<p>My daughter has good work experience, stellar grades and will have a degree in public policy and Latin American affairs from a top university. She really wants to be a print journalist, poor thing, and has lots of clips and two top notch internships. She has been working her job search for almost a year and is also interested in working for nonprofits as a communications type, paralegal or admin assistant. She has applied to lots of jobs that seem ideal, worked all networks she can think of, including joining journalists’ associations as a student member and attending conferences, and still no offers. I am confident she will find something eventually, but it is tough slogging. Thanks, JHS, for that lovely fable about your wife. I can see my daughter following a similar route. She is creative, idealistic, and personable and will probably move around. Fortunately, she has an optimistic outlook and is still fighting for a job.</p>
<p>Son has a couple of senior friends. Engineering major friend has a good job, others (assorted degrees including business) have nothing.
S (rising senior) is STILL trying to find an internship but it’s getting late for that. Last opening he went for had 600 applications. From that pool, they selected 25 for tough behavioral interviews over the phone, then did 10 in-person interviews (also very tough) and then asked a few to go out for the entire day with one of their field people. For a summer job! It’s not like it used to be…just read an article on this in the WSJ (employers making candidates jump through hoops and how phone screening has turned into full fledged interviews). </p>
<p>Anyway, is still waiting to hear but has a non-intern job lined up just in case. He’s been through about 10 interviews and is getting weary. It’s not fun out there!</p>
<p>Son had an email yesterday - company looking for a new grad with CS degree for web development - they’ll pay $50,000 salary. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad in our local market but it would certainly pay the bills around here.</p>
<p>One coworker said that a friend of her husband used a hook of offering a free month of work (plastics engineering) for companies. He went for an interview and they hired him. I guess the hook is that you must be pretty good to offer a free month of work as you’re pretty sure that they will offer you a real job after you’ve showed them your stuff.</p>
<p>Well, Teach for America was the largest employer at many schools this year.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i2ZkOFuremCQygv31E7uFmYmmoKwD98ERBRO1[/url]”>http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i2ZkOFuremCQygv31E7uFmYmmoKwD98ERBRO1</a></p>
<p>S graduated with a BS in Biology from a Tier 1 private school and a desire to go to med school. Didn’t get into med school and had no plan B until May. Was able to convert his research work that he had done for grades during the past year into a full time job. </p>
<p>His gf also wanted to go to med school and also didn’t get in. She’s continuing to work on a masters in biology, taking evening classes to bump up her paramedic certificate to a level II and expecting to get a job as a level I paramedic in August.</p>
<p>wasn’t Teach for America brutally competitive this year? Someone told me it’s easier to get into Harvard…</p>
<p>The NYC dept of Education is on a hiring freeze this year, it will be tough for TFA and NYC Fellows in the NYC market.</p>
<p>Yes. It somewhat surprising that some of the big state U’s did so well. I think their grads have more of a track record with TFA while others are refugees from the lack of jobs on Wall Street right now.</p>
<p>OK, I googled Teach for America and found the following from a May 28, 2009 article. Wow. </p>
<p>Teach for America this year chose 4,100 recruits from more than 35,000 applications, an increase over last year’s class of 3,700 recruits. While the group has never accepted every applicant, this was the first time it had to turn down people who met all its rigorous criteria.</p>
<p>“For the last nine years, really the only constraint on our growth has been recruits, just finding enough people who we really believe are ready for this,” said Wendy Kopp, the group’s founder and chief executive.</p>
<p>“This is the first year when we’ve had to turn away people who would have met our admission bar in any previous year,” Kopp said.</p>
<p>I think a lot of D’s friends chose to go to grad school “prematurely,” given such a bleak employment picture. A number of these friends are in the sciences, too. D and some friends who are not going to grad school immediately are taking other unpaid or low-paid positions to mark time before grad school – some interning, some volunteering, even assisting in an academic capacity.</p>
<p>I just feel grateful that D has an internship overseas which could lead to something better State-side.</p>
<p>I have always tried to get both of my D’s to “think outside the box” when it comes to employment: think about your skills, however acquired, and whether or not previously paid. Think of a dignified way to employ yourself for those persons or organizations who <em>do</em> have money and need those services but lack the time, talent, and interest in doing them. And when all else fails, piece together several jobs and job functions. Those “solutions” often lead to self-discovery and create a circuitous route to a permanent fit. You also learn what you hate to do, which is valuable and time-saving insight for later.</p>
<p>Bumping up this thread because I found a job.</p>
