Frederica Freyberg:
Furloughs and pay cuts would be a luxury for the nearly 300,000 people in Wisconsin who are unemployed right now. Last year this time, there were roughly half that many people out of work in the state. So what's the prospect for job hunters? For the experienced but laid off and the newly minted college graduate, one word. Competitive.  

Frederica Freyberg:
A recent job fair at Madison Area Technical College drew hundreds of job seekers, lining up hours before the doors even opened.  

Carlotta Calmese:
Everyone. We're seeing factory workers. We're seeing machinists. We're seeing people in manufacturing. We're just seeing a little bit of everyone, high level employees as well, in the banking business, the white collar jobs. Everyone has been hit by this economic downturn.

Frederica Freyberg:
Forty-nine-year-old Mark Vanek among them.

Mark Vanek:
Seeing what kind of availability, what you guys are looking for.

Frederica Freyberg:
A college grad, a long resume. He lost his job at an automotive supply company in Janesville when GM cut production last Christmas. So what's the job hunt been like?

Mark Vanek:
Discouraging at times, when you hear, well, Janesville, Beloit, almost 17 percent. I mean, that's just might as well not get out of bed when you hear stuff like that.

Frederica Freyberg:
But he does, making his search for work the nine to five.

Frederica Freyberg:
How badly do you need a job?

Mark Vanek:
I need one. The benefits are going to run out.

Frederica Freyberg:
But Vanek finds himself shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other applicants, applicants lining up for interviews at places like Epic Systems, the medical software giant.

Katie Skeehan:
We've gotten tons of resumes. We're projected to get 120,000. We got about 60,000 last year. About 30,000 the year before that.   So we're doubling, which is wonderful, but it does mean it's really competitive. 

Frederica Freyberg:
To help sharpen his edge, Vanek got free resume-writing tips at the job fair.  

Woman:
What we're encouraging people to do is work at getting their resume down to one page.

Frederica Freyberg:
With all his experience, Vanek's is two pages.

Woman:
Most employers on average will look at a resume for about seven seconds.

Frederica Freyberg:
Ouch. That fleeting glance will show Vanek doesn't have experience in one of the few growth markets these days: health care.

Mark Vanek:
Well, I don't have any medical background. I'm also over 45, so I'm wondering if it's time to be put on pasture. Because it is a younger workforce.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, maybe.

Leslie Kohlberg:
Students are not exempt from what we're seeing everywhere.

Martinez White:
It's stressful for a lot of us because we don't know if we'll have a job.

Frederica Freyberg:
UW career services director Leslie Kohlberg says young grads feel blindsided by the employment picture.

Leslie Kohlberg:
I remember saying to students, unless the entire economy collapses, in jest, employers will be competing with each other for you.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because she says for the past four years, until just this spring, hiring of graduates was going gangbusters.

Taylor Bode:
A year ago, I was rushing to get out in four years. But the way things are going, I'm going to stick it out for an extra semester, take a few classes I've been trying to take and explore grad school opportunities.

Martinez White:
I know it's a cycle. I'll be glad when it's over. I don't know when. I predict within the next five years we should be back up and running. Maybe I should just go to grad school.

Frederica Freyberg:
But instead of more schooling, Kohlberg believes undergraduate degree holders can and should jump right in, because despite the competition, the one thing they have on their side is demographics. Their generation is a third the size of their parents'. And baby-boomers will soon be retiring and leaving the job market. That is, except for those baby-boomers who left the job market through no choice of their own and now find themselves in competition with what's known as Generation Y to get back into it.