How Career Centers Can Support Seniors Without Jobs Before Graduation

The 2025-26 entry-level market has tightened, and spring is now the highest-risk period for unplaced seniors.

Employer hiring growth has flattened, and most large recruiters exit the cycle long before graduation.

For Career Services Professionals, the real threat is underemployment. Seniors who accept misaligned roles often stay there for years, eroding long-term outcomes.

Yet hiring has not stopped. Small and Mid-sized Enterprises are moving faster, prioritizing skills, referrals, and short hiring windows over brand pedigree.

This guide focuses on what works late in the cycle: identifying at-risk seniors early, closing skill gaps quickly, and activating just-in-time hiring events, alumni referrals, micro-internships, and AI-supported application strategies that convert before momentum is lost.

How should you address the shift in the 2025-26 entry-level market?

CSPs must pivot from generic resume reviews to data-backed, high-touch interventions. With employer hiring projections cooling, your office should prioritize "just-in-time" recruitment events and micro-internships. This ensures seniors remain engaged during the late-spring surge, preventing the "underemployment trap" that currently affects over half of all recent graduates.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), employer hiring projections for the Class of 2025 have flattened, showing only a 1.6% increase in planned hires.

For CSPs, this means the "Big Brand" recruiters likely finished their cycles in the Fall.

You must now redirect unplaced seniors toward Small and Mid-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

Research from Handshake indicates that while large tech postings are down, "hidden gems" in manufacturing, healthcare, and local government are seeing a 12% increase in early-career applications.

Also Read: 5 StrengthsFinder Activities Career Centers Need for Student Success

Why is "Underemployment" the biggest threat to CSP success metrics?

Underemployment is "sticky," meaning graduates who start in jobs not requiring a degree are likely to stay there for years. For CSPs, success isn't just "any job," but degree-aligned roles. Preventing this requires teaching seniors to leverage skills-based hiring trends and professional certifications to bridge the gap between their degree and market demand.

According to a joint report by the Strada Education Foundation and the Burning Glass Institute, 52% of graduates are underemployed a year after graduation.

Even more concerning for CSPs is that 73% of those underemployed a year after graduation remain so ten years later.

What you can do:

• Audit the "Unplaced" List: Identify seniors in majors with high underemployment rates (like Liberal Arts or Life Sciences).
• Skill-Gap Analysis: According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, "Skills-based hiring" is now 5x more effective than degree-only screening. CSPs should facilitate "micro-credentials" for these students in the final 8 weeks of the semester.

Also Read: How to boost student attendance at career fairs?

What specific interventions improve outcomes for unplaced seniors?

CSPs must deploy "Just-In-Time" hiring events and micro-internship partnerships to bypass slow corporate pipelines and capture the 80% of jobs in the hidden market. By leveraging alumni-referral platforms and "Senior Pivot" days, offices can facilitate direct connections that historically double or triple interview rates compared to cold portal applications.

While "Big Brand" recruiting peaks in October, a second, highly effective hiring window opens in April and May for Small and Mid-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

According to a report by Rakuna, "Just-In-Time" events like the Ivy+ Virtual Career Fair successfully connected 1,405 students with 78 employers in a single four-hour window, proving that concentrated, late-cycle events are vital for unplaced students.

To maximize these interventions, CSPs should implement:

• Alumni-Direct Referrals: According to Case Western Reserve University, students who engage with the Alumni Career Network leverage a "trusted environment" to access unadvertised roles, essential since 80% of jobs are never posted publicly.
• "Senior Pivot" Days: Institutions like the University of Central Florida (UCF) host a specific "Senior Series" and the Statewide Job Fair in May. These are designed to provide an immediate "pivot" for graduating seniors, moving them from generic searchers to "available now" talent for local recruiters.
• Micro-Internships: Partnership with platforms like Parker Dewey allows unplaced seniors to gain "degree-aligned" experience in just 10-40 hours, providing the "paid experience" credential that makes them 60% more likely to receive a full-time offer according to NACE.

Also Read: How can career centers close the equity gap for FGLI students?

How can CSPs leverage AI to accelerate the search for late-stage seniors?

CSPs must transition from teaching manual resume drafting to "AI-Prompt Engineering" for hyper-tailored applications that clear modern ATS filters. By integrating AI-driven feedback tools, offices can provide 24/7 scalability for the seniors who currently use AI ineffectively, significantly reducing the "friction of application" during the final weeks of the semester.

While 94% of Gen Z report familiarity with Generative AI tools, a report from HR Dive reveals that nearly half of these students have received no formal training and want structured guidance on professional application.

This "knowledge gap" is a prime opportunity for CSPs to provide high-value, specialized workshops.

Actionable AI Strategies for Career Centers:

• ATS Simulation Workshops: Since 65% of employers now use skills-based hiring practices according to a NACE Quick Poll, CSPs should teach seniors to use AI to "cross-walk" their course projects into the specific competencies (e.g., Teamwork, Communication) that AI-driven hiring platforms prioritize.
• Prompt-Based Interview Prep: Instead of standard mock interviews, have students use AI to "roleplay" as a specific recruiter from a target company. This helps unplaced seniors practice "just-in-time" interview skills for the rapid-turnaround hiring typical of May and June.

Also Read: How can career centers prepare students for AI-driven interviews?

Wrapping Up

Sustaining these outcomes beyond individual workshops requires more than one-off interventions.

Career teams need systems that support exploration, skills alignment, application readiness, and interview preparation in a connected way.

Hiration is designed to support that continuum.

It allows students to progress from role discovery to tailored resumes, interviews, and professional profiles with consistent guidance, while giving counselors a centralized view of engagement and progress.

Support remains available outside office hours, without increasing advisor workload.

For career centers navigating tighter hiring cycles and higher underemployment risk, having this kind of infrastructure in place makes late-stage interventions easier to execute and easier to scale.