Lisa Newhouse, a sociology major at the University of Texas, is shown in her off-campus apartment in March in Austin, Texas. The senior, from Sugar Land, Texas, holds down two part-time jobs while attending school. The class of 2009 faces one of the worst job markets in several years, forcing many to reconsider their job careers and explore backup plans.

David Maley left his internship at Lehman Brothers last summer figuring he would be back on Wall Street once he graduated from Colgate University in May.

Now Lehman is history, and Maley is moving to a Cleveland suburb to start a management training program at an industrial supply company.

“I’m happy to have a job, counting my blessings,” said Maley, a mathematical economics major from Woodbridge, Conn. He thinks he will learn a lot. New York would have been fun — but expensive. And in hindsight, he did not find banking work all that interesting.

For many college students in the class of 2009, the post-graduation job hunt has turned into a quest for a rewarding Plan B — or in many cases Plan C or D.

After a string of golden recruiting years, employers plan to hire 22 percent fewer graduates this spring, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

But even that figure underestimates the drop, says Sheila Curran, an independent adviser and former head of career services at Duke. She believes the figures are worse for the “just-in-time” positions offered in April and May that account for 80 percent of jobs for new grads.

Still, many career counselors see a silver lining. Students, they say, got in the habit of noticing only recruiters who visited campus. Now students are being forced to cast a wider net. Considering they will change jobs three times on average within five years of graduation, they may someday be grateful they developed good job-search skills now.

“In a sense it’s like, ‘Welcome to the real world,’ and it’s not a bad thing,” said Elizabeth Alexander, who works in career services at the University of Texas. “If you come out of college thinking, ‘I’m entitled to a great job,’ the first time you get laid off, it’s going to come as a great shock.”

Counselors emphasize that job boards are not totally empty. Fields such as health care are still hiring.

Even finance still has some life because smaller regional firms are stepping up recruiting at some top schools.

Teresa Olsen, associate director of career services at Colgate, says students there are giving a closer look to options they might have ignored in the past — like a strong training program at M&T Bank in Buffalo.

Also hiring: Uncle Sam.

This week, the federal government had more than 46,000 job openings posted on its centralized job board at usajobs.gov.

Lisa Newhouse, a senior sociology major at Texas, is considering going to work for the government on the 2010 census. She’s also looking for area jobs in marketing, and mulling graduate school in public health and nonprofit work.

Newhouse was turned down by Teach for America, which places new grads in low-income schools, but she was in good company. Around 35,000 students — including one in nine Ivy League seniors — are competing for about 4,000 slots.

“It’s been frustrating, but I think in times like these you learn a lot about yourself,” she said.

The lessons students are learning this year are networking and persistence.

Colleges report high interest among students in riding out the recession with volunteer work or travel. But students who financed their education with loans may not have that luxury.