2010 Grads on the Job Chase

The class of 2010 is picking up its diplomas. But jobs are scarce. Our new grads roundtable looks at the market and survival strategies.

We’re in graduation days for the Class of 2010. 1.6 million bright-faced young men and women getting undergraduate degrees, college diplomas, across the country.

And the job market? Brutal. It was brutal last year, of course. Now it’s brutal stacked on brutal. 19.6 percent unemployment for Americans under 25. The highest since 1948.

Just one in four new college grads who applied for a job has one. Twenty five percent. And many have applied for scores of jobs.

This Hour, On Point: we talk to the Class of 2010 about the job hunt – and survival strategies in the economy of 2010.Guests:

Kristin Parris is graduating magna cum laude from Howard University, where she majored in business administration. For the last three summers she’s held internships at Pricewaterhouse Coopers and McGraw-Hill. She hopes to find a position in human resources. She is 22 years old. Here's her resume.

Shauna Nuckles is graduating from the University of Washington, where she majored in journalism in minored in international and diversity studies. She has held several internships, including this spring at the Seattle Times where she wrote an op-ed titled, “A graduating college senior faces a dire job market and chooses optimism.” She is 22 years old. Here's her resume.

(NOTE: Contact On Point producer Julie Diop, jdiop at wbur.bu.edu, if you have a job opportunity you'd like forwarded to Kristen or Shauna.)

Vadim Leonov graduated this spring from Duke University with a bachelor’s in economics. He will be starting work in August at a large investment bank as an analyst.

Alexandra Levit is a syndicated columnist for the Wall Street Journal. She is author of "They Don't Teach Corporate in College: A Twenty-Something's Guide to the Business World," "How’d you Score that Gig?: A career adventure from Alexandra Levit," and "New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career."

Closing Segment:

As part of our continuing series during graduation season, we broadcast another excerpt from a commencement address. Emmy Award-winning journalist and CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper has covered major events around the globe in Iraq, Afghanistan, and along the U.S. Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. On Saturday, he spoke to the graduates of Tulane University in New Orleans about what he had learned from his years as a foreign correspondent, and now as a host of his own show, “Anderson Cooper 360." You can read the transcript and see the whole address.