Career coaches often tell college students to start looking for jobs months before turning the tassel. But in an increasingly brutal job market, some parents are planning years ahead of when their kid receives a diploma.
While the average college tuition today costs more than $38,000 a year, anxious parents are betting thousands more will lend their kid the competitive edge to succeed in the job market.
For anywhere between $4,200 and $15,000, Next Great Step can give kids a leg up in the increasingly dire job market as early as their sophomore year.
“We have a lot of parents who are very concerned and will reach out to us saying, ‘can you please help my kid?’” Beth Hendler-Grunt, president and CEO of Next Great Step, told Fortune.
College grads today face a treacherous path to landing a job. Aside from the trials and tribulations of the increasingly AI-heavy application process—where some applicants report shooting out thousands of résumés—the unemployment rate among recent college grads is now higher than for all workers, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Next Great Step is just one of a number of companies promising job seekers a fast-track ticket out of the muck of ghost jobs, AI-automated applicant tracking systems, and an increasingly competitive labor market.
Other companies, such as Reverse Recruiting Agency, Find My Profession, and Career Agents, apply to jobs on behalf of customers.
What up to $15,000 can get you
Founded in 2015, Next Great Step has seen a surge in demand over the last couple years, according to Hendler-Grunt.
While many colleges and universities offer career services, providing everything from résumé reviews to interview prep, Next Great Step offers one-on-one mentorship and group coaching sessions.
In addition, Next Great Step provides company and industry analysis, plus networking assistance and people research.
“We’re kind of offloading it from the parents,” she said. “They’re kind of relieved that there’s someone else who can help because a lot of times it becomes the friction point between parents and their young adult.”
The goal of the six-month program is to help students score a coveted summer internship and edge closer to their dream jobs.
Hendler-Grunt said Next Great Step also helps clients master AI. Coaches teach students how to build custom agents or how to use platforms like Claude and Perplexity to analyze information.
“That skill of understanding [AI] is becoming more and more important even for non-technical roles,” she said.
Indeed, a recent Anthropic study found AI is already theoretically capable of performing a majority of the tasks associated with roles in engineering, law, business, finance, and management.
Many colleges today have yet to integrate AI into learning, with professors often outright banning use of the technology in the classroom. That comes even as a growing number of employers are dishing out bonuses based on AI use. A staggering 77% of executives said employees who refuse to become proficient in AI won’t be considered for promotions or leadership roles, according to a survey from AI platform Writer and Workplace Intelligence.
Still, Hendler-Grunt emphasized the importance of what she calls “luxury” skills, like critical thinking and communication.
“The most important piece about success in landing a job is building relationships,” she said, “because people hire people, not technology.”
