

The 2025 graduating class is entering a “Fake Job Market ” and the most turbulent job market.
The “Fake Job Market ” comprises fake employers, recruiters, job seekers, and people who refer and work with fake career service providers. It must be considered a marketplace when phony LinkedIn and other social profiles exist among companies, recruiters, and others who conduct business ethically.
Grads must vet and research each employer and navigate the AI-generated content landscape. They’ll need to note and scrutinize all information on job descriptions and compare listed jobs to the company’s website (and make sure it’s the real site).
New grads can navigate jobs through internships for the next year or two. While interning, they can amass experience and increase their network among their peers, landing jobs, coworkers working in the industry, and jobs they aspire to. Internships can also inform and enhance the skills employers want and deepen work relationships, which in the long run will benefit them later in their careers.
The work will provide real-world applied knowledge and help them compete in a market demanding practical experience. This is also an opportunity to learn how AI is effectively used in business and understand how it translates to various industries.
The best strategy is always to look at different industries to see how your skills fit into the industry. This way, the graduate will have more choices to get hired than one or two types of jobs. While mass applying is done by their peers, a more thoughtful approach is efficient.
I encourage you to subscribe to “The Job Scam Report” on Substack at the top of this webpage.
Job scams are here to stay.
Layoffs are rising.
Ghost jobs are blurring the lines between real and fake jobs.
We’re just trying to make sense of it all.
Here’s a video version of the podcast from two weeks ago. I participated in a St. Xavier’s University career panel, helping graduates search for jobs. While it was recorded in 2024, it’s relevant to this class of graduates.
If you’d rather listen to the podcast, here it is. You can also find “The Voice of Job Seekers” podcast in most podcast directories.