As graduation draws near, those who haven’t landed a job yet may be desperate to find one. Perhaps some of the job offers they have received are below their skill and experience levels. Is it better to take these offers, or reject them and remain unemployed?

A recent study conducted by a University of Texas sociologist may give soon-to-be grads some food for thought. It’s about how taking a job below your skill level could affect your prospects for future employment. The result of the study is: It matters a lot.

“A history of skills underutilization is as scarring for workers as a year of unemployment,” according to David Pedulla, whose study on the topic appeared in the American Sociological Review.

Pedulla explored his interest in what he calls “labor market inequality” by developing resumes for imaginary job applicants. The job seekers he created had a few things in common. They had a college degree, worked nearly two years at their first job, and worked about four and a half years at their second job.

What differed was their third job – the one Pedulla created for them for the most recent year. His imaginary workers either had a full-time job that matched their skills, a part-time job, a job below their skill level, or were unemployed.

Then Pedulla submitted 2,420 resumes based on his imaginary job seekers, along with cover letters, to online ads for 1,210 real jobs. Each of the applicants had an email address and real phone number that employers could contact if they were interested in talking with the applicant further.

The callback rates varied widely based on how the imaginary job seeker had spent their last year. Pedulla said employer interest in his fictional applicants reflected what kind of signals the applicant’s most recent job history sent to hiring managers, including how competent they were and how committed they were to their careers.

Male and female applicants who had full-time jobs the previous year were called back 10.4 percent of the time. Those whose most recent year of employment was in a job that was below their skills level were only called back about 5 percent of the time. Male applicants who had been unemployed for a year were called back 4.2 percent of the time, while unemployed females were called back 7.5 percent of the time.

The study also showed that holding a part-time position over the previous year hurt men much more than it did women. Men with a year of part-time work only were called by employers 4.8 percent of the time, while the figure is 10.9 percent for women. “Men face severe penalties for part-time work histories, but women experience no penalties,” Pedulla wrote.

However, Pedulla cautioned that there are some limits about what lessons can be taken from the experiment. It only measured the initial interest of employers in his fictional job candidates, not whether the employer would hire them or what they would be paid based on their most recent job experience. And he only conducted the study in five major cities, and doesn’t know whether he would have gotten the same results in smaller labor markets.