When college placement officers talk of helping students and alumni find jobs today, they cite many new hurdles and challenges stemming from the nation’s economic slump and dramatically changed job market.

 Gone are the days when even the best candidates at the best schools can be picky. College job fairs and career days, popular recruiting tools since the 1980s, are having a hard time drawing recruiters as their ranks thin. Signing bonuses and relocation allowances are now few and far between, if offered at all. Generous vacations and attractive employer-paid health and savings plans are a thing of the past.

“It’s a difficult market this year,” says Dr. Edwin Koc, director of strategic and foundation research at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which surveys some 1,800 colleges and more than 900 employers for its Job Outlook survey. The outlook for 2010 graduates, says Koc, is about the same as that for 2009 graduates. There are some signs the jobs slump may be bottoming out, he says, hastening to add, “If we’re going to turn around, it’s going to be relatively slow.”

 Indeed, the new world of work in America – which is expected to sustain a national unemployment rate of roughly 10 percent most of this year – is characterized by fewer recruiters and smaller recruitment events for colleges, fewer offers of full-time jobs, and more modest pay than before the nation’s economic slump began two years ago, career counselors say. Depending on region, even reliable sources of employment, like education and nursing, are tough job markets these days. Jobs in architecture, engineering, law, media and marketing are expected to be soft throughout the year, say career counselors and NACE studies, noting finance management and chemical engineering as exceptions.

“We have definitely seen a change in the recruiting patterns,” says Dr. Joan M. Browne, director for career services at Howard University in Washington, D.C. “Even with the benefits of being an institution positioned to be able to provide outstanding entry-level and internship talent to our employers, there has still been some decrease in the number of employers on campus and the type of jobs being offered.”