Most of my undergraduate classmates wound up in decent careers. This is why the uninformed tend to jump up and down about maths degrees. Similar for theoretical physics (I transferred out of that into maths).
But it's not like medicine or law where there is a "track" that once followed will get you employed and it's a lot more ad-hoc in terms of employment. Underneath that employment it isn't as rosy as it looks. There's plenty of examples of jobs being hard to get - most quants took ages to get work, albeit relocating to London cut that stuff short for me.
The PhDs all graduated around the start of the credit crunch and many aspiring quants entered into actuary instead as it became very tough to become a quant (it was already tough as it was), albeit some toughed it out and became quants. Other than 2 senior actuaries that have made their peace with the career, most want to get out - one of those 2 guys inundates me with the number of wanks he has each day in the office such is his boredom with his job (we call them "cumming updates") so I really don't buy his "using maths in a job is overrated" spiel.
One thing LinkedIn profiles hide well is all the gaps and issues. Several wound up in tight spots in their careers and some ran their own businesses for a while when getting out of that hole. One got out of self employment and is a business developer, having been 2 years self employed and prior to that a senior trader. One friend is doing a PhD having spent years not using the degree. He was an MBA style analyst, having started in HR, and every option he looked at to get out involved doing an MSc or PhD as his experience counted for nothing in maths roles and he eventually took the plunge. One thing he notes about it is that a PhD is really a job, something his first MSc wasn't.
I have to reiterate - do your due diligence properly. Parents or other idiots giving unsolicited advice think the question "what are your classmates doing?" is clever. It isn't. Ask what recent alumni are doing 2-4 years on instead. Especially if you do a PhD and only 1 or 2 classmates from your undergrad are working. I know a PhD physicist that claims at one point the employed contingent class consisted of a dropout MSc that was an accountant (ie not using the degree) and a guy that worked in German porn. I don't think any classmates were rushing to do accountancy exams or practice BDSM with Leaderhousen somehow, but he does say his parents used it as leverage to repeatedly bully him as their take on the matter was "oh, so your degree is useless then?". If you get treated like this, set boundaries. Also don't expect people to wake up when you get work - people still foist abusive and baseless advice on me because they cannot admit they have no clue.
