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<p>Non-response does not mean unemployed. And if it did, there would be no point in going to college for any bachelor’s degree, most of which have worse employment rates at graduation in the same career surveys with similar response rates.</p>
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<p>You had the bad luck to graduate in the career-killing crash of 2002 and did not get a job then, so, with your record of long term unemployment, you are now considered unemployable by employers. It isn’t fair, but others (who graduated not during the crash) are not seeing the same dismal job prospects you are seeing.</p>
<p>But the lesson for freshmen to learn is that the economy and industries have cycles, which can sometimes be extreme. A freshman entering in the 1998 bubble graduated in the 2002 crash; a freshman entering in the 2002 crash graduated in a better job market in 2006. A senior should strongly consider applying to graduate school and employment, in order to keep the options open in case the job market is bad at graduation (going to graduate school delays entry to the job market while not looking bad like a few years in the unemployment line).</p>