Graduates' Job Hunts: Majorly Frustrating

"This market is one that just really needs to be navigated," she said. "It's not like the old days where someone could pop a résumé out there and get 15 interviews and five offers. You have to seek out opportunities more than in the past. In the past, they were coming to you."

The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank in the District, found that college graduates might not be better off in other ways. After analyzing figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the institute found that there was a five percentage point decrease since 2001 in college graduates getting health insurance coverage. Fewer than half of young college graduates receive any form of pension coverage, the institute reported.

"Having a college degree is not the guarantee of a good job with benefits the way it used to be," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. "And college graduates are now being affected by the kind of squeeze being put on the middle class and blue-collar workers for a long time."

Paul Harrington, an economist at Northeastern University, also found that about 38 percent of young college graduates are "underemployed," or doing work for which they are overqualified.

"It's a loss of resources. It's a social loss. These are bright people who could be engaged in more productive activities but . . . we haven't figured out how to move them into productive activities," he said. "That's the tragedy of a recession."

Alex Bryan, 23, is working as a line cook at a bar in College Park while he searches for a job. He earned a bachelor's degree in studio art and graphic design last August. He took some time off but has been actively searching for work in his field for a few months. He has sent out about 40 résumés and gotten three interviews. "It's not difficult to locate jobs. It's just hard to get one," he said. "A lot of them are upper-level jobs, and they require a little more experience than I have."

Triston McIntyre, a 23-year-old English and political science major at the University of Maryland at College Park, decided to take a more creative route to employment when he graduates this fall. A blogger and writer, he hoped to land a writing job. With those jobs as scarce as they are, he started his own business, partnering with a fellow blogger to create a Web site -- UptownUncorked.com -- that trains businesses in how to create a presence in social media and the Internet.

"Mainly the reason I'm doing this is because there are not a lot of jobs, and I would rather be my own boss," he said.

Most of the area's universities have not yet compiled data on the class of 2008's employment. They said the job market remains anecdotally strong in the Washington area but has definitely softened in some fields.

At Howard University, job fairs that once drew 100 companies are now drawing about 80, said Harold L. Gray Sr., director of the Center for Professional Development and the Center for Insurance Education.

At George Washington University, the recruiters showed up but did not have as many jobs to fill. "What I really think happened was that they didn't have as many jobs but because they had some vacancies, they came anyway," said Marva Gumbs Jennings, executive director of the career center.

Some career center officials said they have heard of job offers being rescinded or jobs changing or being eliminated after the graduates arrive at work. Others say undergraduates are planning to wait out the economic downturn in graduate school.