New college grads may at least have a fighting chance to get jobs this year.

After two years of bleak prospects, there’s a flicker of hope for the Class of 2011 as national projections show the job market may be opening up.

Hiring for the class of 2011 is expected to be up 13 percent to 14 percent compared with last year, according to two polls. One conducted in the fall by the National Association of Colleges and Employers had 197 employer respondents. Another in February had 112, said Edwin Koc, director of research.

Those national figures are consistent with the anecdotal evidence seen so far this year by Mike Caldwell, director of the Career Center at Westminster College of Salt Lake City. “Compared to last year, the number of job postings in our career center are up 70 percent, including internships,” he said.

In March 2008, before the economic collapse, Career Center postings totaled 408. The next two years they dropped to 234 and 231, respectively. This year, Caldwell said, they have rebounded to 397.

Still, he added, there “seems to be some apprehension among employers. A lot are tentative. They have tentative plans for hiring, but they’re not posting multiple positions.”

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Available jobs » The market for new college grads took a dive starting in the spring of 2009, as the recession and financial meltdown led to layoffs, hiring curbs and a national jobless rate that rose to a high of 10.1 percent in October 2009. The unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees was 8.8 percent in 2009, 9.2 percent in 2010. As a result, more former students took survival jobs outside their fields of study, moved back home with parents or applied for graduate school.

But John Hyde, dean of career services at the New York Institute of Technology, said there is a “brightening up” in this year’s entry-level hiring market. Recruiters who shied away the past couple of years are calling, and employers recently posted about 18 new job openings, many sales and marketing positions, on the school’s proprietary job board.

While this is a positive trend, Koc said, “we’re not back yet to the levels of the class of 2007,” when students had a median of 2 ½ offers by April. Last year, more than 60 percent of new grads had no offer by April.

Hyde said he is seeing an uptick in interest in engineering and computer science students, especially those with a background in cyber security; occupational therapy and physical therapy majors; and hospitality management majors, as some hotels and high-end restaurants are resuming entry-level hiring.

But they are not alone. Some employers are looking for business, marketing and communications majors from among this year’s graduates.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which was No. 2 last year on the CollegeGrad.com list of top entry-level employers, wants to recruit 40 new grads in the coming months as management trainees in New York’s Long Island area alone, about a 25 percent increase from last year, said DylanSchweitzer, group talent acquisition manager. “Our business is growing. More people are renting cars,” he said.

Enterprise has 68,000 employees nationwide.

Although the focus is on business and communications students, “we hire all majors,” Schweitzer said, looking for candidates who show leadership skills and “the ability to speak confidently about themselves and what they’ve done.”

As part of its continuing expansion, TD Bank plans to open 10 new branches on Long Island this year and early in 2012, creating about 150 new jobs, some entry level, said Chris Giamo, regional president.