If you’re like me and you will be ending your time at Cornell in May, you must lie in bed at night thinking “It’s a helluva time to be graduating!”

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last several months, you’ve noticed that the job market for recent college graduates is, in a word — pitiful. Jobs are scarce and companies are coming to interview at Cornell to merely save face. To make matters worse, they send a follow up, token e-mail of “We were impressed by you, but frankly, we’re just not hiring this year.”

And if you’re one of the lucky few that does have a job offer, the thought of your firm rescinding your offer to save a few bucks has surely crossed your mind. After all, you probably have an “employment-at-will” contract.

During this time of uncertainty, cutbacks, layoffs, and downsizing, I have spoken to a lot of mentors and advisors whom I have had the pleasure of coming across in my time at Cornell. I write what they say, not to be preachy, but to assure you that we are all in very similar situations and there is a lot to be thankful for as we head towards the holidays.

One advisor says that it is important to be flexible. Unlike past years, we need to be looking for jobs that might be in cities that aren’t necessarily our first choice. Providing the potential employer with greater flexibility gives them more options to place you somewhere. For a lot of us, we’re young without many dependents, so this would be an ideal time to travel across the country or around the world.

Other mentors have told me about great options that exist for graduating Cornellians. Programs such as Teach for America, the Peace Corps, and City Year are not “back-up” plans; rather they are non-traditional opportunities that exist for those preparing to enter the workforce. I should forewarn you that your application to these programs is not a shoe-in, though. Admission can be very competitive (sometimes more so than your initial application that got you to Cornell in the first place).

I had the privilege of asking a well-regarded business leader the other day what he would advise graduating students during this economic period. He responded: “Two words: Grad School.” For many of us, this might be a difficult thing. If you were planning on getting an MBA later on in your career, getting one now as you’re graduating college with no real-world experience doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

But Cornell and other institutions do offer one-year programs for graduates that might be of interest to you. These programs include the MENG (Engineering), the MILR (Industrial and Labor Relations), and the MMH (Hotel School). Don’t use these programs as “back-ups” though. Only apply for these programs if you legitimately think that it fits in your career plan.

The best advice, though, came from someone who took a lot of the pressure off by reminding me where I was in the grand scheme of things: right at the beginning.

The first stage of life is what we’re all pretty much in right now. The Investment Stage takes place through our undergraduate education and lasts for another five years or so afterwards. During this stage, the focus is the person you see in the mirror —yourself.

As you educate yourself at Cornell, take on summer internships, and join student organizations, you’re pretty much just building up your human capital in order to prepare yourself for that first job.

Even your first job, though, represents a future investment in yourself. Let’s face it: we’ll be newly minted college graduates, but when we get out into the real world, most of us will be at the bottom of the heap. In the real world, we still have a tremendous amount to learn.

With that said, the best way to find your first job is to do one of the following two things: First, you can go work for a prestigious, well-established company. Here, you will learn the inner-workings of a successful firm. Being associated with such a well-respected place of business will look great on your resume as you go through your career. You’ll learn right from the beginning what it takes to be successful.

The second option in finding your first job is by working at a smaller, lesser-known firm but surrounding yourself with a lot of smart people. Doing this will ensure that you don’t slip through the cracks of Corporate America. You’ll learn a tremendous amount that will set the foundation for your desired career path. You’ll learn the basics of your chosen industry. And if you don’t like you’re chosen industry, you’ll learn that pretty quickly, too.

And if all else fails with your first job, there’s always your second job, and your third…and so on. According to the Department of Labor, “the average American will have had 10 jobs between the ages of 18 and 38. Every year, about one-third of our workforce changes jobs, largely to take advantage of better opportunities.”

Lastly, if these words have not reassured you in the least, then maybe the words of The Office’s Andy Bernard, who at the time had recently lost his job, will:

“Cornell has a great alumni network. I may just go back there and teach.”

C.J. Slicklen is a senior in the School of Hotel Administration. He can be reached at slicklen@cornell.edu. Closing Time appears alternate Wednesdays.