New college graduates face two hurdles—fewer job openings and experienced competition

WorkingNation President Jane Oates speaks to the LA Times about job prospects for new graduates

May 10, 2020

The job market is challenging for all Americans. More than 33 million people have filed for first-time unemployment benefits over the past two months and the unemployment rate has hit its highest level since the Great Depression. Some of the workers have been laid off, some furloughed, and some have lost their jobs because their work place has gone out of business.

A recent Los Angeles Times article examines the impact on recent, or soon-to-be, college graduates trying to start their careers.

WorkingNation President Jane Oates, who previously served in the Department of Labor, tells the L.A. Times that economic uncertainly is making the the transition from college to career even more difficult.

“It’s the worst thing I have ever seen. They are about to enter the employment market at a time when absolutely nobody knows what to predict.” – Jane Oates, WorkingNation President

“Imminent graduates face an uphill battle on two fronts, Oates said. There are fewer jobs available, creating more competition. And whenever jobs return, she said, companies will most likely rehire the talent they originally let go.

And there aren’t obvious places to turn. As payrolls nationwide shrank by more than 20 million jobs last month, the losses cut across all industry sectors.

‘For job seekers right now, it’s trying to figure out not who the growth industries are, but who the industries are that are going to be able to come back with any vibrancy at all,’ said Oates.’You’re looking at industries that are completely reformatted.'”

You can read the entire Los Angeles Times article here: Pour one out for 2020 grads. It’ll be hard to find a job in this market.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.