Graduating with a degree from a nationally recognized university can help college students stand out, but in today’s struggling job market, most college graduates are settling for whatever they can get.

The Huffington Post reported on a new survey by McKinsey on Society that stated recent college graduates take jobs they do not want every five minutes. The survey reported nearly 120,000 graduates take jobs they are overqualified for, such as retail or restaurant work. The survey said even though graduates are looking for careers in their majors, the rate of underemployment in the job market makes it difficult to find work suited to their majors.

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Michelle Garrett, a recruitment coordinator for career services, said the job outlook for recent graduates is strong, but challenging for students who are not willing to make a change for their career. She said the biggest factor graduates need to take into consideration when job searching is the willingness to relocate to another location where there are job opportunities available.

Garrett said there are career opportunities open for every major but graduates need to understand not every position will be located in southern Illinois or near their hometown.

“Take, for example, degrees in radio-television or cinema,” she said. “There are not a lot of those kinds of jobs in rural areas, so graduates who come from the country need to move to more urban areas, or wherever those positions are readily available.”

Sam Weber, a cinema graduate from Smithton, said he would be more than willing to relocate somewhere new if he came across a job opportunity in cinema.

Weber said although he has a part-time job working for Jimmy John’s in his hometown, he is still searching for full-time employment anywhere he can find it. He said he has created job search accounts on Career Builder and Monster to try and find a position in his major, but has been unsuccessful so far.

“When you make those accounts, you have the option to share your profile publicly,” he said. “That was the biggest mistake in the world, because now I am just getting hounded for interviews by all these insurance companies and I am not hearing back for any of the positions I actually want.”

Along with a degree, students should also look at getting work experience outside the traditional college setting, such as internships, externships and major-related jobs, Garrett said.

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Jon Knobelock, a photography graduate from St. Charles, Mo., said his work with the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis was invaluable to developing his talents with photography work.

Knobelock said although he is working at Home Depot part-time, he hopes to impress employers with his freelance work and hopefully start a career in photography. He said even though he does not have a full-time position in photography yet, his time working with the university helped open him up to many photo opportunities he might have never had otherwise.

“With my major, I suppose you do not really need a degree to be great at what you do, but it never hurts to have a degree,” he said. “For me, learning all the tips and techniques from my professors at the university and having the chance to intern at the Botanical Gardens definitely helped me improve my work.”

Garrett said off-campus education helps build professional networks for finding jobs and reinforces important career skills such as teamwork, leadership and communication skills.

“One thing companies look at when hiring a new employee is being able to easily communicate with co-workers and clients,” she said. “Working hard in a setting outside of college can help establish that you have initiative to a potential employer.”