MBA graduates face tight job market, need to keep expectations modest.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: D.E. Leger

Jennifer Layden holds two business degrees _ a bachelor's in marketing and a master's in business administration _ both from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

She uses neither in her job as a bartender in Weston, Fla.

"It's tough," Layden, 23, of Plantation, Fla. "I had this idea that all these job opportunities were going to fall in my lap. I'm finding that's not the case."

The management-training job at a Fortune 500 company that she expected to materialize after earning her MBA in March has proved elusive in the current job market.

And she is not alone. According to the fifth annual Universum MBA Survey, most recent MBA graduates have found the job market so daunting that they list job security as their highest priority.

Universum Communications, a global research and consulting firm, surveyed 3,000 MBA students from 39 business schools, including the Harvard Business School, the Florida A&M School of Business and Industry, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.