Ann Goodrich-Bazan, director of career education in the Lloyd and Helen Ament Astmann ‘69 Career Center at Franklin Pierce University, speaks with senior Ja’hid Anderson, left, and recent graduate Ked Prukmathakul, right, in the university’s Student Success Center. (Photo by Hannah Schroeder, Keene Sentinel)
When Bailey Saddlemire, Class of ’22, was a student at Keene State College, she considered moving out west to California.
Those plans fell through — a turn of events she said she’s now grateful for.
“I adore the small-town feelings of Keene and Brattleboro, and I am glad that I did not end up making that significant leap (to leave),” she said.
Saddlemire is now a career adviser at Keene State, helping students navigate those same choices.
More than 1,000 students graduated from Keene State and Franklin Pierce University earlier this month. For many, that means it’s time to get to work.
The job market they’re entering has so far managed to weather macro uncertainties plaguing other aspects of the U.S. economy, and the professionals who’ve worked to equip the new graduates for the workforce say they’re well prepared to compete.
Meanwhile, as New Hampshire’s population rapidly ages, the state’s economy needs many young adults to choose to live and work in the Granite State.
Starting small
Data on the current job market hold both bad news and good news for new grads seeking work.
Despite talk of a recession and stock and bond markets responding with dramatic fluctuations to the executive branch’s economic policies, unemployment has held near steady since 2024, according to the Federal Reserve Bank.
Job openings, on the other hand, were down more than 900,000 from a year ago as of March, per the most recent available data.
In New Hampshire, the unemployment rate as of April 2025 was up about 0.7% from the same month a year prior, figures from NH Employment Security show. With few exceptions, most industries in the state dropped in total number of employees between March and April.
Career center staff at both Keene State and Franklin Pierce said they encourage students to take advantage of resources available to them, like alumni networking, and to be flexible when it comes to their dream job.
“As long as graduates are willing and able to be creative when thinking about the skills and knowledge they gained with their degrees, they will be able to find opportunities that could be relevant and interesting for them no matter the major they chose,” Saddlemire said in an email.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s common for people to change jobs eight or more times over the course of their working life.
The first job can be a stepping stone, said Franklin Pierce Career Center Director Ann Goodrich-Bazan. When students are entering competitive fields, she encourages them to “stay open to entry-level roles, positions that may not be their dream job but offer valuable experience and can serve as a launchpad to better opportunities.”
Mitchell Jawidzik, of Candia, visited the career center at Keene State recently for help finding jobs after graduation.
With a degree in legal studies, he’s been looking for roles like legal assistant, paralegal or legal secretary.
Career services staff helped him edit his resume and cover letter to put his best foot forward, he said, and recommended he consider applying to internships as well as entry-level roles.
His job search has been “a little bit of a struggle,” he said. “But I’ve been trying to keep my hopes up.”
According to data from the schools, 98% of Class of ‘22 Franklin Pierce graduates are employed in professional positions or attending graduate school. For the same class at Keene State, 91% are.
Getting ready
The job market, like the economy as a whole, has been through significant upheaval since this year’s graduating class were freshmen in the fall of 2020. The shape of the current economy would have been difficult to predict back then, but career center staff said that’s when their work began.
The Career Paths at Pierce program at Franklin Pierce “helps students build strong, career-ready skills starting in their freshman year,” Goodrich-Bazan said in an email. “That includes connecting with professionals in their field and with Franklin Pierce alumni through intentional networking across all four years.”
The school also prioritizes placing students in internships that can prepare them for their field of interest, she said.
Saddlemire said she recommends students highlight experiences like internships and major projects that they’ve completed while in school on their resumes to give employers a sense of their preparation for the workforce, including experiences that might not be directly within their major.
“In this day and age, a liberal arts education is especially important. Showing versatility is incredibly valuable and exhibited by a variety of classes taken and skills learned,” she said.
Juliona Martens, a new Keene State graduate from Connecticut with a degree in journalism, said she completed four internships in hope of gaining a competitive edge on entry-level applications. That hasn’t panned out so far, she said.
“It’s been really rough,” she said, noting that she has received only one interview after applying to about 100 jobs.
Sticking around?
With one of the highest median ages in the nation — 43.4, as of 2023 — New Hampshire needs young people to flesh out the workforce and support the retirements of their predecessors.
The older population could cause the state’s labor force to decline, the NH Fiscal Policy Institute said in an August 2024 brief. But the group also said young people moving to the state could help offset that.
According to Keene State’s First Destination Survey, about 18% of the out-of-state members of the Class of ‘22 stayed to work in New Hampshire after graduation, and 69% of in-state alumni did.
Jawidzik, the legal studies major from Candia, said he’s looking for jobs primarily in Keene and the surrounding area, in part because he already has housemates here and a place to live.
Martens, who focused on social media marketing during her four years in Keene, is looking for jobs mainly in urban centers in southern New England, because the rural Monadnock Region doesn’t have many opportunities in the field she’s looking for, she said.
At a town hall hosted by WMUR last week, Gov. Kelly Ayotte said adding more high-tech jobs and addressing the housing crisis is a necessary step to keep young people in the state.
For Saddlemire, it came down to a sense of belonging.
“The Monadnock Region supported me through my practicum and my education, and I found a feeling of home here,” she said.
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