Students who entered the job market during the pandemic are unhirable: Despite being very overqualified.

• Author: Austin, Rebekah

After investing thousands of hours and thousands of dollars into your education, you would hope to land a moderately paying mage within a company.

"COMPANIES NEED YOU MORE THAN EVER BEFORE. CHECK OUT ALL THE COMPANIES HIRING RIGHT NOW. APPLY TODAY!"

Sound familiar? This is a headline pulled from Glassdoor's weekly newsletter. I receive emails with taglines of this nature every week--and they work. Always, my optimism falls for this clickbait. I search the criteria, apply for a job, and await the automated response regrettably informing me that said company has "unfortunately moved forward with other candidates."

While the pandemic has forced many employers to expand their applicant pools by allowing for remote work, the qualifications for these hiring roles seem unclear or unattainable. If companies so desperately need qualified, twenty-something graduates like myself, why is it so hard to start a sustainable career?

STUDENTS ARE FINDING THEMSELVES UNHIRABLE

Like me, Hyde Ketterman graduated top of his class with high hopes of landing a job with a liveable wage. With a Bachelor's degree in public relations from Boston University, he expected to find opportunities in the growing pool of online media companies. Since graduating, Ketterman continues to work at Panera Bread, the same job he relied on to make ends meet while obtaining his degree.

"I didn't get any help paying for college. I relied completely on financial aid, private loans, and my minimum wage job to make ends meet. How could I possibly make time for an unpaid internship? I wouldn't have been able to eat.

It's no secret that many college students rely on multiple, low-wage jobs to keep them afloat during their studies and in the months following graduation. Students work hard: sacrificing sleep, social lives, and general well-being so they can break free from low-wage, hourly work and earn a salary doing something they earned a degree in. Ketterman took a risk in relying on student loans to help him pay for school.

Now I'm spending eight hours at the cash register. I come home to my parent's house because I obviously can't afford rent, and I spend the rest of the day applying for jobs. Most of these so-called 'entry-level' jobs ask you for two to three years of related experience. How is that entry-level?

Ketterman is not alone in this struggle. More than ever, recent graduates have become hobbled by debt they can't pay back. Employers demand a wealth of experience to get a...