Years of Experience

My biggest frustration in job hunting right now is that companies are down-sizing and/or laying off employees with years of experience and then those people are getting entry level and junior positions at other companies. Obviously those people have to work and it's a shame they have to take pay-cuts. Obviously, hiring managers are making safe decisions by hiring people with five, ten, fifteen years of experience. I'm not frustrated with the people, but this situation stinks for me, the recent college grad.

I applied for a junior writing position at a small local organization. I submitted strong writing samples. I outlined my relevant experience in a cover letter.

Today I received an email from the hiring manager that I'm not moving forward as a candidate because she needs someone with years of full-time writing experience. I don't have that and other applicants do. Fair enough.

Or is it? True, I don't have years of paid writing experience on my resume. How can I? I graduated from college in May 2011. I wasn't on a time clock, but I did write every day, research, and put together presentations in English and in Spanish for four years of college. I learned to be flexible, work in groups, and adapt to whatever guidelines I had to meet.

I know that my B.A. program was heavy on writing and that may not be the case at other colleges and universities, but why is my college experience overlooked when I'm applying for full-time work?