Angle icon pointing down An icon shaped like an angle pointing down. A Massachusetts millennial says having a college degree hasn’t helped him get a job in the past three years. Daniel Colflesh
- A millennial quit his job in 2015 to attend college because his career growth had stalled.
- But he says he has struggled to get a job since graduating and is stuck with student debt.
- He is part of a growing group of American men who have left the workforce, at least temporarily.
In 2015, at age 34, Dan Colflesh decided to leave his job in the customer service industry and pursue a college degree.
“I worked hard to move up in a few companies, but always ran into obstacles in promotions because I didn’t have a college education,” he told Business Insider via email.
By 2021, he obtained He has an associate’s degree in physics from a Massachusetts community college and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. But he said the additional education hadn’t helped him much in the job market and had left him with student loans.
“Nobody will hire me,” he said. “My college degree is practically worthless.”
Colflesh said he had been looking for work for the past few years and had applied to more than 100 jobs, but said there were periods when he felt “defeated” and at times he paused his search for a few months. He also said an injury delayed his search for a couple more months.
While the US male unemployment rate Although the unemployment rate is low compared with decades past, Colflesh is among the men who have struggled to find work or have stopped looking for work altogether. In 1950, about 97% of American men ages 25 to 54 had a job or were actively looking for work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By January, that figure had fallen to about 89%.
Among the various explanations for this trend is that in recent decades it has become more difficult to get a well-paid job without a college degree, a development that has contributed somewhat to men leaving the workforceThese challenges persist today for men, who now account for less than half of college enrollees, even as more companies have begun hiring candidates without degrees.
Some men age 25 and older are not in the workforce because they are pursuing a bachelor’s or advanced degree. But, as Colfesh can attest, having a degree does not guarantee success in the job market.
In particular, over the past year, some Americans have found it harder to find good-paying jobs. A recent Vanguard report found that the hiring rate had held steady over the past year for workers earning less than $55,000 a year, but had fallen for workers in the top third of wage earners, who made more than $96,000, to its lowest level since 2014.
Today, Colflesh remains focused on finding a job. He shared the application strategies he had tried, why he thought his job search had been so difficult, and what he planned to do in the future.
Experience requirements and employment gaps could be working against you
Colflesh said he thought one of the reasons his job search had been difficult was that the employment landscape had changed in recent years.
“It used to be that you could have a bachelor’s degree in almost anything and get some kind of high-paying job,” he said, adding, “Now you have to have an incredible amount of experience.”
She said this made it difficult for her to get a job with her political science degree, but she didn’t want to go into more debt to study for graduate school. So she decided to press ahead with her job search, broadened her search and changed her application strategies.
He said he tried to tailor his resumes and cover letters to each employer and applied for some jobs that didn’t require a degree, but still had little luck. For example, he said he applied to be a cashier at two liquor stores with employee recommendations, but couldn’t get an interview.
“I keep hearing from employers that nobody wants to work, and I want to work desperately, and I can never get anyone to sit down and talk to me,” she said.
Physical limitations would make it difficult for him to do manual labor, he said, adding that he thought his autism could be contributing to his challenges in the labor market.
“I’m always going to look strange to most people who aren’t autistic,” he said. “The general lack of acceptance of autistic people makes social networking difficult and that affects job opportunities.”
Colflesh has other theories about why his job search has been difficult. He said he may be being too honest on his resumes: He’d seen research that Many people exaggerate the truthHe also said he lived in an area where “it matters who you know” and that not growing up in the community had put him at a disadvantage. Some employment gaps on his resume might not be doing him any favors, he said.
Finally, he said that he grew up in the Appalachian Region The expansion of the United States, an area that has experienced economic difficulties in recent decades, has been an additional obstacle.
“I would say the number one factor in predicting financial success is the zip code you grow up in,” he said. investigation suggests there may be some truth to this.
Colflesh said he, his fiancée and his daughter were living with his future mother-in-law in Massachusetts and that his fiancée and her mother had been paying the bills.
His student loans provided him with about $5,000 each semester for living expenses, which he said he used to help his family. He also received some income from a “large cryptocurrency investment,” he said.
Looking ahead, Colflesh said he recently had a second job interview and was also considering returning to the type of work he did before going to college.
“I’ll keep looking no matter how bleak it gets,” he said, “because I have to.”
Are you a man who is not looking for work or who has had difficulty finding one? Are you willing to share your story? If so, please contact this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.
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