This morning the stock market rose a bit even though the jobs numbers were worse than expected (this makes sense if you buy the idea that there is no logical explanation for daily market movements). Investors expected the unemployment rate to top 7.9% with 648,000 jobs lost in February and the actual numbers were worse -- 8.1% and 651,000, respectively.

But do you really care about government statistics? The simple fact is that if you're now unemployed you're scrambling to find a job and it's probably very tough. And if you have a job, you're worried you won't have it for much longer. I meet with several undergraduate and MBA students each week who are looking for help to find jobs. And the simple reality is that there are no easy answers. But I have three ideas.

Oh, the places you'll go! (Oh, the things you'll screw up!) Dr. Seuss probably didn't have the second credo in mind when he penned his popular (and final) book nearly 20 years ago. But today's college graduates, young and eager and with the whole world in front of them, are prone to some big mistakes.

Fortune reports that as Baby Boomers retire, more jobs are becoming available to America's youth, making it a great time to have a fresh college diploma. According to a new survey from CareerBuilder.com, 79% of 2,500 companies surveyed expect to hire new graduates this year, up from 70% in 2006. Starting pay is also on the rise, which should help with those building student loans. But easily preventable mistakes can prevent a new graduate from earning the job of his or her dreams.

The article seeks advice from Anna Ivey, a consultant who formerly served as dean of admissions for the University of Chicago law school. She says the five common mistakes perpetrated by Generation Y job-seekers are:

1. Allowing parents to dominate the job search. A new graduate should be independent, reflecting maturity and professionalism.

2. Posting racy photos or inappropriate language on MySpace, a blog, or any other publicly accessible web site.

3. Failure to network. Every new grad has a fairly wide network, when he or she considers friends, family, family friends, friends' parents, etc.

4. Poor manners. Those employers who grant a job interview or provide help with an employment search appreciate a thank-you note; they rarely get them from new graduates.

5. Sub-par voice mail greetings. Be professional and not too casual.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Are recruiters using Technorati or other blog search tools to find talent? So says the Wall Street Journal in today's paper, pointing out how blogging used to be a screening tool (maybe you shouldn't have gone on that rant about your ex-girlfriend...) but has become, for many more mature members of the job pool, a gold mine. That "about me" page does have some use after all, and many blogs I've visited have a standard resume format where the ironic sideways self-portrait, list of favorite songs and stats on children and puppies usually go.

Who would hire from a blog, and what kind of people, exactly, might they hire? The WSJ uses Ryan Loken, a recruiter at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), as an example; he says he's hired about 125 people because of their blogs, but doesn't say in which departments.

You might expect graphic designers and web developers to be frequently hired because of their blogs and fun little "side" projects -- and they are, it's true, but don't decide to stick to anonymity on your blog just because you're not in a high-tech field. I'm in (variously) product development, parenting and financial writing, and photography, and all my interests have inspired the occasional recruiter contact to my personal blog address (but, for the record, I'm sticking with this job!). The companies they represented were ones you'd never think of: packaged goods, wireless phones, organic farms. I've found great candidates for contract writing positions in everything from scrapbooking to cooking to living a simpler life through the blogosphere, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Blogging is an invaluable way to showcase one's expertise in any area, from keeping chickens to CSS design to technical stock analysis, and it's becoming, more and more, the leading way to see and be seen. Networking clubs and who-you-know? Passé. It's about how well you SEO. And I could write a whole separate post on that...