Employment

You know how your mother told you to throw out your comic books and stop playing all those video games or you'd never amount to anything? Boy, was she wrong. The boom in multimedia companies--the firms that make computer graphics, CD-ROM games and animation for films and television--has created a voracious market for talent. Especially young talent familiar with art, pop culture and games, who can draw and who know computers.

The ivory tower of academe is taking on a decidedly gray cast these days as more older students return to campus. When it comes time to look for post-degree employment, though, many of these older students are learning a harsh lesson. As far as some employers are concerned, these seasoned workers might as well be 22 and fresh from the frat house. It's square-one time, unless the graduate has experience specific to the employer's business, career experts said.

It's mid-June. School's out. Now what? For college students, the answer is almost anything. Bolstered by a resurgent economy, the number of summer jobs and internships available to area college students is approaching pre-recession highs, job analysts said. And many positions are still unfilled. Creative college students can finagle summer jobs, especially unpaid ones, in almost any field through perseverance and networking.

Alex Manzo graduated from UCLA with a degree in business economics earlier this month. This fall, the 23-year-old will head to New York to begin work as an analyst at the venerable Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan & Co. to the tune of $36,000 a year. Sounds like Manzo is set for life, right? Wrong.

Here are a few tips for older people who are joining the work force for the first time, looking for a new job or returning to the job market after time out to raise a family or go back to school: * Make your resume timeless. Leave out date of birth or the year of graduation from college and list only work experiences from the past 15 to 20 years. * Emphasize current skills. Let your prospective employer know you can operate a personal computer or any other high-tech equipment.

Jessica has racked up $60,000 in student loans. She's got the power suit suitable for the corner office, but for now her job is to take telephone messages for others. Still, her apartment looks nice--thanks to bargains she found at Ikea--and she can invite friends over for macaroni and cheese, "I've got 60 grand in deferred loans," the twentysomething actress playing Jessica tells the camera in an advertisement airing nationwide for the home furnishings chain. "I'm not about to defer my life."

You can build corporate home pages on the Internet or sling hash at the local deli. You can set strategy as a top corporate executive or clean the floors of the office building at night. These are the kinds of dramatically divergent career paths that lie ahead for graduates in today's split-level economy. Mom was right: If you want to make money, go to college.

Today's college graduates face a radically different working life than their parents and grandparents. Instead of focusing on corporate loyalty and years served, the priority of the class of 1996 is to gain skills --and they'll go anywhere to get them. START HERE: Take an internship, temporary job or community service position for reduced (or no) pay to build experience. SCALE BACK EXPECTATIONS: THat first full-time job is likely to be a non-prestigious firm and entail long hours and low pay.

Greg Thomas found a job at Oracle Systems Corp. in San Francisco after logging on to the Internet on his laptop from his parents' home 3,000 miles away in New Jersey. Unlike many his age, Thomas, 25, wasn't interested in the Internet or electronic mail until he realized they could broaden his job search. A Stanford graduate with a degree in psychology, Thomas used career resources on the Internet to transform himself from a freelance writer into a legal assistant in Oracle's software division.