<p>I didn’t start looking until just before graduation, and though I received FAR fewer responses than anticipated – about a 5-10% response rate – the ones I received were very serious, and one has turned into a job-offer.</p>
<p>Though I do have some (eclectic) job experience, I never did an internship or networked like I should have. I will be working within my intended field – publishing – all the same.</p>
<p>My boyfriend, who graduated in December, also found a job a couple weeks ago. It took him far longer – he had almost 0 work experience – and he’s not working in the field he really wanted to, but he is getting paid well and has a full benefits package coming at the end of the third month.</p>
<p>Just wanted to let everyone know that not all is lost and, eventually, it’ll work out. :)</p>
<p>^^^Congrats!</p>
<p>My S, a microbiology major, was very disappointed at making it to the final round of interviews for TFA this spring and then not getting a position, although I’m happy to report that yesterday he accepted a job offer in his field and is very excited about his new opportunities. For all those still looking, hang in there.</p>
<p>DD applied for three summer internships, never heard from one, did not get the other two. 2 weeks ago her plan was to live at home and look for a local job, she then got a job offer in a lab (she is doing a gap year whilst applying for med school) in another country and got that last internship interview and offer.</p>
<p>Her work visa should work, so she took the 12 month job with benes and everything- very exciting!</p>
<p>A couple of anecdotal datapoints: D graduated last May, started a job in June that had been offered and accepted the previous December. That offer came as a result of an invitation to apply for an upcoming job <strong><em>when she was turned down for an internship the previous summer.</em></strong> Moral: you never know what will lead to what, so keep playing your cards the best you can. </p>
<p>Fast forward to this year: she was part of the team reviewing apps for internships like the one she lost out on two years ago. They had over 500 apps for 10 positions, from rising juniors to new grads to grad students. She said that for the position her group was hiring for, every cut after the first round was painful. Culled the apps and wound up with 25 serious candidates, cut to 12, cut to 3, hired 1. For undergrads, if they didn’t sport a 3.7 or better GPA, they weren’t even in the ballgame. Moral: it’s brutal out there…but you already knew that, these are just some numbers to paint the picture.</p>
<p>The Dad…that’s helpful to know. Son, rising senior with a really good GPA, applied to numerous internships in his field, got a few interviews, and was even invited on a few second interviews - but got NOTHING. I do think he improved his interviewing skills so I guess that counts for something.
He did get a full time summer job but it won’t help him in his job search when he graduates next year. Just like this year, they look for previous related experience (even for an internship!). Anyway, an unpaid stint was out of the question…he really needed to make money this summer. It’s a bit of a catch 22.
I feel bad sometimes that I don’t have the connections to get him in anywhere. I read in the WSJ that this is the way many kids get their start. He’ll figure it out though…he has a lot to offer if someone would just give him the chance!</p>
<p>DD, and engineering/bio double major, could not find an internship this summer so she is working full time at another job. DS, OTOH…a musician, has a job. Go figure. Seems backwards to me.</p>
<p>As always, depends upon the major, experience, and a little luck. You would really have to work hard to not find a job if you have any type of degree in the medical field.</p>
<p>This was a terrible year for internships. My daughter (rising junior with 4.0+ GPA and a previous internship on her resume) applied to about 25 of them – half paid, half unpaid. A few of the paid ones responded by saying that their internships had been cancelled for this year; she never heard from the others. She was invited to interview for four unpaid internships, and she ended up with two good offers. But if an unpaid internship had not been an option for her, she would have had nothing.</p>
<p>At least she has the good fortune to be in a field that has unpaid internships. Organizations that offer unpaid internships have no particular reason to cut back on them this year; I think the main reason why the competition for them is so intense is simply because the kids who would have gone for paid internships were joining in the competition for the unpaid ones.</p>
<p>Things have been even worse, as far as I can see, for kids in fields where all the internships are paid. When companies cut back on those internships, there’s nowhere else for the students to try. Before this year, I’ve never heard of computer or engineering students going without internships, but it’s certainly happening now.</p>
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<p>Actually they do. DD was told that many of the places could not justify the personnel to SUPERVISE these unpaid interns. They needed these folks to attend to the productivity of the companies. Companies were working on much leaner staffing and didn’t have “extra” folks to supervise unpaid interns.</p>
<p>It depends on the area. My son applied for two, went on an interview for one and got the other. The son of a coworker who just finished his freshman year from an OOS public got an internship with one of the biggest computer companies in the world working on a great commercial software product. For some reason, there were a lot of computer internships in my area for this summer.</p>