Words of Wisdom - Mafoo isn't talking out of his butt, you are:

http://www.employmentwebsites.org/drop-opportunities-recent-college-grads

At any rate, I would ask if you can *create* experience in some way. In some cases, you can create your own experience by doing freelance work until someone hires you. I guess the big question is what kind of job are you looking for? Its incredibly stupid that many jobs *require* expensive college courses. Some people complain about the military-industrial complex, I would no sooner complain about the college-corporate complex of making students indebt to their college and wasting years of their life on classes that have no praxis in the job market.

Jup, I'm sort of in that stage now as well and I hear it around myself a lot: Need experience to get a job which requires experience.

I'm just glad I didn't sit still at school and knew that employers rather do want experience over education so I took up projects, short term. Financial analysis for a brewery? Done. Consultant on knowledge-sharing? Done. Application-manager for Healthcare - done.

I've got an interview in a week for a major consultancy firm now, crossing my fingers that I get it. Meanwhile, my cum-laude friend has trouble even getting past the solliciting stages.

Numonex, My advice would be to do this:
Try the lower end jobs. If I don't get this job I'll be sure to apply for one that's merely administration. You will have to explain in your motivational lettre that you are applying to this job to get experience, to see the work-floor, to help you become a professional and grow etc despite your education (don't mention anything about the term you will be there - it's better to show ambition.)
Once in, pick up as much additional work as possible. Organize the departments annual trip. Someone has to give a training or attend a conference? You are there buddy! Projects are espially wholesome to get experience - something new has to be implemented? Ask how you can help.

Keep that up for two years and you will be a lot better prepared.

The vast majority of "real" jobs are found through social-networking, and getting a job with less than stellar qualifications in this economy can (probably) only be achieved if someone you know can put in a good word with someone who trusts them. There are ways to get an “in” with a company without knowing anyone ahead of time; and I can explain in detail if you’re interested.

That's a really, really, really bad idea ...

It is unlikely that a company will hire you without checking your references, and if you get through the interview process and they check your references and find out that you don’t have the experience you claim they won’t hire you; and there will people who will remember you for years within the company, and you will have difficulty ever getting a job from them. Even in very large cities, many fields are not all that large and pulling a stunt like this at a couple of places can effectively prevent you from being able to get a job for a very long time.

That might be how things work in the trades where you're hiring someone to work on a short term project (and can replace them within 24 hours) but when you're hiring someone in an office setting that simply won't work.

Experience doesn't necessarily mean it has to be directly in that field, if you do your resume as a functional resume see how many skills in other areas are applicable to the job you are applying for.

You've got 3 main choices:

1. Try harder.

2. Attempt to make yourself stand out from other applicants, its been proved that CV dumping doesn't work very well so try finding the person in charge of hiring and present your case to them.

3. Lie about your experience on your CV and hope you don't get caught.

So there you have it. You've got 3 main choices, two ethical choices and 2 effective choices and you can choose any combination of the three.

you can always get a job. It just depends on how crappy job you are willing to compromise.