Under 30? Looking for a job? You're not alone

“A lot of people are taking a little less,” he explains. “I’m not ready to concede.”

Some career experts believe it’s that kind of mentality that hurts many Gen Yers because they aren’t willing to start small and pay their dues.

“This is the most educated generation, and they were told, "You're special,’ ” notes workplace consultant J.T. O'Donnell. “Well … they’re not special, and they end up going out into the professional world and finding this out.”

She points out that many of Gen Y folks didn’t work as teenagers or during college, and that makes them ill-prepared for the realities of the work world.

“Moreover, by the standards of the older generations who currently hold most management jobs, Gen Y is also viewed as woefully unprepared to jump in and work effectively in a professional setting,” she adds. “As a result, many employers don't feel they have time, energy or money to bring Gen Y workers up to speed — especially when studies show Gen Ys job-hop every 18 months.”

Lyndsay Rush of Chicago admits she was being a bit cocky when she left her job with a stock brokerage firm in July without having another gig lined up.

“I figured I was 25 and it was time to make a career change, so I took the leap. I wanted to go into marketing or writing,” she recalls. “There was some overconfidence there.”

She has been unable to find a job in those fields and so has accepted temporary positions.  In the past three months, she has applied to 80 jobs, including ones that were not directly related to her future career goals.

“I was under the assumption that we were at the age that everyone wanted to hire,” she says.

To release some of her job-hunting frustration, she has launched “Bob Loblaw’s Job Blog,” based on a character in the show "Arrested Development character," about the misadventures of the jobless.

Younger workers are finding out the hard way that they have to hustle to land their dream job, says Debra Condren, business psychologist and author of “Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word.”

“These young adults don’t know how to jump in and be aggressive,” she says.

“A lot of us parents wanted our kids to focus more on school, not part-time jobs,” she notes. “Then they went to college, and we helped them out financially. And there are also the super crazy parents, the ones that go on job interviews with them.”

She believes the recession will light a fire under the Gen Y crowd as they go head-to-head with older workers. They’re going to have to pound the pavement, take less money, work their way up the ladder, she advises, just like the generations before them. But the future is uncertain for all age groups in the this deep recession, which has caught even well-seasoned professionals by surprise.

“Imagine if you were a young person who’s never lived through a downturn,” she says.

Rhein, the legal assistant, certainly was not prepared.

“Growing up, my parents were telling me, ‘The world is at your fingertips. All you have to do is educate yourself, go to college, and you’d get a prime position right out of school.’ They were wrong.”

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