The new crop of college graduates about to hit the Washington job market can take heart: D.C. is ranked in gradspot.com’s “Top 10 Cities for Recent Grads.”
The founder of gradspot.com, 28-year-old Stuart Shultz along with two of his top contributors — Tory Hoen and Chris Schonberger, both 26 — looked through sources like Forbes rankings and used cost-of-living calculators and similar data-based sources to find the best go-to places for education-rich but job-experience-poor twentysomethings.
The trio also talked to all of their Web site contributors, friends and professionals in different cities and came up with the idea of tossing things like means of transportation, night life, dating and sports teams into their mix of criteria.
Schonberger’s hometown of D.C. made it into their top 10 list thanks to its “convenient and efficient” Metro system, free museums, great nightlife, and, of course, the pro teams Redskins, Capitals, Nationals and Wizards. The best thing about D.C., according to gradspot.com: “Bountiful green space.” It recommends the District to the “aspiring politician or academic who thrives on youthful naivete” and warns those who don’t like arguments or are looking for a “big city feel” to stay away.
The winner of the “Worst thing ever” category for DC are “political blowhards and people who use the phrase ‘inside the Beltway,'”
Schonberger and Co. concluded from their analysis that just because a city needs a lot of specialists in a particular field doesn’t make it a good place for young graduates.
“We took away those [cities] that look good in terms of numbers but are not necessarily places where young grads want to go,” Schonberger explained. After all, their Web site statistics show that the young, hip job seekers tend to click on the “fun” items of the site far more often than on the more serious topics.
