
Historically, college graduation has been a time of celebration. The years of hard work and study have come to end, and life in the real world -- with a real paycheck -- can finally begin. Yet for the students who graduated from college over the past three years, leaving the haven of a university campus and entering the unstable job market was more panic-provoking than festive.
Hiring of new college graduates began to decline in 2008, when companies first started feeling the effects of the recession. By 2009, the graduating class was faced with industrywide hiring freezes. Things started to look up for the class of 2010, but companies -- many of which had gotten used to doing more with less -- were still hiring cautiously.
Now, in 2011, we...