,” he said.

Feeling lost or uncertain about the future is a common sentiment among students at colleges and universities across the country.

Fifty-six percent of students in the class of 2025 say they are feeling somewhat or very pessimistic about entering the job market under the current economic circumstances, according to the April “State of the Graduate” report from the job platform Handshake.

Pessimism is most prevalent among computer science majors, with 28% being “very pessimistic” about starting their careers, up 10 percentage points from those in the class of 2024.

About a quarter of students majoring in computer science and the humanities also reported feeling “highly worried” about the effects of generative AI tools on their careers.

Brenda Williams, the executive director of DePaul’s Career Center, acknowledged that it can be “demoralizing” for students when they do not hear back from employers after sending out many applications.

“Students need to know that this is normal — that it’s not them. It is the environment,” she said. “And so they need to stay consistent and motivated.”

 Williams also suggested that students who are “cold applying” for jobs through platforms like LinkedIn should supplement the process by growing their already existing network.

“A lot of the time, students don’t think that they have a network, but they do,” she said. “You’ve got family, friends, professors, people that are in organizations or religious institutions that you’re a part of.”

 Williams also recommended that students join professional organizations associated with their desired industry. These organizations allow students to network when they attend conferences and present projects, potentially leading to more opportunities.

 “The best jobs and opportunities that you get are through people that you know and connections that you have,” she said.

Kavya Krishnakumar, a DePaul master’s student graduating in November, said she got her research internship at the DePaul Innovation Development Lab mainly through connections made through networking, rather than applying directly.

She said the job market is “scary” based on what she has heard from recent graduates in her desired field: user experience design. This field involves prototyping products and wireframing, and AI tools are being developed for these tasks.

She said she is “not too concerned” about AI threatening jobs in her industry, and instead sees it as something she’d like to learn more about for job-related tasks.

“I think since I am in a more creative field — it’s more designing and research — I’m not worried about AI really replacing the job,” she said.

 Some students say AI can also be useful during the job hunt itself.

DePaul MBA student Gaurav Lalwani, for instance, uses AI to analyze job descriptions for keywords.

 As an international student, he said the need for a company to sponsor him is an added complication to his job search experience.

When searching for a job, “you need to be very optimistic and hardworking, so you can continuously apply and apply and hope for the best result,” he said. “It’s not all about only applying. (It’s about) making relationships too.”

As students continue to navigate the unique conditions shaping their jump into the job market, the Career Center will host “Job Search Accelerator” events in June and July. They will include a personal needs assessment and breakout sessions on building a job search toolkit, search strategies and interviewing.

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