Sindhwani of Ohio State is second-guessing his background as well. He says that perhaps additional skills could have made a difference in his fruitless job search; he's wondering if he should have learned C++ in addition to Visual Basic and Java, which he already knows. He's trying to learn C++ on his own, but believes most of the problems are simply the job market.

Sindhwani started applying for jobs in October and got his first serious look from a Detroit consulting company. But every time he spoke to the recruiting manager, she asked him to wait a few more weeks. In November, she asked if he could wait until March. "When she said that, I realized that this wasn't a good time for me to stop looking for jobs," he says. It was a wise decision--when Sindhwani called back in March, the recruiter was gone, along with a bunch of other people who'd just been laid off.

Sindhwani went through a number of other interviews, and got a tentative offer from a large computer company in Ohio. But his contact there was having problems with hiring. In April, the company told Sindhwani that although he hadn't been officially declined, he should probably consider other jobs. Now, as he graduates, he's still looking.

Students are getting hired; however, it's taking more effort to land a job. A survey of undergrad and MBA students conducted by recruitment management software vendor WetFeet Inc. shows that hiring levels are roughly the same as they were last year, with 66% of students already receiving job offers. The survey measures all students, however, and most hiring experts believe that IT has dropped as a percentage of overall college hires.

All college graduates are having to search harder, the WetFeet survey says. Students received only one offer for every 4.4 interviews this year, compared with one for every three interviews last year. They also got fewer interview opportunities, an average of 7.5 companies this year, down from 9.8 in 2000.

The new state of the economy is a wake-up call for student job searches. "The job market is less euphoric. There's more realism on the parts of both students and employers," says Louis Lataif, dean of Boston University's school of management. Students are still flocking to IT professions, but some of the allure is gone. Fewer want to go to startups or Internet consulting firms--some of the biggest draws last year. That's because there's no guarantee that the remaining dot-com companies will be around the next year, and stock options have much less appeal.

Dean Peasley, a Boston University graduate with MBA and MIS degrees, saw the dot-com craze in full swing last year. As he got closer to looking for a job, however, it was clear the market was taking a nosedive. "As you're watching the success stories, it's hard to say no [to dot-coms], but as you see the bankruptcies and closings, it gets easier to not try to grab the brass ring," he says.

When he finally chose a company, Peasley opted for the high base salary and the stability of a traditional company--in this case, Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., a Boston insurer that so far hasn't been affected by the misfortunes of the tech sector. Insurance and other traditional companies had a hard time appealing to the average college graduate a year ago; but WetFeet indicates that traditional companies are becoming more attractive now. Last year, 36% of college grads considered the dot-com and Internet markets the hottest fields; this year, just 5% think so. Investment banking, on the other hand, jumped from 3% to 11%, and pharmaceuticals went from 3% to 12%.

Hot markets are one thing, but new grads are also double-checking employers' financial resumés. Rosi saw his chances at Vignette fall apart because of declining company revenue. In April, Documentum Inc. rescinded a job offer because of a hiring freeze. It made him think beyond interesting work opportunities or even salary and about how he was going to support his wife and two children. "At some point, you start to look at balance sheets," Rosi says.

New grads are becoming less choosy in other ways, too. In previous years, they could afford to wait until the last minute before accepting a job, hoping that a better, more exciting offer would come along. Not this year. King says her MBAs at the University of Texas-Austin are nailing down job offers more quickly than in previous years because they're scared to enter the summer without a job. Even those with attractive resumés, such as Boston University's Peasley, with his dual degrees, found fewer options than he expected. "I thought I'd have more options than I did when I finally started looking," Peasley said. "But the pickings were slim."

In general, students are more content just to have a job in the IT sector, even if it doesn't measure up to their dreams. Sindhwani is aiming for an associate consultant position after graduating from Ohio State, but would take a programmer job, even though he views it as a rung or two down. After graduating from Brigham Young, Sloan had hoped to get a job in Utah or the Rocky Mountain states, where he and his wife could be close to their families. "Now, Maine looks good to me," he says. One of his most serious offers is with a staffing agency in Santa Barbara, Calif., but the company has yet to offer him a salary that would justify a move to California, where the cost of living is much higher.

Rosi's hiring odyssey finally ended when a friend at Microsoft--not one of his Austin Power connections--talked him into interviewing for an IT marketing position. Rosi had never considered Microsoft before, but when he looked at the company's long-term prospects and its culture, he was gradually won over. Less sure, however, was whether he could win over Microsoft, so he crammed for his interview. "I wasn't taking anything for granted," he says. Microsoft hired him. There was a final grace note, however. After his interview, he went in to wrap up his internship with Vignette. "That Monday, they fired everyone I knew," he says. Had he landed a position in the department, he would have been laid off, too.

Rosi can't get over the irony that the founder of Austin Power ended up in Seattle. Another lesson learned by the class of 2001 about today's market: Jobs come with compromises.