Among the newly unemployed is Matthew M. Pereira ’03. Despite aspirations of working in the entertainment or marketing and advertising industries, numerous job applications and attempts to network with those presently in the fields have not produced any job offers.

“I’ve attributed it to the economy because I don’t want to blame myself,” he quips.

Pereira notes that many of his friends also lack jobs or have taken positions in fields in which they have no interest.

Particularly hurt in this economic downturn have been the same high-flying sectors that employed so many Harvard students in the boom years.

From the decreased number of companies giving out freebies at the College’s annual job fair to a substantial reduction in the amount of recruiting advertisements in The Crimson, signs were everywhere this year that the supply of jobs in consulting, investment banking and technology were well below the levels seen when the Class of 2003 entered Harvard.

Wright-Swadel notes that firms’ participation in the official OCS recruiting process was down 40 percent this year from the level three years ago. And some of the firms—particularly in the high-tech and dot-com sector—that were staples in the recruiting process several years ago no longer exist.

And with tightened corporate budgets, some bellwether firms have dropped Harvard from their recruiting efforts, realizing the inefficiency of hiring students who often spend only a few years in the workforce before heading back to school.

For instance, Wright-Swadel notes Procter & Gamble no longer recruits at Harvard for its management program after realizing that its past recruits from the College all left the company within three years.

Such decreases in job availability did not go unnoticed by the seniors who went through the recruiting process this year.

“I definitely think recruiting was a lot more challenging this year than previously,” says Christopher J. Yip ’03, who managed to land a position with the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He notes that those wanting jobs in the field often had to show much more flexibility than was required in previous years, such as being willing to take jobs wherever they were offered.

And while students like Yip, who have been planning on entering the consulting or investment banking industries since early in their time at Harvard, still managed to find some jobs through the recruiting process, those who were less committed to those career paths were often out of luck.

“The casual student has a great deal of difficulty in a pool with a dozen or two dozen applicants gunning from the start,” Wright-Swadel says. “The job pathways that were well oiled are not so slippery. The people who wanted to slide along are not able to anymore.”

Yip noted that investment banking recruiters this year almost universally expected competitive applicants to have had previous summer internships in the industry, making it nearly impossible for any newcomer to break into the field.

But even with the general economic malaise and private sector hesitancy to hire, some bright spots still existed. For instance Wright-Swadel notes Microsoft ramped up its recruiting efforts this year, hoping to take advantage of the decline in demand for the most talented students.

“I hope students with [career] dreams didn’t alter them without checking to see if they were possible,” Wright-Swadel says. “The reality is that [the current economic downturn] isn’t going to have a dramatic effect on long-term career options.”