IF Mick Jagger addressed the Class of 2009 at one of this month’s many college commencements, he’d probably urge the grads to repeat his famous lyric, “Time is on my side.”

It may seem hard for real-world-bound collegians to find comfort in the words of a guy who sings for a living, especially in this recession. But Jagger earned a scholarship to the London School of Economics as a teenager, and though he dropped out, he was smart enough to eventually amass a $300-million fortune.

Time was on the Rolling Stones’ side then.

Time is on the side of this year’s college grads, too.

Yes, their job prospects right now are narrow. Their quest for employment is like running the tire drill at a football practice – get those knees up, don’t touch any of the tires, and make sure your time on the stopwatch beats that of the job-hunter behind you.

“Our message to students is to be competitive,” said Kent Waggoner, director of the career center at Indiana State University. Resumes must be “pristine,” he added. Grads must network – the 21st-century equivalent of “know-who” – by staying in contact with acquaintances who are connected with potential employers to find those unadvertised “hidden market” opportunities. They must show creativity by leaving an indelibly positive impression on a human-resources rep who is inundated with resumes.

Every new hire will get scrutinized.

“The economy is still tough,” said Kevin Hewerdine, director of career services and employer relations at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. “Companies are very leery about adding jobs.”

It’s not pretty, but it’s not forever.

Back in 1982, a Reagan-era recession drove unemployment to 10.8 percent nationwide. Inflation hit double digits. The prime interest rate topped out at 21.5 percent that June. On the morning after ISU gave 2,600 diplomas to its Class of ’82, a story in the Tribune-Star described the bleak job market awaiting them: “Recession gripping the United States has infected almost every other part of the world. The victims are thousands of businesses gone bust, millions of workers tossed out of their jobs, and billions of other ordinary people feeling the symptoms of a thinner pocketbook and an uncertain future.”

Sound familiar?

A little more than a year later, the disaster was over. Interest, jobless and inflation rates stabilized. The most devastated industries – manufacturers, airlines and automakers – made the strongest recoveries. Reagan’s rock-bottom approval rating did a 180, and America re-elected him in a landslide.

And most of the Class of ’82 found work.

The men and women graduating this month enter a better situation than their predecessors of 27 years ago.

“It actually is, from a longer-term perspective, a better market than the (recession of the) ’80s,” said Edwin Koc, director of strategic research at the National Association of Colleges and Employers.