Tech companies are spending the middle of the decade rewriting their hiring playbook. After several years of record expansion, the sector has reversed course, shedding staff at a level unmatched since the early dot-com period. The impact reaches far beyond mid-career engineers or managers; the most significant consequences are falling on people who have yet to begin their careers.

The backdrop is staggering. In 2025 so far, tech firms cut more than 200,000 jobs worldwide, according to the industry tracker TrueUp. Large employers including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta have repeatedly trimmed staff, sometimes more than once a year, citing tighter budgets and the need to redirect resources into AI infrastructure and product development.

Those changes are altering hiring far below the executive level. Training and onboarding early-career staff is time-intensive. When budgets tighten, those investments tend to be the first to disappear. As the industry channels more money toward AI systems that automate routine tasks, the rationale for filling large new-grad classes has begun to erode.

This has a profound effect on the entry level job market and even internships for college students.

Sharp Decline In Entry Level Hiring

One of the most pronounced changes is the shrinking presence of young workers at major tech firms. Across some of the largest publicly traded tech companies, the share of employees in their early to mid-twenties has fallen from 15% in early 2023 to about 7% by mid-2025. It is a dramatic reversal for an industry that once relied on yearly waves of emerging talent.

The drop reflects both a pullback in hiring and a flood of experienced workers into the job market. Thousands of mid-career engineers and product professionals now compete for roles that previously went to recent graduates. As a result, companies continue to post junior positions but often award them to people with bigger resumes, shrinking the practical number of true entry-level seats.

Automation is also taking over work that once fell to junior employees. A study from the Stanford Digital Economy Lab examined roles that face high exposure to AI, including software development, customer service, and clerical support. Employment for workers ages 22 to 25 in these jobs declined 13% compared with less exposed occupations.

The finding suggests that early-career workers are bearing more of the disruption than older peers, whose employment in the same period grew.

Internships May Be Shrinking As Well

Internships, which once served as a pathway for college grads seeking full-time tech roles, are shrinking as well. Major tech firms have cancelled or reduced intern cohorts in 2024 and 2025, and the companies that continue to offer programs often scale them back.

While no national database tracks internship numbers with the same precision as full-time roles, hiring managers and college career centers have reported a notable contraction. Some firms that once accepted hundreds of interns per cycle now accept a fraction of their previous totals. Others have shifted to short virtual projects that require less financial commitment.

The result is a bottleneck at the earliest stage of the career pipeline. Students who previously counted on an internship as a springboard into a job now face a more uncertain path. Without that early exposure, recent graduates can struggle to distinguish themselves in a labor market already filled with experienced applicants.

Finding Those Entry Level Jobs Can Be Challenging

The shift is reshaping expectations among graduating seniors. A college senior who might have expected multiple interviews at large tech firms a few years ago now finds that many of those opportunities no longer exist. Entry-level roles are fewer, the hiring bar is higher, and application pools include workers with years of experience.

Early-career jobseekers are also navigating a sector that is in the midst of a technological shift unlike anything in recent memory. Companies want early-career employees who can work with AI tools from day one, whether they are building them or applying them across business functions.

That means the traditional value of a general compute -science credential has weakened in favor of candidates who have spent time on automation, infrastructure, or industry-specific problems.

The result is a tougher transition from classroom to career, particularly for students from institutions without strong recruiting pipelines. It is common for recent graduates to see their job searches take several months when just a few years ago it was near instant.

What College Students Can Focus On

Students entering the job market can adjust by leaning into areas where automation is less likely to replace their contributions. Proficiency with AI tools has moved from a differentiator to an expectation in many teams. That includes building projects that show how candidates use AI to speed research or code review, as well as deeper expertise in model integration, cloud platforms, security, or data systems.

Another shift involves branching out beyond the large tech companies that once dominated early-career recruiting. Industries such as finance, consulting, logistics, manufacturing, and healthcare are absorbing talent released during tech layoffs and are still hiring people early in their careers. Some mid-sized companies and startups, despite running leaner, continue to bring in graduates because they need hands-on contributors who are willing to grow with the company.

Many career advisers now encourage students to widen their scope from day one. A longer search is becoming normal, and graduates benefit from building projects, participating in open-source work, or taking contract roles while continuing to interview. These steps signal readiness, even in a job market where opportunities are limited.

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