Even as hiring is showing a slight increase, it's not easy for new grads. The job market, especially in the PR and marketing fields, is still flooded with last year's graduates.

The job search should really begin while a student is still in school by building a resume of work experience from internships (paid or unpaid), volunteer activities, and leadership roles in school activities and clubs. For aspiring PR pros, good resume-builders could include work as a reporter or an editor at the school newspaper or radio station, or helping (paid or unpaid) at the school's PR office.

But for those who have just graduated and didn't do their resume-building over the past four years, all is not lost. There are options---even in this blistering job market.

The options I suggest here, however, will require patience and the willingness or ability to suffer through months of little or no income.

Because the biggest obstacle is differentiating oneself from other equally qualified candidates, the "Experience" section of the resume can be crucial.

So, if you have no relevant experience, go out and get it. Go to a local business---a retailer or a service provider. Offer your marketing or PR services for free, or, if you can get it, for a very small fee. Do a good job, and save copies of news releases, press clippings, and local radio segments. Volunteer as a marketing person for a local charity or a do-good organization---the local animal shelter, for instance. Help them get exposure. Create an event, and document the results.

If you're lucky and you hustle, after a few months you may have some real experience that can show an employer you are creative and you can do a good job.

It's not too late to build your resume. But don't wait too long. The Class of '12 is just around the corner.

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Getting a Diploma Is Easy (Compared With Getting a Job)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After 30+ years in this business, I still look forward to going to work. Rarely are two days the same, and the challenges are varied and stimulating.

My firm, Reich Communications, Inc., handles an interesting range of clients that take me from b2b to consumer publicity, from the world of high-priced art to advocacy for issues including traffic safety and securing mental health resources for survivors of mass violence globally.

Over the years at mid-size and large New York agencies, I’ve served a client roster that reads like a “who’s who” of business – General Electric, Emery, Ryder, Travelers Insurance, Phillips Petroleum, Georgia-Pacific and Jaguar Cars. I’ve also worked with groups like the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association (for their giant New York Auto Show), Syndicated Network Television Association, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Highlights include leading the publicity team that launched L’eggs hosiery, which later became a Harvard B-School case history. I also managed P.R. and community relations for the Metro New York McDonald's Co-op, with more than 250 stores. We won a Marketing Excellence Award for a McDonald's public service program I developed on fire safety. It also won an Emmy for on-air host Dr. Frank Field, health & science editor at media partner WCBS-TV in New York, and it was directly credited by the NYFD for saving several lives. During those years, I also had more than my share of Big Macs.

I have a degree in Industrial Management and an MBA in Public Relations. I live in southern Westchester, 15 miles north of midtown Manhattan, in the same town where I grew up. “Money-earnin’ Mount Vernon” is how the town is now known as a center of hip-hop culture, but it also claims as native sons Denzel Washington, Dick Clark, author e.b. White, Art Carney, Art Buchwald and Sean “P-Diddy” Combs.

I write about marketing, media and public relations at my blog, "my 2 cents" If I ever retire from this crazy business, I'd love to be an all-night jazz deejay.