Finished School and Can't Find a Job? A 90-Day Plan for Ontario Graduates

The short version

• It is a hard market, and that is not a judgement on you. Statistics Canada put the national unemployment rate for ages 15 to 24 at 12.9% in August 2026.
• Search job titles, not your degree. Job Bank's School to Work Transition Tool shows what graduates of a program go on to do.
• Use the free help. Employment Ontario offers free one-on-one job search support, and Job Bank is free to search.
• Open a second lane. A post-graduate certificate, a skilled trade, contract work or a small business can run next to the main search.
• Work in 90-day blocks. The week-by-week plan below gives you something to do on Monday.

Why is it so hard to find a job right after graduating?

Because entry-level postings often ask for experience you have not had a chance to get, and because the youth labour market is tougher than before the pandemic. Statistics Canada put the national unemployment rate for ages 15 to 24 at 12.9% in August 2026, against a 10.8% average from 2017 to 2019.

Read that number carefully. It covers everyone aged 15 to 24, including students looking for summer work, it is for all of Canada, and it is seasonally adjusted. It is not a figure for graduates, and not for Ontario. It shows the direction of the market, not your odds. Many of you reading this are 25 or older, where this figure does not apply at all.

What tends to sit underneath a long search is more ordinary: a resume written in the language of your program instead of the language of the postings, applications sent to a few obvious titles, and no one inside the field who knows your name. All three can be fixed, and the plan below is built around them.

What should you do in the first 30 days?

Stop sending the same resume everywhere and do four things instead: write down what you can actually do, set up Job Bank alerts, book one free Employment Ontario appointment, and talk to five people who do work you might want. Treat the first month as setup, not a verdict on whether the search is working.

1. Write down what you can do, in verbs. Not “BA in sociology”, but “interviewed 40 people, wrote a 12,000-word report, built a survey, presented to a group of 30”. Those verbs are what a posting is asking for.
2. Make a Job Bank account and set alerts. Job Bank says a free Standard account needs only an email address, and lets you filter searches and sign up for Job Alerts.
3. Book a free appointment. Employment Ontario lists free one-on-one help with resume writing, interview training, skills training and job search help.
4. Have five conversations. Ask people doing a job you could do in two years what their first year looked like. These are not job requests. They are how you learn the vocabulary.

How do you turn a degree into job titles employers actually post?

A degree names what you studied, not what employers hire for. Start from the work you can do, then use Job Bank's School to Work Transition Tool to see which jobs graduates of your kind of program hold, and search those titles. Expect many to be called coordinator, assistant or analyst.

The tool is the official answer to “what can you do with a [degree]”: Job Bank describes it as a way to find what jobs graduates have and how much they earn, across trades, diplomas and degrees. It will not tell you what is open in your town this month. It will give you the vocabulary to search with.

1. Open the tool and look up your program, or the closest one to it.
2. Write down every job title that appears, including the ones that look beneath you.
3. Search each title on Job Bank. Read three postings per title and copy the verbs and tools they name.
4. Rewrite your resume using those words wherever they are true.

The same method answers “how to get a job with no experience”. Experience is rarely zero. A group project, a thesis, a part-time job, a volunteer role and a placement are all experience. They are just often written down in the wrong words.

What if your field is crowded?

Widen the job title, not your standards. Search adjacent roles that use the same skills, look at which industries hire those skills beyond the obvious ones, and be open to starting in a support role in a sector that is hiring. A crowded field means a narrow search finds a lot of competition for very few postings.

A concrete example: if you studied criminology, the obvious titles are few and heavily contested, but the same skills (writing reports, working with people in difficult moments, handling confidential information) are asked for in many other places. The criminology and criminal justice careers guide shows what that widening looks like for one field. The principle works for most programs.

Which jobs that need a degree or diploma actually have openings?

Fifteen of the largest occupations in Ontario that usually need a university degree or a college diploma also have a Good or Very good Job Bank outlook, listed below by the number of people employed. They are the biggest pools of work with a favourable forecast, and a place to look for job titles. They are not a promise of work.

Two honest cautions. First, the outlook is Job Bank's forecast for the whole province for 2025 to 2027. It does not know your town, your field of study or what is posted this week, and a Good outlook does not mean an employer will call you. Second, the college tier (TEER 2) also includes some apprenticeship-based jobs, so a diploma-level title is not always a classroom route. The table is a map of where the work is, and you still have to get through the door.

To go further, see the full outlook explorer, the jobs in demand in Ontario list, the highest-paying jobs without a degree, the best trades careers, the jobs library that describes each one honestly, or Future Finder, a free interest explorer, if the real problem is that you are not sure what you want.

What are your options besides the same job search?

There are six, and none of them requires giving up on your field. A post-graduate certificate, an apprenticeship in a skilled trade, federal public service routes, contract or temp work, purposeful volunteering and starting a business can each run alongside the main search. Pick one to test, not all six.

