College student credit card charge off collection turned down for job.

I am a college student, and I fell into the trap of signing up for a credit card in 2005 to help with some of the cost of my books, etc for school. I was able to open an account with Capitol One, and my credit limit was $300. Capitol One eventually ended up closing the account because of non payment. The account is currently showing up as a charge off on my credit report, and is $785 past due, and has been sent to a collection agency known as NCO Financial. They were offering to settle at one point at time, but I disregarded the letters they sent me since I had no way of paying them. The last time I received a settlement letter from them was in March. This is the only negative balance on my credit reports. Everything else I have are student loans which are all in good standing. I did not think this one negative item was that big of a deal since it’s the only negative item I have, and it is not considered to be an “outstanding amount” of debt compared to others. However, I was turned down for a job because of this a few months so now I see how serious it is.
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i would call capital one first

then if they do not help
negotiate with collections agency

one needs three open lines of credit
that report to a bureau
and are at least one year old.