Here is a brief excerpt from an article by David l. Pierce for the Wall Street Journal. You may have a college senior in your family or know one or more elsewhere. If so, I hope you will share it. To read the complete article, check out other resources, and obtain WSJ subscription information, please click here.

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“I have no idea what I’m doing.” This is the thought that runs through the minds of college students most of the time. As we begin to look for jobs during our senior year, between bouts of temporary alcohol-induced amnesia, we start to suspect that our cluelessness is a real problem. When we find out that the guy who has worn the same Greek function T-shirt and sunglasses backward around his neck for four years has accepted a job offer, panic sets in.

At the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business, I have diligently learned the CAPM [capital asset pricing] model and inner workings of financial statements. I can DCF [analyze discounted cash flow] all D-A-Y. But when it came to my job search I discovered a disconnect between my education and the real world.

So to my fellow generation of entitled adult-adolescents who expect a $75,000 salary if they’re going to get up before 10 a.m., here’s my advice from the other side of the job search. You won’t hear any of this from your college career center.

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Pierce then offers twelve (12) specific suggestions, adding these comments when concluding: “Don’t worry if you get one or more of these things wrong. It isn’t going to totally kill your chances of landing an internship or a job. And it was probably time to clean up your Facebook anyway.”

Here is a direct link to the complete article.

David Pierce is a senior finance student at the University of Arkansas’ Sam M. Walton College of Business. After graduation, he’ll be working as an investment-banking analyst.