Should you do a post-graduate certificate?

Possibly, if a specific job title you want lists it, or the postings you read keep asking for a skill your degree did not teach. Ontario Colleges says graduate certificates require a university degree or a college certificate or diploma for admission, and build on your earlier study. It is a way to add a skill, not a way to wait out a bad market.

Before you apply, find five postings that name the skill or credential, and ask two people in the role whether the certificate helped them. Program length, cost and entry requirements differ by college, so read each program page. Ontario Colleges is the starting point to compare them.

Is an apprenticeship or skilled trade an option after a degree?

Yes, though it works differently from a job search. Skilled Trades Ontario says you must be at least 16, meet the trade's education requirement, have legal permission to work in Canada and have a sponsor, which is the employer or group who commits to your training. The apprenticeship starts when you and the sponsor sign a Training Agreement and register it.

That sponsor requirement is the whole challenge: you are looking for an employer willing to take you on, so the search looks like any other, with different titles. The apprenticeship guide and the best trades careers list explain how it works. The guide is written for families, but the mechanics are the same at any age. Whether any of your degree counts toward a trade depends on the trade, so ask Skilled Trades Ontario before you assume.

What about public service jobs?

Most federal student programs are for people who are still in school, so check the rule before you spend time on an application. The Federal Student Work Experience Program requires that you be registered as a full-time student and returning to full-time studies in the next academic term. That rules it out if you are finished.

The Canada.ca student employment page also lists other programs, such as post-secondary co-op placements, with their own eligibility. If you are about to finish a program or are planning to return to school, one of them may fit. If you have already graduated, read each listing's own rules, and do not assume you qualify.

Is contract or temp work worth taking?

Often yes, if it is related to the work you want, because it ends the experience gap and puts you in a building where colleagues know of other openings. Take it as a stepping stone with a stated purpose, keep the main search running, and put the role on your resume in the language of the postings you are applying to.

Weigh two things first: whether it leaves time and energy to keep applying, and whether it is close enough to your target titles that a hiring manager will read it as relevant. A job that is not related still pays the bills and is fine, as long as you are honest with yourself about which one it is.

Is volunteering worth it, and how do you do it with a purpose?

It is worth it when it produces something a hiring manager can check: a project you can show, a skill you can name or a person who will give a reference. Pick a role that matches one of your target titles, agree what you will deliver and by when, and ask for a reference at the end.

Unfocused volunteering fills time without changing your resume. In Chatham-Kent, the community hours board lists local opportunities. Elsewhere, start with organisations connected to the field you want to work in.

Should you start a business?

Only if you want to run one, not because the search is hard. A business can be a bridge, such as freelance work in the skill you trained for, or a long-term plan. Either way it works best when it starts small, charges from the first customer and does not rely on a loan to get going.

The Ontario youth entrepreneurship pathway lists real programs by age, from a first business through to funding for people up to 39.

Where can you get free help in Ontario?

Employment Ontario offers free one-on-one support with resume writing, interview training, skills training and job search help at over 700 locations, and Job Bank is free to search with a free account. Your own college or university career office may also still help alumni, so ask. Eligibility varies by service.

• Employment Ontario. The province's page also points to programs for students and youth. It does not set an age limit for the general service, so ask a provider.
• Youth Job Connection. The year-round program is for people aged 15 to 29 who are unemployed and not in full-time education or training, who live in Ontario and are eligible to work here. Program materials describe pre-employment training of at least 60 hours, paid job placements with job coaching, mentorship and support for what comes next. Whether you qualify is for the local provider to decide, and the program is aimed at young people who face barriers to employment, so it will not suit everyone.
• Job Bank. A free Standard account needs only an email address and gives you filtered search and Job Alerts. Its youth page links a resume builder, a School to Work Transition Tool and paid internship listings. Some listings have age limits, for example 15 to 30.
• Your school. Whether a career office serves graduates, and for how long, is the school's own policy. Ask.

When is paid coaching worth it, and when is it not?

It is worth it when you have a clear target and a specific gap that someone with experience can name, such as an interview that keeps stalling or a switch into a new field. It is not worth it when the free services above have not yet been tried, or when you are still working out what you want.

• Try first: an Employment Ontario appointment, Job Bank's transition tool, and five conversations with people in the field. They cost nothing.
• Worth considering: you have done those, you know the role you want, and you keep getting interviews that go nowhere. Someone who can watch you interview, or review your applications, can see what you cannot.
• Ask before you pay: what exactly you will get, how many sessions, what you can ask for back if it does not help, and who the person has actually placed or coached. Be wary of anyone who promises a job.

Launch League's own paid career coaching is built for teenagers. It is not what this page is selling.

A 90-day plan, week by week

Thirteen weeks, one main task per week. Skip what you have already done, and shift weeks around when an interview or a job offer gets in the way.