As he settled in to a comfortable Indian style position in his strategically organized bedroom, Corey Benick talked of what has followed graduation. His squared his shoulders and locked me with an unwavering gaze.

"I'm still searching for a job," he said with a sigh.

As one of the top four graduates in the College of Business, Benick has achieved great things in his academic career. He spent a summer studying in Spain, worked a summer as a marketing intern for American Tire Distributors in North Carolina, acted as president of the campus wide honors society Phi Eta Sigma, and all the while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.

Now, after fours years of hard work leading to a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Marketing with a concentration in Logistics and a minor in Spanish, Benick is still searching for employment.

"I'm going to keep on trying to find a job that I would want to do rather than just settling for a job that's something I don't really want to do."

He is just one of many graduating seniors struggling in today's job market. Many students with great academic standing are spending the first several months after graduation searching for jobs.

Although job searching is the top priority, Benick smiles when he discusses how much free time he has.

"I get up and I work out for a bit," he said. "I hang out with friends and my girlfriend. I use my free time to do the things that I've wanted to do, but never had the time for. I don't really have a set schedule and it is kind of nice be able to enjoy the summer a bit."

Rest and relaxation is a tiny part of a day in the life of this college graduate. After laughing and sharing stories about fun summer adventures, the conversation shifts back Benick's on-going search for employment.

He straightened his posture and said, "I'm going to keep on trying to find a job that I would want to do rather than just settling for a job that's something I don't really want to do."

After several interviews with different companies, he's gotten colorful rejections from all. "They decided that they had better fits than me. There wasn't necessarily anything wrong with what I had to offer. There were just better fits out there."

He scratched his head a bit and explained his thinking behind why he wasn't the "best fit". He wondered if it was partially due to recent layoffs forcing seasoned employees to apply for entry-level positions. He believed that internal promotions probably played a part since they usually save companies a lot of money. He sighed, shrugged, and brushed of the rejections by saying, "It's been hard."

"Get active in something where you are going to meet a lot of different people, especially people who are already out in the work force. What I've seen recently is a lot of people finding jobs through people that they know."

There are many tools that Benick cites as useful to the job searching process. The one thing that Benick keeps coming back to is networking.

Going back to some of his rejections he said, "It could possibly be because other people had contacts within the company."

This is the biggest piece of advice Benick would give college students today. The top graduate said, "Get active in something where you are going to meet a lot of different people, especially people who are already out in the work force. What I've seen recently is a lot of people finding jobs through people that they know." 

Networking has brought him some of his most promising job leads yet.

"Recently I've made a couple of friends in the Nashville area who are really well connected. I'm glad I've found a networking contact that I might be able to use to find a job." 

While he spends most of his energy on searching online job databases, Benick certainly did not act as the poster boy for process. "I spend a while every day searching through online job databases. I've had almost no luck with online job searches. I've had a couple of people who have emailed me back about my application, but other than that it's been hard."

Regardless of his unemployed status, Benick remains positive. He wore a slight smile when he talked about everything he has learned in job interviews. He spoke of determination and being picky as the keys to finding the perfect job. 

"I try to be a little picky even though this economy is not really allowing for that. I don't apply for every job that has something to do with business just because I don't want to get stuck doing something that I'm going to end up hating. While it is hard to find a job right now I know there are still jobs out there."