What Do We Do Now?

By SOPHFRONIA SCOTT.

They're supposed to have the world at their feet, America's new college graduates. With shining faces, well-polished phrases and crisply pressed suits, they go in search of that first job and, at least in the past several years, have usually clinched it in short order. But not this time. The math is cruel and inescapable: About 1.4 million people will graduate from college and graduate schools this year, and the U.S. has lost 2 million jobs in the recession.

U.S. companies are feeling the pinch of hard times and are cutting down on campus recruiting. A Michigan State University survey on recruiting trends recently reported that job openings for college graduates have dipped 10% in the 1990-91 academic year after dropping 13% the year before,adding up to the largest decline since the 1982-83 school year. Result: a flood of rejection letters. "You never think about what you'll do after college, and then we find there are no jobs for us," says Virginia Kwong, a senior at the University of California at Irvine. "Everyone is going through interview after interview."

Not without practice. "Students can read the headlines, and they know it's a tough market," says Bob Thirsk, director of the University of Washington's placement center. Since competing in that market requires far more than the perfect resume, schools now offer workshops and seminars on job-search skills, including videotaped mock interviews. Students are flocking to the guidance sessions, but it's hard to find a job that isn't there. The University of Chicago Graduate Business School lets students bid for interviews through a computer, but according to William Mankivsky, 26, the screen has little to offer. Says he: "Every time we'd go to sign on, it would flash that another company had canceled some or all of its interviews due to restructuring or cutbacks."

The field isn't much better for law school grads. Third-year students at Harvard Law received a memo last October alerting them to the dry prospects. "They're getting two or three offers rather than the usual dozen," says Sarah Wald, dean of students. "We're telling them to decide quickly ((on a job)) and sit out the market for a few years." One student received a rejection letter that read simply: "You have an outstanding record -- and I can do nothing more than congratulate you on it."

Even those with offers are being surprised. This month Webster & Sheffield, a prestigious New York corporate law firm, notified students whom it had already hired that the jobs were not available after all. Another corporate firm, Jackson & Walker of Dallas, received more acceptances than it expected and tried to entice hires to wait a year before coming to work by offering them $21,000 to do so.

Experts such as L. Patrick Scheetz, Michigan State's assistant director of career development, believe this crop of graduates should find jobs in six months to a year as the recession cools. Students who have already been on the hunt for months are beginning to lower their expectations. "I don't know anyone entering career positions," says Todd McGowan, 21, a Southwest Missouri State graduate. Young job seekers are increasingly settling for low- or no-pay internships just to get a foot in the door, becoming cheap labor for companies that can't or won't hire regular staff.

Some grads target a territory. Atlanta, home of the 1996 Olympics, has become known as Hotlanta in younger circles. "If I had talked about how great Atlanta was two years ago, people would have laughed at me," says Beth Reimels, 21, a graduating senior at Boston University who will head there in September even though she has no job. "Now everyone is excited about Hotlanta." Silicon Valley is still looking for engineers, and the Northwest probably has the healthiest economy of any U.S. region.

Other grads, resigned to earning little or nothing for a while, are heading for graduate school or such programs as the Peace Corps and Teach for America, where they can at least do meaningful work. The Peace Corps has received 51,500 inquiries so far this year, 7,000 more than last year, and Teach for America applications have risen from 2,500 to 3,100.

Then there's the last-ditch option: going back home to Mom and Dad. This generation hasn't been afraid to do so -- Census reports show 75% of males 18 to 24 years old still live at home. But people mostly want to be on their own around that age. "All year long I swore that whatever I did, I wouldn't be living at home," says Natasha Pustilnik, 21, a Vassar College senior. Guess where she'll be this summer. "It's enormously disappointing," says the jobless Russian major.

No one thinks the Class of '91 faces long-term job troubles. Their plight is purely a result of recession, and they should easily survive a few months waiting tables or typing memos until other employers start hiring again. Still, as they fling their commencement caps skyward, the graduates will surely be silently urging the economy to follow as fast as possible.

With reporting by Deborah Edler Brown/Los Angeles and David M. Gross/Boston