After staggering across the stage to grab your diploma, your first forays into a new life begin with the time-honored college graduate job hunt. The entire experience is tinged with an overwhelming, fight-or-flight-type urge to either dive headfirst into adulthood or hide under your covers and surrender yourself to a life of Netflix and nostalgia.
Finally unburdened of the watchful eye of your parents and professors, you’re greeted with a smorgasbord of life decisions and options that are one-part exhilarating and two-parts terrifying. Knighted with this newfound freedom and autonomy, your smile wanes and your stomach churns at the thought of navigating the real world sans-Google Maps app.
Thankfully, in a veiled attempt to quell your post-graduate anxieties and serve as your life mentor, Glassdoor ranked the 25 best cities for jobs in 2016. Using the number of job openings, the median base salary, median home value, work-life balance rating and over job satisfaction as criteria, the job and review site traversed the U.S. for the top-notch cities for the second year in a row.
San Jose, Calif., San Francisco, Calif., Seattle, Wash., Boston, Mass. and Washington, D.C. secured the top five spots for 2016, with San Jose receiving perfect scores for work-life balance and job satisfaction. Here’s the full breakdown:
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While much more goes into making these life-altering decisions than job availability, the current employment situation for bachelor’s degree holders makes a case for making professional opportunity top priority. With nearly 45 percent of college graduates working a job that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree, those fresh on the job market could stand to base decisions entirely on their likelihood of finding a great job.
What city would you add/delete from this list? Comment below or head over to our Facebook page.
