Bob Borden, an executive at Boston-based LandVest, said that in his experience recent grads often do not suss out a potential employer's expectations, or worse, they don't have a clue how to present themselves in interviews or through resumes or letters.

"You have one shot to get someone's attention," Borden said. "So anything you can do to improve the odds is worth doing." Many students, however, pass up—and pass by—help nearly every day on their own college campuses.

"We provide programs to help with resumes and cover letters, interviewing skills, and job-hunting strategies, said Richard A. Leger, director of career services at Boston University. Like many schools, BU offers its alumni free career counseling for a year after graduation. Yet many graduating students don't think to use their own school's career offices, college counselors say.

If it's too late to go back to campus, then new grads can use some of the many professional coaching services out there to help prepare for the job hunt. But one new Boston firm specializes in providing counseling and coaching to recent graduates.

The firm, Hayden-Wilder, is the brainchild of D.A. Hayden and Michael Wilder, Boston entrepreneurs with roots in public relations and marketing.

The problem for graduates, Wilder said, is not too little information, but too much. The quick fix advice on writing resumes or interviewing provided by thousands of Internet sites is often conflicting or just plain wrong.

"Graduates are under the impression, largely created by online sites and job databases, that getting a great job is only a matter of creating a good looking resume and sending it out to as many potential employers as possible," said Wilder.

"The hard truth is 95 percent of resumes never get looked at," he said. "Those that are reviewed are given less than 20 seconds of scrutiny by any individual screener. Hence the common lament, 'I can't understand it. I sent out over 200 resumes and haven't received any response.'?"

So Hayden-Wilder puts grads through one-on-one counseling that teaches them how to use marketing and public relations techniques to build their own "personal brands." The idea is to have them feel they can interview with confidence and present themselves in an appealing way.

They also teach business judgment and appropriate behavior—skills that might otherwise take years to learn through trial, error, and failure. Students are videotaped so they can see what they look like while being interviewed, and Hayden-Wilder analyzes how their answers sound to the interviewer.

Hamilton College graduate Caroline Dabney recently landed a job at the high-powered law firm WilmerHale after attending the Hayden-Wilder course last summer.

"I learned to see the needs of the business and also worked a lot on communications and interviewing skills," said Dabney.

As a result, even when faced with a two-on-one interview situation at WilmerHale, Dabney said she felt confident responding to every question. "I walked out of the interview feeling I had presented myself successfully," she said.

Similarly, Rob Borden, son of LandVest executive Bob Borden, took a Hayden-Wilder course after graduating recently from Middlebury College. The course, he said, helped him land a position at real estate firm Spaulding & Slye.

"I needed to learn to sell myself," he said.

The younger Borden said that some of the same job assistance was available from his college, although in more limited form.

The costs of such professional help can vary. Individual coaches can charge hourly fees that may start below $100, while other firms charge several hundred dollars for several sessions. More senior-level executive training and support, meanwhile, can run into the thousands of dollars for months of sessions.

Hayden-Wilder charges $2,950 for a 12-week course. The company said its prices are comparable with those of education coaches who help high school students prepare for college. Many services at colleges, meanwhile, are free. But students may not avail themselves of them, because they're not yet focused on life beyond college.

"In some cases people only look for resources when they are in crisis—ven if the crisis is just Dad saying he's going to cut off their checkbook," said BU's Leger.