Finding a post-college job in a slumping economy
By Julie Sturgeon • Bankrate.com

Michael Lackey's Ball State University graduation party was a blur. With only a week between Pomp and Circumstance in Muncie, Ind., and his first day as a financial analyst at Lockheed Martin in Orlando, Fla., he barely had time to doff his cap and gown.

Laina Pinella just hopes she can attend Fordham University's ceremonies. She has to schedule around the job she got before her diploma was in hand.

Wait a minute. Isn't this a terrible time for graduates to be job hunting? The numbers are gloomy. According to Sallie Mae, 2 million college students hit the job market this summer, in the wake of half-a-million-plus pink slips handed out by U.S. corporations from January through March.

Brian Krueger, president of CollegeGrad.com, sees jobs for college graduates increasing by a paltry 2.3 percent. Applicants for those positions also include master's degree candidates who retreated into ivied halls two years ago to avoid slow hiring then.

"I haven't seen it this bad since the early 1980s," Krueger says. "But that doesn't mean it's hopeless. Anybody who's been around awhile calls this phenomenon by its name: a cycle."

And, as evidenced by Lackey and Pinella, there are opportunities for college grads willing to work within the strictures of a challenging economy.

Preparation and flexibility pays off
"This year's grads are more realistic," says Caryl Krannich, author of Campus Career Centers: The Job Hunting Guide. "Even last year, students still had their heads in the late '90s and didn't want to accept that the world changed."

Your first job should be the search for work itself. Career counselors recommend devoting eight hours a day to job hunting.

"I hear the same lament in good economies and bad: Career services folks can't get students into their offices to sign up for on-campus interviews and job fairs," says Camille Luckenbaugh, employment information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Even those who do look diligently don't necessarily do so effectively. Researching potential employers is key to landing a job, but employers confide to Krueger that they rarely meet an entry-level candidate prepared to impress them with knowledge of the firm's products, services and marketplace position.

Krannich says graduates who spend an hour at a company's Web site hold an edge over most other applicants. Want the short course? Skim the president's letter in the annual report to brush up on the company's key areas of focus and strategy.

And remember that flexibility wins the job-hunt game. The obvious ingredient in this elastic category is salary, but it also applies geographically. Graduates typically enjoy a leg up over job seekers with children and mortgages when it comes to moving to where the work is, says Krannich, so exploit your advantage.

The right resume
You've done your homework. Now it's time to convince potential employers.

Rita Fisher digs out marketable skills most college graduates never dreamed they possess. As executive director of First Class Resumes in Columbus, Ind., she drills her clients with pointed questions:

• What did you do in summers to fund your college education?
  
  
• What college projects did you work on in your field?
  
  
• What volunteer activities did you participate in?

With her guidance, students realize an innocuous baby-sitting position demonstrates they can manage stressful situations and organize multiple projects.

New graduates best convey this skill through functional resumes: a document that details major skill headings then describes relevant activity under that section. The headings depend on the job you seek. Fisher has created as many as five different resumes for one person.

"I never create a general resume because there is no such thing as a general job," she says. "A successful resume focuses on the specific position a person seeks."

Today's good resumes also skip the objective section. It focuses more on the employee's desires than employer's needs.

"Employers don't care what you want to do," Fisher explains bluntly. "They only hire for two reasons: because that person can save them money or earn them money." That's why she bolds financial achievements like "increased sales by 20 percent in a year" to make the sentences jump out at a personnel screener.

Sophisticated seekers produce marketing brochures rather than predictable resumes or burn credit-card sized CD ROMs to pass out like business cards. But they're only cheap gimmicks if you don't follow up, recruiters warn.

Patricia O'Connor, retired assistant director of Duke University's career assistance office, urges students to be aggressive when checking on an application's status. Dial with a calendar in your hand and suggest an interview time, even if you get voice mail. If your resume packet was forwarded, get the direct number of the department or person to whom it went and ask to be transferred there.