Today the New York Times tells us that the national mood is at an two-year low, as people essentially look around, shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Recovery? What recovery?’ Are things any better with fresh-faced college grads who should be at an optimistic stage of life?

To find out Adecco recently polled 500 recent grads from four-year programs, all of whom were aged between 22-26, to find out how optimistic they were about their job prospects and how prepared they felt to find work in the current climate. The report, out yesterday, sadly doesn’t make for much more cheerful reading than the Times article.

So what did the Adecco survey reveal about the latest crop of future professionals to hit the job market? The key results include:

Seven in ten grads wish they had done something differently while in college to prepare them for the job market. Mostly they wish they had networked more, started the job search earlier, or applied to more jobs before graduation. Only 57 percent of recent college grads are currently working full-time. Of those who are working full-time, it took them an average of six months to find a job after graduation, but at least they can take comfort in the fact that it took the class of 2008 longer — that year grads averaged 9.2 months to find a gig. 43 percent of recent grads who have a job are working at a job that does NOT require a four-year degree. And most don’t expect much help from the government — a measly one in five (19 percent) think that Social Security will still exist by the time they retire. One-third of all recent graduates live at home with their parents.

The report doesn’t make for much optimism about the recovery but at least take comfort in the fact that some of grads failings can be blamed on their slacking rather than the sluggish economy. 55 percent of recent graduates have applied to five or fewer full-time jobs since graduation.

Will young people who graduated into this recession ever fully recover professionally?

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