Monthly Archives: May 2025

New Survey Shows College Students Overestimate Their Career Readiness

Employers need to engage students earlier with experiential learning opportunities to build stronger entry-level talent pipelines

Washington, DC — May 12, 2025 — A new national survey of more than 2,000 college juniors and seniors by Seramount, a global talent solution company, highlights a growing disconnect between student and employer perceptions of career readiness. Almost three-quarters of survey respondents believe they are or will be ready for entry-level roles when they graduate. Meanwhile, more than half of hiring managers surveyed in 2024 said that recent college grads are unprepared for the workforce.

Across the board, survey responses show strong student confidence in their career pathing and preparation:

• 72 percent of college juniors and seniors feel very confident that they are on the right path to landing a job aligned with their career goals.
• 70 percent believe they have a strong understanding of which jobs or career paths will be a good fit for them.
• 88 percent of students feel their coursework is adequately preparing them for entry-level roles in their chosen fields.

“This isn’t just a preparation gap—it’s a perception gap,” said Tom Brunskill, the general manager of Forage, Seramount’s job simulation platform. “Students feel ready because they’re doing well in class, but you can’t prepare for a marathon just by reading about running. Employers and colleges both have roles to play in ensuring students have the skills to meet workplace expectations.”

Survey findings also suggest many students have already defined their career plans by the time they declare a major. Nearly 90 percent of respondents say they chose their major with a specific job or career path in mind. This suggests employers who want to hire more recent graduates would benefit by engaging students earlier in their college journey.

The survey report, From Coursework to Careers, includes additional findings as well as recommendations for employers that include the following:

• Create online, experiential learning opportunities that allow students to practice day-to-day tasks associated with early-career roles within your organization asynchronously and at no cost to students.
• Establish partnerships with universities committed to promoting experiential learning opportunities to students early in their academic journeys, ideally by the end of their first year.
• Identify colleges where students are engaging with your company online in large numbers and make those schools a focus for on-campus recruiting.

“Internships, which require significant staff time to manage, are not going to supply enough skilled, early-career talent to meet employer demand,” Brunskill added. “Companies need to engage students before their junior or senior year and give them new ways to build the specific job skills they need to succeed in entry-level roles. At the same time, colleges need to emphasize career outcomes to show value to students, families, and accreditors—and traditional methods of career preparation are not enough.”

About Seramount

Seramount is a global talent services firm that helps HR leaders prepare for the workplace of tomorrow. We have over four decades of experience creating employee-centric strategies that align with business outcomes for our 600 partner organizations. By combining data-driven insights, expert research, advisory services, and innovative technology, we help unlock what’s possible with a truly engaged workforce. Seramount’s suite of talent solutions includes Forage virtual job simulations, which help organizations build more effective and inclusive hiring strategies. Learn more at https://seramount.com/.

Contact

John Michaels
jmichaels@eab.com

GradGuard Launches $15,000 Scholarship Program to Promote Financial Awareness

Five college-bound students will be eligible to win $3,000

PHOENIX (May 1, 2025): GradGuard, the leader of college renters and tuition insurance, is excited to announce the launch of its inaugural scholarship program. This initiative will award $3,000 scholarships to five exceptional college-bound students who demonstrate the importance of protecting themselves from the risks of college life.

“Higher education is often the second largest investment a family will make in their lifetime, after purchasing a home,” said John Fees, co-founder of GradGuard. “This scholarship program is an innovative way to help students think critically about the real risks of college life that often disrupt students’ education and gain insight into relevant protections.

GradGuard will award five $3,000 scholarships to high school seniors or college students who are enrolled in an accredited U.S. college or university for the Fall 2025 semester. Students can apply by creating a 90-second video that shares insights on the risks and remedies available to the nearly 18 million college students enrolled in schools nationwide.

Some of the risks include:

• More than 1 in 3 currently enrolled students have considered stopping out of their degree or credential program within the last six months, according to a 2024 Gallup/Lumina Foundation Study.
• There have been an average of over 25,000 crime and safety incidents reported annually on college campuses since 2009, according to Clery Act Reports.
• There have been an average of 2,000 fires in on-campus student housing facilities, according to Clery Act Reports.

Videos should be submitted via the scholarship submission page by May 31, 2025. Videos will be published to promote awareness around National Insurance Awareness Day on June 28.

“While GradGuard’s pioneering tuition and renters insurance programs are relevant protections for college life, these scholarships aim to showcase the authentic stories from actual college students,” said Fees. “We’re excited to offer scholarships to help future students reach their academic goals.”

For more information or to apply, visit GradGuard’s scholarship submission page or email scholarships@gradguard.com.

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About GradGuard:

GradGuard is the authority on helping schools educate and protect students from the risks of college life. As the #1 source of college tuition and renters insurance, GradGuard’s pioneering protections have served more than 1.8 million students at more than 1,900 unique institutions.

To learn more, visit www.gradguard.com.

Contact:

Natalie Hubertus
Sr. Director, Marketing
602-341-5947
nhubertus@gradguard.com