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Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Young people graduating from college are cheery about what's ahead. In a new survey, eight in 10 college seniors said their education prepared them well for the workforce, and more than half don't expect to have a hard time landing a job. Hopefully that optimism will give them an advantage in the job hunt, because the reality of the job market for young people probably won't: While they'll enter a better job market than the last several classes did, data suggest college graduates still face an uphill battle.

For a report released on Tuesday, consulting firm Accenture surveyed 1,002 graduating seniors online in March. Despite the students' conviction that college was a pipeline to a successful career—74 percent said school had helped them scope out job opportunities—the students didn't have much evidence to back it up. Only 12 percent had lined up full-time jobs.

"There's definitely red flags that indicate life is not going to be perfectly rosy after graduation," says Katherine LaVelle, managing director of Accenture Strategy.

Indeed, as a group, America's youngest professionals have had a harder time climbing out of the Great Recession than the rest of the country. According to a Congressional Research Service report released on Monday, the 13.4 percent unemployment rate for young adults in 2014 was more than double that of workers aged 25 through 34. And while their jobless rate has improved in recent years, they're essentially crawling back from the bottom: From 2000 to 2010, when the U.S. experienced the slowest job growth since 1940, the employment drop for people aged 16-24 was the steepest of any group, the report says.

"In general, firms are more likely to hire workers with more experience and availability, which puts young workers at a disadvantage," says Adrienne Fernandes-Alcantara, a social policy expert at the CRS.

The students aren't wrong to think college has strengthened their job prospects. People over 25 with a college degree earned 78 percent more and suffered a far lower unemployment rate than those without a degree in 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Accenture survey revealed additional disparities between what seniors envision and what they should expect to find when they start working: Some 85 percent wanted to work for companies that invest in training employees. Yet just 15 percent said they'd like to work at large corporations, the very companies most likely to have the money to carry out formal training.

"There's a disconnect between the types of jobs and employers who are going to pay for these development programs and benefits—and the aspirations this group has for finding a job," LaVelle says.

There's some hope that, despite the quixotic views, this crop of seniors may be savvier about getting work than their predecessors were. A greater share of the Class of 2015 sought out internships than previous classes Accenture surveyed, and more of them also considered what the job opportunities were like in a field before deciding to major in it. Unlike prior classes that entered school in the midst of recession, this year's group of graduating seniors began college just when the economic recovery was picking up—a further factor that might contribute to their optimism.

"They've certainly seen great recovery in the economy, especially in the last 18 to 24 months, where we've seen new jobs created and unemployment decrease significantly," Lavelle says.