Tough Job Market for New College Grads Is Everyone’s Problem

It’s been a long time since the dream of working your way up from the mail room to the corner office was a plausible outcome, but it might now be officially dead. Some of the reasons are obvious—for one, the internet long ago made the mail room almost obsolete. But as new college graduates have headed out into the job market this summer, they’re reporting a different problem: They can’t get a foot in the door at all.

Photo illustration: Andre Rucker for Bloomberg Businessweek

Landing that first job is trickier right now in some fields than in others, but even in sectors with low unemployment, ...