Swarthmore College seniors are facing a tumultuous political climate as they search for jobs ahead of May graduation. Since January, the executive branch has paused grant funding that employed thousands of researchers and PhD students while federal job cuts have impacted over a hundred thousand workers, leading to mass layoffs and buyouts. Additionally, an economic shock caused by surprise mass tariffs brought the stock market into dangerous territory this week, causing a 5.5% drop in the Dow, the biggest back-to-back losses since 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although President Trump temporarily paused most tariffs on Wednesday, if resumed they could lead to American companies cutting spending due to their reliance on imports that would ripple throughout the job market, with many analysts fearing a global recession.
Claire Klieger, Assistant Vice President and Executive Director of Career Services, noted that Swarthmore’s Class of 2025 is not the first to graduate during a time of uncertainty, but that the uncertainty is now caused by executive branch decisions rather than a pandemic or global recession. In response, Career Services has been meeting to advise impacted students and anticipates employers will make more cautious hiring decisions.
“Wide-sweeping and rapid-fire federal changes are having both direct and indirect impacts on opportunities for students and alumni,” Klieger wrote in an email to The Phoenix. “In essence, any opportunity within the federal government or reliant upon federal funds could potentially be at risk. In addition to those who may have been caught up in the wave of federal layoffs or hiring freezes announced thus far, Career Services has been meeting with students whose summer or post-grad plans are now in flux due to confusion and concern around federal funding cuts.”
Klieger also advised students to be patient and consider alternative paths to longer-term career goals. The average job search takes six months to complete, but Klieger noted it could take longer due to job cuts and an unstable economy. The most essential thing, she says, is to be persistent and keep looking for opportunities opening every day.
However, for some students like Iliana Gonzalez ’25, the process can take a much shorter time. Gonzalez, who is going into structural engineering, began searching for jobs in September 2024 by researching a list of the top 100 civil engineering companies. She ended up applying for thirteen different positions, which led to four interviews and three offers. By early November, she had signed a contract. Her advice to students searching is to reach out to their connections, including previous employers and professors. She also encourages students to narrow the locations they would like to work in early on to apply to jobs specifically there.
Gonzalez said political uncertainty did not affect her job search process but may impact her full-time work later on: “There will be decreased opportunity to work on infrastructure projects focused on sustainability such as railway expansion.”
Hannah Grace Humphreys ’24.5, who graduated from Swarthmore in December, is facing a difficult decision between a potential Fulbright that may be vulnerable to Trump’s actions and a funded Ph.D program in linguistics that may be cut in the future. She said the political uncertainty clouding her final decision, which needs to be made by Monday, is disheartening after years of hard work at Swarthmore building a network of opportunities and experiences. However, she is grateful for the opportunities she does have and said Kleiger has been extremely supportive even after graduation.
Humphreys encouraged other students to take advantage of networking opportunities and invest in their future by creating a diverse portfolio of experiences. She said students are “never going to be anywhere that’s so fraught with opportunity for funding and networking.” Although she is grateful for the opportunities she has, she said she is disappointed about the loss of former dream jobs including working as a Foreign Service Officer at the now-functionally-usurped U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Olivia Medeiros-Sakimoto ’25 received a job offer early on in the process in August after interning with Duolingo for two summers in a row. In the fall, she’ll be moving to Seattle, WA, to work there as a product designer. She began her search by exploring roles through Parker Dewey, an online service offering “micro internships” of 10 to 40 hours, and then applied to be a summer intern with Duolingo in December of her sophomore year.
“It’s already overwhelming to find work related to your academic interests, but now, I see friends having to seek out new opportunities after losing positions they’d already been promised,” Medeiros-Sakimoto said. “My advice would be to remember that your mindset shapes your reality. It sounds surface-level at first glance, but I believe in the Red-Car Theory and encourage everyone in my life to actively look for luck and the opportunities that appear in their/our lives.”
Medeiros-Sakimoto said she is fortunate to have a job lined up post-graduation and remembers struggling during a leave of absence to find a full-time position. During that semester-long leave without a full-time offer and without access to Swarthmore resources such as Adobe Suite, she worked on unpaid freelance projects to grow her skills. She says she wished she had taken more courses across different divisions and is now using her time as a senior to explore subject areas.
“I think this is the time in our lives that we still have access to all of these resources, experts, friends, and clubs,” Medeiros-Sakimoto said. “It’s important to have fun too. We won’t remember the essays, the classes, or missed work, but we’ll remember going to Media with our friends, sitting next to Crum Creek together, toasting to the class of 2025 in Sharples Commons, and going on adventures in the pouring rain.”
However, plenty of seniors are still searching for a job. According to Career Services, a constant stream of students receive offers each month of senior year, with the largest peak in April and May.
Grant Himes ’25 began searching for a job during winter break after an academically packed fall semester. Since then, he has been updating his resume, contacting connections, writing cover letters, and checking online job posting platforms for opportunities. He says he has found Career Services helpful for resume tips, and has been reminding himself that the beauty of the job search process is it only takes one interested recruiter.
“Unlike the cumulative process we’re used to in academic courses, that cover letter you submitted two months ago has zero bearing on if you will get a ‘good grade’ on the job application you’re submitting tomorrow,” Himes said. “And since that’s how the job market works, it’s important to make an effort to adopt that mindset yourself, and not let past rejections make you overly pessimistic about your chances of receiving a call back on that next opportunity.”
Career Services offers resources including access to professional attire, an interview room, and headshots. They also host events and connect students with alumni through SwatLink, an online networking platform. Students can meet with Career Services staff during open hours – 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays in Parrish 135 – or contact them at career@swarthmore.edu. “We recognize that each student’s journey is unique, so our approach is to meet students where they’re at, helping them develop tailored strategies for their specific needs, including connecting students with fellow swatties and Swarthmore-referred leads,” Klieger said.
Himes says he has no regrets over how he spent his time at Swarthmore, including academic work and time with friends. He also has realized that there are many career paths that do not correlate to one specific academic discipline, and encouraged sophomores declaring majors and students picking courses to study things they are passionate about. The greatest advantage you can have while “going through the slog of job searching,” Himes said, is to be genuinely interested in your work.
“The nature of creating a resume is such that it always feels like you could have done more to get research opportunities or internships your first couple years, and there are always more professors or alumni who you could try to build relationships with, but in the end, time is not infinite, and it’s important to enjoy your time here and not feel as though you’re perpetually on the edge of burning out,” Himes said. “That may have slightly disadvantaged me in the rat race for some of the positions I’ve applied to, but I feel as though it’s helped me a great deal in staying positive and not becoming overwhelmed by the very stressful job search process.”
Himes is most interested in urban planning, combining his technical skills learned from his math major with his interest in the social sciences. He hopes to find a job in an urban environment where he says there is interesting work being done around the evolution of the urban form for the 21st century.
Himes said the political context has tested his optimistic attitude while job searching. The roles he is applying for are not significantly impacted by funding cuts, unlike many of his peers, but he says he is feeling pressure from the larger economic context and feels the market is more oversaturated with talent given federal job loss. As a result, he has broadened his search but feels that might have happened regardless. He also said the political uncertainty has reminded him of values apart from a job.
“If I had to give one concrete way the political uncertainty has affected my post-grad planning, I would say that it has made me more aware of the importance of living near friends and family so that we can support each other in difficult times (credit to my mom for reminding me of the importance of this),” Himes said.
