Generation Jobless: What can students do?

Lately, I've been hearing my generation referred to as "Generation Jobless". There are certainly some statistics that back this up:

"Among youths aged 15 to 24, employment declined by 19,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was 14.5%." (Survey results here)

This is double the overall unemployment rate of 7.2%, so clearly there is an issue here. Why are students and recent graduates struggling to find jobs? There's been tons of articles on that by much more knowledgeable economists, etc, so I'm not even going to try to answer that question. What I want to talk about is what students can do about it.

If unemployment is 14.5%, then we can infer that approximately 85.5% of students are able to find jobs.

What are these students doing right?

Experiential learning.

In an interview, nobody has ever asked me "Oh, what was the coolest thing you've learned in Communications class?" They ask about the projects we do with Enactus, the awards I've won through Junior Achievement, the conferences I've attended...that's what interests them.

My involvement with these programs (which are open to anyone) have easily been the biggest influence on my life.Although I've learned so much through formal education, but I am able to apply this knowledge and skills (while learning new ones) through experiential learning.

Companies don't want there to be such a high student unemployment rate. They want to hire students, but increasingly they are finding that there is a skill-position mismatch: students aren't prepared for the workforce.

So my advice to every single student out there: GET INVOLVED. Start a company, do charity work, join the Students' Union at your school, ANYTHING.

Learning doesn't only come from the classroom. It is so crucial that students find the time and commitment to work hard outside of school.

I don't want to be part of Generation Jobless. Do you?