Katie: “You think, O.K., do I kick somebody’s door in?”

Kristy: “My computer is burning up. It’s saying, ‘I’ve uploaded your résumé so many times, I’m exhausted.’ ”

Good kids who went to good schools, the brassy, effervescent Barry twins, 24, always envisioned their young adulthood in New York City as a lush time of stimulating work, picturesque travel and a rich social orbit. But they graduated into a downbeat nightmare of a job market. According to an analysis of government data by the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for college graduates under 27 so far this year averaged 7.1 percent, nearly double what it was in 2007 and the highest yearly average in the 30 years this data point has been tracked.

And so Kristy and Katie and most of their friends are forever hunting for jobs, both mundane interim work to sustain them and long-term positions that could mean a career. Many days, it is as if they are stalking something on the endangered species list.

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They were born in Columbus, Ohio, the middle of six siblings. Their parents divorced when they were 15, and they don’t stay in touch with their father but are close to their mother. She is remarried and lives in Weehawken, N.J., selling items for estates and art dealers and doing freelance writing.

The twins began at Marietta College in Ohio, then transferred as juniors to Rutgers’s campus in Newark. They graduated in May 2008 with journalism degrees, internships under their belt and student loans totaling $39,000 apiece.

Their dream is to work together in sports reporting or have a TV show, but they are flexible. They talk of teaching piano, or inventing, say, a lipstick-case microphone. “If you’re in a bar you would hold it up and say, ‘This guy is creepy, get out of here,’ ” Kristy explained.

She works as a bartender, three nights a week, at Dive 75 on West 75th Street, making about $800 a week. Katie had been working at another bar, but was fired in June after landing in Cancun to begin a vacation. Her boss said she played the music too loud.