Austin was named the best place for entry-level jobs in Texas straight out of graduation.
For newly minted college graduates from Texas and beyond, Austin stands out as the best place to land an entry-level job.
Austin tops a new list from career platform LinkedIn of year-over-year hiring growth in entry-level jobs in Texas, up 21 percent last year. No other Texas city made the top 10, and no other U.S. city broke the 20 percent mark.
Data scientists at LinkedIn analyzed millions of member profiles and job postings, as well as all new entry-level hires from 2020 to 2021, to come up with the list.
Jack Chamberlin graduated from the University of Arizona in 2020 and subsequently landed a job at Round Rock-based Dell Technologies as a data center sales executive. He tells LinkedIn that he was determined to move to Austin, whether his job was based there or not. It turns out that Chamberlin’s position is a remote one.
“I was like, ‘I’m moving to Austin when I start work. I don’t care if I’m working remotely from my apartment. I want this to feel like a new chapter,’” he says.
After living in Austin for nearly two years, Chamberlin says it’s been a great place to start his career “without breaking the bank.”
“I’m from San Francisco and I want to live there eventually, but I knew that it wasn’t in the cards for me immediately post-grad,” he says. “Austin felt like a really great way to have that California culture, California mentality but at a Texas price point.”
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Here is LinkedIn’s list of the best places for college grads to jump-start their careers, based on growth in entry-level jobs from 2020 to 2021:
- Austin, 21 percent
- Chattanooga, Tennessee, 15.4 percent
- Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 15 percent
- Charlotte, North Carolina, 12.2 percent
- Cape Coral, Florida, 11.9 percent
- Denver, 11.8 percent
- Nashville, 11.4 percent
- San Diego, 11 percent
- New York City, 10.8 percent
- Boston, 10.7 percent
