Leading consultant and bestselling business author says fixed loyalty to companies is becoming rarer and that recent grads will be better off in the long run seeking work that suits their personal goals and work ideals

As the country slides deeper into recession, recent college graduates are expected to have a harder time landing a job this year. According to economists, the job market growth rate has slowed to its lowest pace in five years as employers–nervous about what will happen to the economy in the months ahead–assess whether they can afford to hire new staff. Analysts who study employment predict that if current trends persist, college graduates will continue to face an increasingly shrinking job market, especially in industries such as finance and construction, which have been hit hardest by the economic crisis.
So what can recent grads do to increase their competitive advantage? According to Barry Moltz, a leading consultant for Fortune 500 companies and author of BOUNCE!: Failure, Resiliency and Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success (Wiley & Sons), they would be wise to accept the fact that, unlike in previous generations, they will more than likely have a series of jobs over the course of their careers, rather than working for one company for decades. “Fixed loyalty to companies is becoming rarer and recent grads will be better off in the long run seeking work that suits their personal goals and work ideals,” Moltz says. “To achieve this, they may need to bounce from situation to situation to ultimately arrive at the ideal setting for them.”

Moltz also points out that recent grads may need to bounce from the idea of working for a corporation to entrepreneurship. “Eighty percent of American colleges and universities now offer courses in entrepreneurship and instead of dwelling on what the job market does not supply, it’s worthwhile to consider starting your own business,” says Moltz, who started and failed at two businesses before launching a third successful venture as a business consultant, keynote speaker, and author. “In the face of several dramatic layoffs, Americans are realizing that loyalty to a company does not guarantee financial security or advancement,” he says. “It pays to think out of the corporate box, set patient, interim goals, and be resilient. These are the tenets of the bounce concept.”