Hunting for work in today’s skeletal job market can be frustrating—depressing or even demoralizing. You’d be willing to do anything to get a job.

Or would you? A recent Rutgers survey shows that many unemployed people are uncertain about how much to sacrifice in the name of a paycheck:

	65% would take a lower salary
	59% would accept a lower-status job
	70% would accept a temporary job

Although it may feel like a sacrifice to give up on the notion of a full-time job, in your field, with benefits, remember you’re in the “new normal” now, says Ford R. Myers, author of Get the Job You Want, Even When No One’s Hiring.

Increasingly, part-time contracts are the norm, and multiple streams of income could be your saving grace. Consider a “bridge job”—like a part-time gig in another field, or even (gulp) a lower-paying position, says Myers.

These days, a jump off-road won’t be seen as a resume blotch: Prospective employers value self-starters with the creative oomph for a little reinvention.

Work it. How has the recession changed the way you think about your career?