Internships key to landing first job

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The national unemployment rate is at 8.1 percent, but the numbers are much worse for young people.

An estimated 53 percent of recent college grads are either unemployed or underemployed, which means they're not getting a job in their field of study.

Many must choose to work in jobs that only require a high school diploma.

That's why  hundreds of young people this weekend put their best foot forward at a event, hoping it would get them in the door of a prospective employer.

"I'm really just interested in building my resume, so I know some of these internships are not going to be paid and I'm perfectly fine with that, " said Mallory Baudry a Junior at Texas State University.

With a recovering economy, more graduates are having to compete with veterans who have years of experience on them.

John Chaplin, a senior at University of Texas knows that first hand.

"That's one of the things I always run into with every employer, " Chaplin said. "They want certain experience in the field, at least some professional experience."

That's where campus2careers steps in, the largest entry-level job networking site in Texas. Sunday's event, at the University of Texas - ATT Center, is a partnership between the jobs board and Austin Community College.

"We'll take their skills and their interest and rank order right now over 20,000 jobs in Texas for them, exclusively for them, " said Nathan Green, president of campus2careers.

This is the third semester campus2careers has held the event.

In that time, they have placed 1,400 students in internships. Of those, 450 have become full-time jobs.