Rachel Grandis didn’t graduate empty-handed. Over five years, she created content for her school’s athletic department, managed the business school’s social media, landed multiple marketing and social media internships, and worked restaurant and summer-camp jobs on the side. In May 2026, she walked out of Elon University with a strategic communications degree—and quickly discovered that none of it seemed to count as the “experience” employers wanted.
“Entry-level to these companies is somebody who’s coming from three years of experience in the workforce,” she told CNBC Make It. “It’s hard when they want all this experience, but no job is willing to give you that first experience to have on your resume.”
She’s far from alone. A new Cengage employability report finds that 77% of recent graduates believe businesses demand too much experience for entry-level roles, and 75% say there simply aren’t enough truly entry-level opportunities. The survey covered more than 1,100 recent grads, nearly 1,000 hiring managers, and 750 instructors between April and August 2026.
Why the bar keeps rising
Michael Hansen, CEO of Cengage, says many employers have deliberately raised expectations for junior talent. They want strong critical thinking and decision-making skills—especially as companies invest heavily in AI and need people who can manage the technology rather than simply use it. They also report that too many new grads arrive without the interpersonal skills needed to rally a team, organize a project, or solve problems on the fly. Those soft skills, employers assume, should have been developed in classrooms, clubs, and internships.
At the same time, 72% of employers admit the rapid pace of workforce change has made it hard for colleges to keep readiness programs current. Yet many still expect day-one productivity and have “less patience” to train people in basics that were once taught on the job.
The result is a painful mismatch. Just 37% of new grads now say their education was worth the cost—down sharply from 68% in 2022. Handshake data shows early-career job postings stayed essentially flat (up only 1%) between mid-2025 and mid-2026 after three years of declines. Employers posted nearly twice as many full-time roles for the Class of 2022 as for the Class of 2026. LinkedIn figures show entry-level hiring tracking the broader market (both down about 6.5% year-over-year as of August), but industries that traditionally hire lots of juniors—financial services, tech, media, and professional services—have seen drops of 33–43% since 2021.
More than half of grads (53%) say they skipped applying to certain entry-level jobs in their field because they felt underqualified—an increase from previous years.
Who’s supposed to fix this?
When asked who carries primary responsibility for workforce readiness, students, instructors, and employers all point mostly at students. Employers get the smallest share of the blame (19%). Hansen argues that needs to change. Employers cannot simply raise the bar and then complain that they can’t find enough entry-level people. They need to create the very experiences they claim to require—through internships, apprenticeships, and structured training—and show more flexibility about what “ready on day one” really means.
Grads themselves are asking for more of those paid work opportunities built into their education. About one in three say lack of prior experience is the single biggest barrier to landing a job, ranking it higher than holding a degree.
What job seekers can do right now
The market is selective and competitive. Recruiters have told CNBC Make It that companies often have their pick of candidates and won’t stretch for people who don’t already check most of the boxes. That leaves new grads in a tough spot.
Practical moves that still help:
- Treat every campus role, internship, volunteer project, and side gig as resume gold—quantify impact wherever possible.
- Seek part-time, contract, or volunteer opportunities that build the exact skills employers list.
- Network aggressively; many grads report that getting past the ATS and into a real conversation changes outcomes.
- Document the search publicly (as Grandis has done on TikTok). Shared stories reduce isolation and sometimes surface unexpected leads.
Grandis remains optimistic that volunteer or part-time work will eventually connect her to the right full-time marketing role. Her videos about the struggle have gone viral, with commenters trading similar experiences. “I think a lot of people don’t realize just how many people are in the same boat and how many recent grads are really struggling to find jobs,” she said.
The experience gap is real. Closing it will require more than tougher job descriptions—it will require employers, schools, and graduates to meet in the middle. Until then, the message from the Class of 2026 is clear: the first rung of the ladder is higher than it used to be, and far too many people can’t reach it.