Nearly 90% of employers anticipate increasing (24.6%) or maintaining (64.6%) hiring levels for the college Class of 2025 compared to the Class of 2024, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update. 

However, although just 11% of respondents are planning to decrease hires, their planned cuts mean overall hiring projections have fallen for the Class of 2025. In fall 2024, employers reported plans to hire 7.3% more graduates from the Class of 2025 than they did from the Class of 2024. Currently, they expect to increase hires by just 0.6%. 

Some other highlights from the Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update include: 

• The use of the GPA as a candidate screening tool has fallen into disfavor. For the third straight year, less than 40% of respondents will screen candidates by GPA. 
• Instead of GPA, many employers are using skills-based hiring to help them ID candidates with potential. In fact, nearly two-thirds of employers report using skills-based hiring practices all or most of the time.
• A student's major, industry, and internship experience are crucial, whether or not employers screen by GPA.
• Just 11% of respondents use AI to screen candidate resumes.
• Looking ahead, most employers expect to be seeking candidates for entry-level roles as well as internships in the fall. This bodes well for the Class of 2026.

The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update survey was conducted from February 18 – March 21, 2025. Of the 216 total respondents, 176 were NACE employer members, representing 22.2% of eligible member respondents. The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update survey was also distributed to nonmember companies; this group provided an additional 40 responses. The survey updates hiring projections for the Class of 2025; those projections were collected from NACE employer members from August 5 – September 16, 2024, and were reported in Job Outlook 2025, which was published in November 2024. The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update is available on NACEWeb.

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NACE’s Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update is out now!

See what's changed since our fall report, and get the latest hiring projections for the Class of 2025.

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