Approximately 3.5 million students graduate from college each year. However, most people don't realize that more than a million of those students fail to find a good job, a job that pays well and has career potential. In fact, in tough times, the number of unemployed or underemployed college graduates can easily approach two million.

Importantly, there are clear and specific reasons why so many college seniors and recent graduates can't find a good job. Let me share some of them with you:

1. Beliefs and Expectations - Many students expect to receive a job offer, as the result of campus interviews. The truth is that very few students receive job offers from campus interviews. Therefore, if students aren't well prepared to conduct a strong and competitive job search, over a long period of time, they will be disappointed and frustrated.

Some students believe that finding a job will be easy. They think that they will send out ten or twelve resumes, take a couple of interviews and someone will offer them a good job. They are wrong. All students, even the best students, must compete for the good jobs. In tough times, when few jobs exist, the competition will be even greater. That means that good students may very well have to send out hundreds of resumes and take numerous interviews before they receive as decent job offer.

Students often believe that they can wait until the second semester of their senior year to start thinking about their job search. Not true. Everything that students do throughout the college years should support their job search goals. When students ignore the requirement for strong, long term preparation, they will lose out to better prepared students.

2. Grades - Employers tend to have performance requirements. If a student's cumulative average meets or exceeds the employer's requirements, the student may or may not be interviewed. However, if students don't meet employer requirements, they will not be interviewed. Furthermore, when there are many candidates, employers will often increase their minimum requirements.

Many employers use a CUM of 3.0 (B Average) as their minimum requirement. Other employers may have even higher requirements. Students with a 2.5 or lower average may find themselves lumped together with others in the lower third of their class. How many employers actively seek graduates from the lower third of the class? Not many.

3. Communication Skills - Some students enter college with poor communication skills (reading, writing and speaking) and do little to improve those skills during the college years. The best employers are not interested in students whose communication skills (Vocabulary, Grammar, Slang, Curses and Childish Language) will harm the company's image or interfere with job performance. Above average communication skills turn on employers. Poor communication skills turn them off. It's as simple as that.

4. Work Experience - Employers love students who have been successful in the work environment. When students have been successful in a job that is directly related to the employer?s field of interest, that is a very important plus. Even work experience in a non-related field can work in the student's favor when they have made significant contributions and have a variety of successes. However, students who have no work experience whatsoever will usually be considered unproven entities. Many employers are not willing to take a chance on a student who has completed college without having been successful in a part-time or summer job.

5. Accomplishments and Results - The best employers put a great deal of stock in the results that students achieve in the classroom, on campus, at work, in the community and within their leisure activities. When those results are strong, positive and can be tied directly to the job for which the student is applying, that is a strong recommendation. However, when students have average results, no results or results that are completely unrelated to their business environment, employers will find it hard to see a reason to go forward. Stronger candidates will win out.

6. References - When a well known, highly respected, powerful person provides a strong and enthusiastic reference, employers will be impressed. However, the best references will not provide a strong personal endorsement when they don't know the student very well, haven't seen many outstanding results or have had bad experiences with the student. References are not an afterthought, they are a critical part of the job search and must be cultivated and strengthened throughout the college years.

7. Preparation - Preparation for the senior year job search should be a serious, well thought out, four year process, not a casual, last minute activity. Because most students get started too late, they can't meet employer expectations and requirements. In fact, most students never bother to identify the expectations and requirements of the employers they intend to pursue. When students don't know what employers want and need, they are highly unlikely to satisfy those requirements. That's a big mistake.

Only students who understand what has to be done and diligently perform the preparation steps, as they go through college, can hope to improve their chances for job hunting success. No student can wait until the senior year of college to try to do the things that should have been done in earlier years and expect to receive a great job offer.

The fact remains that employers offer good jobs to the students who have earned them. Students earn those jobs with a long series of actions, successes and accomplishments in the classroom, on campus, at work, in the community and in leisure activities. They give their target employers exactly what they need and want. To do this, a student's preparation must be well-planned, methodical, comprehensive and based on employer needs and expectations. When students complain that they can't find a job, it's very likely that those students have ignored many of these seven requirements.