Concerns about professional marketing careers by seniors from the beginning and post-pandemic

Reactions of senior marketing majors at a major AACSB-accredited private school in an urban metropolitan were recorded from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March. Interestingly, the vast majority of the senior students were in the midst of job interviews and graduation plans. The same basic question about the uncertainties of COVID-19 and its economic fallout was asked of the following year's graduating seniors in late April 2021, more than a year later. It is an interesting comparison of fears and hopes expressed by graduating marketing students. Through grounded theoretical approaches, comparisons among gender, course averages, major themes were analysed. As expected, at the beginning of the pandemic, the major themes were as expected, fear, employment lost, financial hardships, economic hardships, lean measures, and cautiously optimistic of individual employment for both genders, regardless of grade averages. Optimism dominated the post-Covid group as employment opportunities became available.