KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Recent and soon-to-be college graduates might share one feeling: anticipation.
"I'm excited," said Kyra Afolabi, who will be graduating from the University of Missouri-Kansas City on Friday. "I'm very much anticipating the next steps, but I'm also, you know, the natural nerves of what is next."
Afolabi has been applying for jobs since December.
"It's a process for sure," she said.
The latest unemployment rate for recent college graduates is the highest it has been since 2021 at 5.8%, according to the Federal Reserve.
At the University of Kansas, Isaac Hamblin is graduating with his master's degree in architecture on Friday.
"I have a job currently," he said. "It's an internship that I've had for the past seven months."
Hamblin says his program at KU has set him up for success through networking.
"So, you don't have to really do any cold calls," he said. "They really set you up and get you connected to people."
Networking is one of the most important skills a recent graduate can have, says Leigh Anne Taylor Knight with the DeBruce Foundation.
"We have a cheat sheet this year for those graduates to be able to walk into a room and have confidence and tell people about their interests," she said.
The DeBruce Foundation is a national foundation that is headquartered in Kansas City.
"We help people when they are choosing or changing careers," Taylor Knight, executive director of the DeBruce Foundation, said.
Afolabi said she's benefited from the tools — a resume builder, agile work profiler and income estimator — that the DeBruce Foundation offers.
"I could be working on my resume at 11 p.m. and obviously, my careers service team at school is not available to help me when I'm writing my resume," Afolabi said of how the DeBruce Foundation's resume builder helped her.
After receiving her bachelor's degree in communications, Afolabi plans to get her master's from UMKC.
She shared a piece of advice for her fellow 2025 graduates.
"The biggest piece of advice I can give to the whole class of 2025 is, you have resources available to you to mitigate some of the nerves you're feeling," Afolabi said.
You can access the DeBruce Foundation's tools here.
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KSHB 41 reporter Lily O’Shea Becker covers Franklin and Douglas counties in Kansas. Share your story idea with Lily.
