Armed with a degree but no place to go, students graduating this quarter are having a hard time finding a job to put their knowledge to work.

Jeff Rice, associate to the dean for Career Services at the Fisher College of Business, said the recent decline in the economy is causing companies to stop hiring.

“The economy has been in a steady decline since March of this year,” Rice said. “There are many factors which have attributed to this, all of which have resulted in less demand for goods and services from consumers.

“The bottom line is fewer new jobs are available when existing jobs are being eliminated,” he said.

Students graduating this quarter are going to have a harder time finding a job in December or January because people are on holiday vacations and are waiting for the new year to determine hiring needs.

“These factors weigh even more heavily on job seekers when the economy is weak,” Rice said. “If graduating seniors are just starting their job search, I encourage them to prepare for their search to last several months.”

According to Student Enrollment Reporting and Research Services, an estimated 1,322 students are graduating from OSU this quarter. Last year, 1,251 students graduated.

Amy Mawhinney, a graduating senior in marketing, said she has started looking for a job but has had no success.

“There are no entry-level jobs out there, at least in my field,” she said. “I have experienced several layoffs where I work as an intern. The job market for entry-level jobs is very small.”

Myan Zagorsky, a senior in industrial and systems engineering who will graduate this winter, said she has had three interviews. She, too, has been unsuccessful in landing a job.

“The economy has definitely made an impact because my friends graduated two years ago in the same major and had eight job offerings,” Zagorsky said. “A lot of people who were even hired in June are having their jobs revoked, contracts rejected and postponements for up to six months.”

Zagorsky said graduates like her may need to be willing to relocate.

“The only engineering jobs available are to people who are willing to work in the middle of nowhere,” she said. At job fairs, Zagorsky ran into many companies which had hiring freezes.

“It is important to know that not all companies recruiting on campus have immediate job openings, but are making sure they meet candidates that they can follow-up with quickly when the economy begins to recover,” Rice said.

More than 133 businesses attended Career Day this year, which was down 10 percent from last year’s 155.

Pamela Park-Curry, the director of Undergraduate Career Services, said there are companies still hiring fresh graduates, even as

they are laying off employees.

Rice said the best thing students can do to find a job is network.

“In a good economy, the job search is all about targeting what you want. In a weak economy, the job search is all about targeting everything that is available,” he said.