I moved back in with my parents in August 2011. I'd recently finished a master's program in English literature and was both jobless and saddled with student debt. To pass the time, I sat with my laptop in the basement and wrote articles for health- and wellness-focused startups that couldn't afford to pay me.
When the startup was looking to bring on another staff writer, I got the job, perhaps because I was the only reasonably competent writer willing to accept such nominal pay.
For two years, I commuted to a third-floor walk-up in Manhattan, where a group of us in our early 20s shared snacks and dating advice and tried to get the website off the ground.
I stayed at that startup mainly because my colleagues had become my close friends and we felt we were improving people's daily lives. But I wonder whether I might have looked elsewhere sooner if I had graduated into a stronger economy — the unemployment rate was 9.1% in May 2011, and it was even higher for young professionals — and felt I could find another job easily. (It helped that my family was nearby and could afford to have me live with them at the time.)
The economy into which you graduate can shape the rest of your career — an idea that's salient now that some economists (though not all) predict a recession is coming soon.
Studies have found that people who enter the workforce in a recession are less likely to be employed and earn less money, even a decade or more later, than those who start their careers in better economic times. (Maybe if I'd been able to land a more lucrative job right after grad school, I'd be making twice the salary I am now.)
Though perhaps more significantly, the labor market you're flung into after school can also shape how you feel about your career long-term.
Research published in 2013 by Emily Bianchi at Emory University's Goizueta Business School suggested people with bachelor's and master's degrees wound up happier in their careers if they entered the workforce in a recession.
In three studies including a total of roughly 3,500 people, Bianchi analyzed two surveys that the US government has run since the 1970s. Results showed that those with college or graduate degrees who entered the workforce in economic downturns were more satisfied with their jobs, even decades later than their counterparts who entered during stronger economies, regardless of their industry or job function.
Bianchi found this was because they were less likely to think about all the professional paths they could have taken and been more grateful for the opportunities they have. Maybe, in a parallel universe in which they graduated into a stronger economy, they'd command higher salaries and have fancier job titles. But their ability to wear existential blinders means they're not fretting about whether and how they could have achieved these alternate realities.
Bianchi, for her part, graduated from college in 2001, during another US recession. It took her a year to land her first job, at a nonprofit that provides legal services to homeless people. These days, she told me in an interview, "I tend to really appreciate the many great things about my job, in part because it was so hard for me to land that first one."
Yet while appreciating the positive aspects of your job is generally a good thing, Bianchi said there could be drawbacks. Recession graduates might be less inclined to leave a subpar job "because you're so risk-averse in the job market because of your early experiences," she said.
And if you're reluctant to request a pay bump or promotion because you're so happy to have a paying gig, Bianchi said, "you may be more likely to be taken advantage of by your employer." Midway through my tenure at the startup, the CEO asked whether I wanted a raise, and, terrified of losing the job if I came off as too demanding, I told him no. (To the CEO's credit, he did give me a substantial raise when the startup raised another round of funding.)
At this point, it's unclear whether a recession will come and, if it does, how much it will affect today's young professionals. As my Insider colleagues reported, career experts aren't seeing much of a deceleration in recruiting for undergraduates. And the long-term career effects of a recession will likely vary among demographics. For example, graduate-degree holders might fare better than those with less education. And workers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds might be hit harder than other workers. (Bianchi said she'd like to conduct similar research among high-school graduates.)
It's also worth noting that careers have changed considerably since 2013 when Bianchi's paper was published. Many workers today have more flexibility and autonomy than they did before the pandemic. But Bianchi expects that her findings will still apply in the next recession. She's conducted research using more recent data showing that people report greater job satisfaction during bad economic times. "When securing that first job is difficult," she wrote in an email to Insider, "people tend to feel more grateful for that job and regard it more positively."
Perhaps the broader takeaway from this research is that our work experience is determined at least partly by how we feel about it, not just the objective reality of our job title, salary, and the number of hours we log. And in some cases, it can be easier to change our perception of those things than it is to meaningfully change them.
"It is amazing what is possible when you shift your mindset," Christine Cruzvergara, the chief education-strategy officer at the early-career network Handshake, said. Specifically, Cruzvergara said, getting clarity on what you need out of your job and career can help you feel like you're more in control of your work experience, even if you don't change jobs or employers.
In my case, it's hard to say whether or how graduating into a recession informed my job satisfaction later on. I enjoy my work, more so than many of my friends do, and I've had the same job for seven years. That could be a result of chance or my personality. But if it's due, even in part, to the challenge of finding my first job, then I'm inclined to say it was worth it.