Recently, the prevailing trend is that graduates do not work in their profession; the purpose of the article is to study ways to improve the effectiveness of social and professional self-determination of students. The authors conducted an empirical study of the causes of this phenomenon and identified the main ones (the choice was made for the student by his parents; in the process of studying, the student became disillusioned with the chosen profession; the chosen profession does not bring the necessary earnings; did not find a job in the specialty). The article noted that the percentage of work in the profession depends on how long ago the specialist graduated from the university. The authors identified what causes could be eliminated in the process of teaching students. Having analyzed the existing pedagogical methods for students' more confident social and professional self-determination, the authors proposed the conceptual foundations of pedagogical support for students' social and professional self-determination. These recommendations will make it possible to correct students' social and professional self-determination in their specialty. The authors proposed an algorithm that allows to visually and transparently determine the student's attitude to the chosen specialty and ways to persuade the student to look for a job and work in the profession and the necessary tools for this. The proposed dual approach to adjusting the socio-professional self-determination of students will allow them to identify the problem at an early stage, track it and fix it with adjustment. Research has shown that there are several main reasons why a student does not work in a profession. All these reasons, in our opinion, are subject to correction in the learning process. The main feature of success is the desire of the university to identify such students at an early stage, a developed adjustment mechanism and constant control and monitoring. A further promising direction of research is the development of questionnaires that can identify this problem and a mechanism for attracting artificial intelligence that can guide each student individually and signal when the university's intervention is necessary.