> To be sure the 2001 crash was also mixed in with 9/11 and its aftereffects
The dot-com crash was in the Spring of 2000.
It wasn't a point in time. I was laid off a couple weeks after 9/11--and there were many subsequent layoffs at many companies through ensuing weeks and months. It probably began around Spring of 2000. I was at an analyst conference around that time when Cisco reported down-earnings.
I remember friends coming back to the university job fair telling me how bad it was out there. With 1-2 years experience they came back to our engineering job fair looking for internships and entry-level positions. Those without prospects just rode it out in graduate school. If you weren't in a position to repay student loans it was better to load up more debt and delay it a few years.
I was c/o 2003. There was a lot of slack in the entry-level pipeline as companies were recovering but didn't need to seek new graduates because there was a 3 year backlog.
Offers were withdrawn, tons of companies went under, even the big firms like Cisco had massive layoffs.