David L. Pierce is a business school senior in Arkansas. He was recently published at the Wall Street Journal, offering some very good common sense advice to other job hunting students.

To My Fellow Job-Hunting College Seniors

At the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business, I have diligently learned the CAPM model and inner workings of financial statements. I can DCF 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.

• Never wear a black suit to an interview. Black suits are for weddings and funerals. Go to a classy men’s boutique and have them fix you up with a nice $500 suit, gray or navy blue. It’ll last you five years. The key is to make sure it fits so you’ll feel snappy in the job interview despite your stutters and flop sweat. If you can swing it, buy the gray and the blue suit. Wear the blue for the first-round interview, and the gray to the more formal second- or third-round interviews. (Women: Sorry, I’m not qualified to advise on pencil-skirts and heels.)

• If you get nervous in social situations, make an effort to go out to a bar—not with your buddies—a few months before interview season, have a couple of drinks, and strike up a conversation with an unfamiliar girl (or guy). Bars are low-pressure, and even if you do get shut down, you’ll realize that the rejection isn’t that bad. More important, you’ll gain new confidence that will help in higher-pressure environments such as interviews and networking sessions.

• In networking sessions, don’t talk about the fascinating people you’ve met or the exotic places you’ve been if that information hasn’t been strongly solicited by the other person. Better to talk about your friend who deep-fried an entire bag of Doritos than the semester you spent at Oxford. You’ll get laughs and seem down-to-earth.

There’s more at the link below.