Megan McArdle of Bloomberg offers some genuine common sense advice in this article.

13 Tips for Jobless Grads on Surviving the Basement Years

1. You need to take a job, any job. Every time you leave your house, or otherwise make contact with the real world, you create opportunities for something good to happen to your career. Leaving the house also keeps you from falling prey to depression, which tends to plague the unemployed like, well, the plague. Also, it’s easier not to look completely desperate when you have a little money coming in. “Desperate” is not a good look to wear to a job interview.

2. Don’t say you can’t work a lesser job because you won’t be able to focus on your job search. After the first few weeks, your job search is not taking you 60 hours a week. There just aren’t that many prospects out there. Don’t give yourself excuses to stay home and sulk and/or sponge off mom and dad — who will, incidentally, be much happier to have you in the basement if you’re visibly working hard.

3. Enjoy your time back with your parents. No, seriously. I moved back in with my parents when I was 29, and stayed there for three years. This is exactly as embarrassing as it sounds. But I also really enjoyed the conversations I struck up with my dad, or spending Saturday afternoons baking with my mom. Eventually, I promise, you will move out and get your own apartment and marry and all those other adult things. This is the last chance you have to enjoy the house you grew up in, with the adults who raised you.

4. Embrace rejection. In a booming labor market, it’s easy to fall into a good job. In a bad labor market, the only way many of you are going to get a good job — or get ahead — is to ask. You know how I found the job at the Economist? I met a woman who worked there at a cocktail party for bloggers, and told her that if they ever had a job opening, to please please please pretty please e-mail me. She did.

Read the rest at the link below.