JOBS OUTLOOK: COLLEGE SENIORS HAVE IT TOUGH FINDING A POSITION

Dennis Robke has learned how to handle rejection, one letter at a time.

After sending out more than 80 resumes, the college senior who will graduate in two weeks has had corporation after corporation tell him they won't be the one to hire him.

"They all say they've reviewed my qualifications but don't have a position for me," said Robke, a finance major.

"And they all wish me success in my job search. They try to be as nice as they can without coming right out and saying, `We don't have a position, so get lost.'"

Robke is one of thousands of college seniors who facing a tough economy will have a difficult time landing their first job, experts say.

"It's even tougher than last year," said Edward Freeman, director of the Career Planning and Placement office at Southeast Missouri State University.

"I think we're pretty well down across the board," Freeman said. "Even those areas that you would anticipate would not be that readily affected by the economy accounting, computer science, education have been affected."

Freeman said the number of companies interviewing on campus and the number of job listings received by the career planning office are both down from last year.

This is not good news for Robke, who is shifting his job search from St. Louis to other cities. He's even considering trying to get a job on the west coast.

Robke doesn't think it's his qualifications that are holding him back. He is president of the Student Activities Council, advertising manager of the student newspaper and was in a professional business fraternity for a year.

In other words, he's got what most employers look for in an employee fresh out of college: good grades and lots of "resume filler," meaning extracurricular activities. But those attributes only give students an edge when there are jobs to be found.

"I just don't think the jobs are there," he said.

Freeman said most students have an idea of the perfect job after graduation. But those expectations will likely have to be lowered or forgotten altogether.

"In difficult times they may have to settle for a job that is different from what they had anticipated they'd be doing," he said.

Determined graduates should consider volunteer work, or accepting a position of lower prestige and salary.

He said students first should choose a company they'd like to work for. If no open positions exist in the company, ask to volunteer as a way to get a foot in the door.

"It's difficult for an organization to say no to free help. And, if you prove you're invaluable, they are certainly going to give you stronger consideration," he said.

Non-profit and social service agencies and even advertising firms are usually receptive to people who want to volunteer, he said.

But what good is a job that doesn't pay?

"It's the experience," he said. "It will give you contacts in your chosen field, so when you go to ask for a job you're not talking to strangers."

Like Robke, many Southeast students hunt for jobs in St. Louis. But Freeman said St. Louis, Southeast Missouri and virtually every city is experiencing a shortage of jobs. Recent graduates are also competing against people with years of experience who have lost their jobs.

Freeman recommends that graduates start job hunting at the beginning of their senior year. But most wait, he said, some even until graduation is just weeks or days away.

"Graduation is a difficult time to tell someone they should have begun looking sooner, or should have taken leadership roles on campus," he said.

More students are also enrolling in graduate school.

But once the job search is on, Freeman said, it pays to be persistent. He said recent graduates face a much longer job hunt than even those who graduated two or three years ago. And that's when apathy toward the job search can set in.

"You have to generate on a daily basis enthusiasm for the hunt," he said. "Talk to everybody, make as many contacts as you can and don't give up."

The best strategy is to act as if you've "hired" yourself to find your own job, he said. Act as your own employer, and treat the job hunt as a full-time job.

"If you've hired yourself to find you a job, and you're not working eight hours a day at it," he said, "you may want to take a look at what kind of employee you hired."