There's already the related thread that started about resume-advice, but I don't want to derail it entirely. I recently graduated with my bachelor's after studying economics and political science and I'm looking for a full-time job. I have four years of experience working in customer-service related jobs, six months experience working as a legal file clerk and receptionist, and three months experience as an intern in an economic development office. I live in Tampa, which is a fairly large city with a number of regional banking headquarters.

Finding a job is awful, and the information about starting salaries is as awful too. I've searched many times for jobs for recent economics grads, and those jobs seem to require 3-5 years of experience that I don't have. I'm also having a hard time figuring out what a good and realistic income goal would be; I always heard econ grads did fairly well starting off, and even information from 2011 tells me that econ grads with a bachelor's and no experience typically make $40,000-50,000 starting off. Where the heck are these people working?

Anyway, I need a job. I had expected to find a job where I could make $35,000 a year; enough for a single guy in Florida to be comfortable. Should I lower my expectations or even raise them higher? Where can I start off with no or only vaguely-related experience?

I've also got a significant amount of savings from a college trust that I never had to use, and have no debt whatsoever. I can afford to spend a little bit of time in limbo if need be, though I may end up trying to get a job as a bank teller or some such just so I'm making some money while I keep looking for a "big boy job".

Have you considered graduate school?

I've thought about it a little, mainly as a fall-back plan. I'm pretty good with mathematics, particularly statistics, and graduated magna cum laude, so I think I'd be able to get in and do well with either economics or finance. If I can find a good job I'd rather just be done with school and start working full-time.

Are you in a position to relocate? Could be a good opportunity.

dont do it. bank teller is the worst job on earth. i did that crap for 2 months, it's a ****ing sales job. plus no way to defend yourself if you're held up, and not enough cash per hour to make it worth it.

Ultimate, I am also an Econ graduate (although I have Math Emphasis as part of my official major). The only jobs you''ll be getting at the start will be either statistical programming, or just helping do research at places like NBER, the Fed, etc.

The Fed is always a great place to start. They pay pretty good salaries, get to be in pretty awesome cities, and will prepare you a ton for Grad school.

Honestly, statistical programming is a lot of fun provided you are in the right environment. Currently, I'm working with a very academic research group and doing the programming for them, but I'm actively being taught a lot about research design and econometrics. I actually am looking forward to spending a good couple years there. I'd recommend looking for something in an academic setting, because not only will you have a job, but you can get built in good references for graduate school (currently working for Princeton PhDs, famous Chicago PhD etc.).

Otherwise, I hear Econ grads do pretty well consulting and doing the above kind of things (statistical programming, namely). I know I worked a consulting gig over Christmas where I was doing a lot of data work getting a pilot teacher project's horrendous data into a workable format just to run some basic regressions on them, see that they were absolute **** (these regressions took like 10 min), and then tell them they dont' have enough data to do what we do. Got paid 60 bucks an hour for a ton of Excel work but also a little Econ work as well.

Apply for jobs AND apply to grad schools. Make your decisions once you actually have choices to make.

Go through your university's career services to land you the entry-level job. Probably the best and easiest way, assuming your career services is legit. My current consulting firm recruits (at the entry level) almost exclusively through top tier and second tier university campus events. If you graduated from University of Bum**** Nowhere where they don't recruit, you might be able to crack into one through the online process, but everyone I've met here started their interview process on campus.

Anyway, consulting is fun if you don't know exactly what you want to do, want awesome exit opportunities (firms will try to steal you away into their management track with shiny signing bonuses), want fast professional growth (senior consultants are the equivalent of managers or directors at Fortune 500s, managers are director/VPs, directors would exit to the C-suite), and want to earn 70-90K+ a year starting (depending on caliber of firm). Only problem is you might burn out (routine 5am-12am workdays), but the work you do is pretty awesome and significant from a business perspective. Try some consulting case studies and see if you like them.

To further incentivize consulting, you also get to work with people like me :)! If that wasn't a killer value proposition, I don't know what is!

I'd agree that you should just apply for everything you can and see what sticks. No sense rejecting an option before you even know if it's an option.

On top of what's already been suggested, I'd also recommend speaking to anyone you can who is doing a job you might want to aim for someday. For me, asking my postgraduate supervisor for generic careers advice led directly to a job. But even if that opportunity isn't there, senior people in your field should have all sorts of advice for someone just starting out.