Young graduates are getting passed over for remote jobs; virtual schools can help

A new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that remote work explains 64% of the recent rise in unemployment among young college graduates. The reason isn’t that these graduates lack ability. It’s that employers are wary of putting inexperienced workers on remote teams, where the day-to-day feedback and mentorship that shape a new hire’s skills are harder to deliver from a distance.

The study’s researchers found that employees who work near their colleagues get more feedback and mentorship than those working remotely, and that the loss is steepest for younger workers, who need that guidance most. One company that participated in the study resumed hiring young workers for in-office roles once its offices reopened following the pandemic. However, it continued favoring experienced workers for remote positions because those roles offered fewer opportunities for mentorship during the early stages of the job.

In other words, the real barrier for many young graduates isn’t a personal shortcoming. It’s that most have only ever been mentored in person, so employers assume they’ll need in-person support to grow into strong performers.

That’s exactly where a school like Idaho Virtual Academy (IDVA) offers something valuable. IDVA students are taught, coached and given feedback through a screen, similar to remote workers. They learn how to ask a teacher a clarifying question by email, how to interpret written feedback without a hallway conversation to fill in the blanks, and how to flag that they’re stuck before it turns into falling behind.

These are the specific habits that make remote mentorship work — the same habits the above study suggests are missing when companies try to bring young employees up to speed from a distance.

This isn’t a guarantee that employers will take a chance on any given candidate. Hiring managers still have to be convinced. But it does support a narrower argument: If the core problem is that remote settings make mentorship harder, graduates who’ve spent years learning through an online model have a real, demonstrable head start — not just in soft skills, but in knowing how to work successfully remotely.

That headstart matters more than it used to. Remote and hybrid roles are no longer a niche slice of the job market; they make up a growing and increasingly competitive share of the entry-level jobs that young graduates are chasing. Idaho’s own employers recognize the underlying skills gap and expect that time management, work ethic and problem-solving will be the skills they need most in the years ahead — the same skills that are essential for succeeding in remote and hybrid workplaces.

IDVA isn’t arguing that every student should learn online or that virtual school entirely replaces the value of in-person mentorship. But as remote work reshapes which graduates get hired, students who’ve already learned to seek out feedback, communicate clearly and take ownership of their own progress in a remote setting are arriving at the job market with a specific, relevant kind of preparation for today’s workplace, whether a role is in person or online.

Kelly Edginton is the executive director of Idaho Virtual Academy, a publicly funded online charter school serving K–12 students in Idaho. Learn more at idva.k12.com.