Apartments.com and CareerRookie.com Release the Fourth Annual Top 10 Best Cities for Recent College Graduates

--As Rents and Competition for Employment Hit All-Time Highs Nationwide, Two Trusted Resources for Apartments and Jobs Publish Annual Guide to Give Post Grads a Leg UP--

--Hartford-New Haven Claims the #1 Spot as the Best City for New College Grads to Live--

CHICAGO – Many college graduates, who collected their diplomas in the spring, are still looking for jobs and a place to live as summer comes to a close. Despite the latest U.S. job market numbers reporting some relief from a sluggish economy, many new graduates are facing the same challenges as the rest of the country. As competition for jobs soars, along with rental prices, there is hope for newly-minted graduates who know which cities afford them the best opportunity to jump-start their professional lives. Apartments.com and CareerRookie.com—CareerBuilder’s college job search website—have revealed their fourth annual “Top 10 Best Cities for Recent College Graduates” list. Another silver lining for recent grads: CareerBuilder reports that 46 percent of employers plan to hire recent college graduates this year—up from 44 percent in 2010.

“There are almost three times as many renters moving for new job opportunities this year than in 2010, according to our annual moving survey,” said Tammy Kotula, public relations and promotions manager, Apartments.com. “This tells us that the economy is improving, but people are relocating as a result. Because this adds more pressure on new grads to find the right place at the right price, we issued our list as a resource to help them make informed decisions on the best places to live based on job availability and cost of living.”

The fourth annual Apartments.com and CareerRookie.com “Top 10 Best Cities for Recent College Graduates” list helps to paint a realistic picture of the current job market and cost of living in the most popular cities for young adults. Armed with this knowledge from two leading online resources for apartments and jobs, college graduates still searching for employment at the end of the summer will be able to broaden their options on where to settle down and continue to pursue job prospects in the fall.

Top 10 Best Cities for Recent
College Graduates/ Average Rent for
a One Bedroom Apartment

1. Hartford-New Haven ($1,047)
2. Cleveland ($695)
3. Boston ($1,625)
4. Denver ($994)
5. Minneapolis ($941)
6. San Francisco ($1,560)
7. Washington D.C. ($1,679)
8. Philadelphia ($1,068)
9. Atlanta ($813)
10. St. Louis ($826)

The “Top 10 Best Cities for Recent College Graduates” list was based on the ranking of top U.S. cities with the highest concentration of young adults (age 20 to 24) from the U.S. Census Bureau (2010), inventory of jobs requiring less than one year of experience from CareerRookie.com (March, 2011) and the average cost of rent for a one bedroom apartment from Apartments.com (March, 2011).

About CareerRookie.com
CareerRookie.com is a division of CareerBuilder® - the global leader in human capital solutions - whose online career site, CareerBuilder.com®, is the largest in the U.S. with 24 million unique visitors. CareerRookie.com connects students and recent graduates seeking internships, part-time jobs and entry-level positions with the nation’s top employers. Users can also post resumes, get the latest news on companies and industries, sign up for automatic job alerts, view local career fairs and tap into advice on everything from writing resumes to on-the-job success - all from an entry-level point of view. For more information, visit www.CareerRookie.com.

About Apartments.com
Apartments.com (http://www.apartments.com/) is a leading national apartment Internet listing subscription service with more than 50,000 unique addresses representing millions of rental units from managed properties, newspaper classifieds and for-rent-by-owner properties. By incorporating the most relevant products to reach renters including personalized searches and highly visual ads featuring live chat, real-time rent, online video walk-through demonstrations, professional photography, a mobile website and iPhone app, Apartments.com creates easy access to its listings. Providing unmatched exposure to its advertisers through an intuitive name, strategic search engine placements, featured partnerships including Yahoo! Real Estate, Univision and more than 120 newspaper websites and innovative emerging media, Apartments.com reaches millions of renters nationwide, driving both qualified traffic and highly-engaged renters to leasing offices nationwide. Apartments.com is a division of Chicago-based Classified Ventures, LLC. The Apartments.com network of apartment rental websites includes Apartment Home Living (http://www.apartmenthomeliving.com/), a leading social media apartment website distinguished by a “live for fun” community experience, proprietary lifestyle matching and local living guides to help renters find their perfect place to live.