After the diploma, a brighter outlook

"The salary and benefits I'm not as concerned about," she says in a phone interview. It's "more about what I'm going to learn from the job and ... where I'll be positioned after [a few years].... The big thing also is lifestyle: I expect to work at least 10 to 12 hours a day, but I'm hoping it won't be too much more than that."

Weighing lifestyle benefits isn't as easy for seniors with less work experience, but companies facing labor shortages are sure to tout such benefits.

Nursing recruiters at job fairs "advertise that you only have to work three 12-hour days and you get four days off," says Linda Wyatt, director of the career center at Kansas City Kansas Community College, which grants two-year associate's degrees. "Some have programs where [employees] can get a BS in nursing while working at the healthcare facility."

In most fields, it's still an employers' market. Companies surveyed by NACE say they are most interested in good communication skills - something they find rare among entry-level candidates.

Other qualities they value (in order of importance) are honesty, interpersonal skills, initiative, a strong work ethic, and teamwork skills.

The biggest turnoff, recruiters say, is candidates who show up for an interview without having done their homework about the company.

The Internet makes research so easy that there's really no excuse, they add.

When this year's seniors were still in high school, college grads could hold out for jobs that offered great pay and great experience.

"This year, they are confident they will find a job that offers great pay or great experience, not both," Mr. Rothberg says.

A realistic approach has set in and seniors are more willing to work outside their top-choice field to build up their résumés, says Colleen Watson, owner of a Minneapolis recruiting firm called Career Professionals.

Students used to think "the world would help them find themselves," Ms. Watson says. "Now they realize that the world doesn't owe them anything ... and they're going to have to give the employer everything they've got."

Not everyone is eager to jump into the world of work with both feet as soon as they have a diploma.

"Most of my friends actually aren't really looking for jobs," Ms. Harrison says. "They're kind of doing it, but some of them want to go to grad school, some want to go to Europe for a year and then conduct a job search."

Harrison herself is excited "to not be a student anymore."

Persistence led to job offers as early as November for some of her friends, and she kept plugging until a good offer came through for her in March. Starting July 12, she'll be working in an asset-management firm in San Francisco, with a starting salary of $55,000.

At Boston College, Grieco's hunt for a PR job in Boston or New York is in full swing. But she's been taking the whole career thing one step at a time - starting back in sophomore year when she went on a retreat with the campus's Intersections Project.

Director Burt Howell says it's designed to help students look beyond status and salary.

"We're more interested in [having you explore] who are you as a person, where are you feeling called, what are your talents and gifts, how can you use them in service of others?" he says.

This year, Grieco and a cluster of other seniors are publishing blogs - online journals - reflecting on life and career choices.

In one entry she tells of receiving a Valentine's Day package from her parents. Tucked in with the candy and pink tissue paper was "How to Say It at Work," a manual for being assertive on the job.

"The book is sitting on my desk," she writes. "I really do plan to read it ... one day when I have a work to go to."

The next week the blog chronicles how "the usual despair about my future ... and the prospect of not HAVING a future" gave way to a burst of inspiration.

Grieco met some professional writers at a networking night and felt such a resonance that she started writing freelance stories for a local paper right away.

"It was reassuring," she says, "to talk to people who were only a couple years out [of college], and they all had jobs and were doing fine for themselves."

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