There are several reasons why the job market is so challenging for new grads today. But a big part of the problem is employers now do three things that make getting a full-time, grown-up job harder than it used to be.

Let’s start with the automated screening of resumes. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are now routinely used to review resumes to decide who gets considered for an interview. These systems are sometimes automated to the point of absurdity. If your resume doesn’t have the right key words and phrases for a specific job, it will be ignored. Ask your career counselor about ATS technologies. If they don’t answer confidently, then definitely seek advice from others about formatting your resume.

You can laugh or cry at the logic of letting computers decide whether you’re worth an interview. But if you don’t know the new rules of the technology-driven hiring game, you’re at a serious disadvantage. (By the way, unless your parents work in human resources or have looked for a job recently, they probably won’t know about ATS technologies. It has changed the job search process dramatically.) For more on how to deal with changing job search technologies see my new book Graduate to a Great Job: Make Your College Degree Pay Off in Today’s Market.

“Alternative work arrangements” are the new normal. More and more, employers are structuring jobs for contractors (read: no benefits, no commitment) or part-time freelancing arrangements, or as internships — paid and unpaid. This is a strategy for keeping costs down, responding to an uncertain economic environment, and screening potential new hires before taking them on full time. Disney alone is reported to use 8,000 interns. A pharmaceutical company like Pfizer has hundreds of internships available to people enrolled in school for the following semester. Microsoft and Google are well known for using internships to screen potential new hires.

Depending on the field you’re going into, you may have to consider taking a job as a contractor or freelancer. It’s standard practice, for example, in advertising and television production. Or an internship may seem like your only option after graduation, if you don’t have enough experience. If you know ahead of time how jobs are structured in particular fields today, you can develop more realistic expectations about opportunities and salaries in fields you’re pursing.

Getting hired can take freakin’ forever. Many organizations have gone through significant “downsizing” in recent years. (That’s often a polite way of saying, “We fired a bunch of people to save money.”) What this means for you is that most companies today are understaffedand and everyone is unbelievably busy. So scheduling interviews can be a nightmare.

Because companies are operating so lean, managers are more scared than ever of making hiring mistakes. Bringing in just one “bad apple” can disrupt an entire team’s chemistry. Hiring a loser is incredibly demoralizing to people who already feel they’re working their ass off to keep the organization going. So managers are much more cautious about avoiding hiring mistakes. This means getting a formal job offer can sometimes be a painfully long process.

If you’re already on the job market you know about these barriers. If not, you’ll be much better prepared if you understand what’s coming. Each of these challenges requires more thoughtful career planning and specific job search strategies. In future posts, I’ll share solutions from my research on Millennial & Gen-Z job search success stories to give you practical ideas on how to land the job you want — much faster.