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<p>The last five hires in my local group: four Phds and one with an MSCS from MIT. Our minimum requirements have moved from BS with MS preferred to MS with Phd preferred.</p>
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<p>Strawman.</p>
<p>^^ So your group is representative of every company nationally? In New Hampshire?</p>
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<p>Strawman.</p>
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<p>Let’s hear your explanation?</p>
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<p>Goes to show that grad school graduates are dime a dozen now. They are so many of them.</p>
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<p>If grad school grads are a dime a dozen now, then what does that make BS grads?</p>
<p>More employable. Companies can pay them less and not having worry about attrition with advanced degree holders when the economy improves. There are many applicants who hide their advanced degrees on their resumes to compete with BS grads.
There are a lot of articles focusing on new college grads not being able to find jobs, but jobless graduate students stories are not being told, except perhaps law school grads.</p>
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<p>Those with Masters and Phds tend to stick around longer, especially if they’ve picked up families along the way. The younger kids seem to hop around more. I certainly did.</p>
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<p>I really don’t know how those with graduate degrees are doing. In some areas, you really do need a graduate degree because there is so much knowledge required in starting the job. And you’re competing with so many others with graduate degrees or Phds.</p>
<p>I was never a boomerang kid, but worked incredibly hard in college (had jobs at the school during the years and in the summers) and produced a very strong senior thesis (which I wrote up over the post-graduation summer as a working paper and later published), played on a varsity team, etc. When I got to grad school that fall, I was just burned out. So, I can sympathize with folks who are described as needing some time to recover. </p>
<p>In retrospect, I would have been better off taking a gap year. My degree was in a very marketable field so I wouldn’t have had a difficult time getting a job. That likely would be harder for graduates for the last few years.</p>
<p>We actually encouraged our son to move home for a short while after college (after the recommendation of his advisor who made a point to have dinner with us when we were there for his graduation). He was in a field where people typically do not get a “job” (film industry), but rather go from project to project. It was a way for him to establish himself without worrying about money. We gave him six months. Almost six months to the day later, he moved to an apartment 40 miles away. The first feature film he worked on (visual effects) won an award at Cannes, then went on to Toronto, Berlin, Sundance, and other festivals, and that provided the kick-start to his career. He then moved to an apartment in West LA and has as much work as he can take.</p>
<p>But I think that letting him come home for those six months freed him up (money-wise) to concentrate on starting his career.</p>
<p>There are lots of reasons that a student might return home after college, but I am having trouble buying the “he was too busy his senior year to look for a job”. Really? No time to go to the college career center or to look on line or to get a resume together? I know plenty of kids with very busy schedules who still had time to look for/find jobs, apply to grad/professional school go to interviews, etc. You make time.</p>
<p>I can see it being difficult to find time depending on the circumstances. I /did/ look for jobs my senior year, though admittedly I didn’t start til spring, and I probably submitted a couple hundred resumes in order to get a dozen interviews, and I had at least an hour to drive to each interview and had to schedule that during normal business hours which was also when I had classes-- and I had no car and had to arrange for someone to give me a ride. I managed it but it was HARD and I ultimately didn’t find a job until I had more time to devote to looking, you won’t find a job if all you do is drop into the career center and put a resume together, you really need to log some hours networking and searching. If you’re looking in your immediate area in a region with better employment, or far enough away that a phone interview is likely to be forthcoming, maybe it’s not so bad. But under some circumstances job hunting can be nearly a full time job by itself. I guess you can always make time to try but that doesn’t mean you’ll be successful.</p>
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<p>Looking for a job is a full-time job. Having to get your interview clothes ready, doing phone interviews, traveling to do in-person interviews when you may not have convenient transportation - can all take time that you may not have if you’re spending a ton of time working on labs.</p>
<p>The point is you DID look for jobs, Emaheevul. You made the time to submit many resumes and arrange transportation to go to interviews. College career centers can help with resume writing, may have job resources and hopefully the school may have a job fair or two on campus. As you know, these jobs don’t land in one’s lap. One has to go out and find them, which it plenty hard these days. MY DS’s were/are both engineer majors with lots of classes and labs and long hours, but still made the time to job hunt and network and attend career fairs and hand out resumes and follow up, etc. Its not easy, but its doable. Students do this all the time, for jobs, for med/law/grad school, etc. It takes time, yes, but it is not a full time job.</p>
<p>And you can put all of this effort in and still not find anything.</p>
<p>Thats true, BCeagle, but if you don’t try, you will surely get nothing. And many are able to successfully secure a job or grad/professional school placement. No one said this is easy, but its doable.</p>
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<p>Well, not always true either.</p>
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<p>We wouldn’t have all of these articles on the problems in getting work with a college degree if there wasn’t a large problem.</p>
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<p>That’s a lot easier - just applications.</p>
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<p>For many, trying results in nothing except perhaps dinging your GPA.</p>
<p>We’ll just agree to disagree, BCeagle. One thing this teaches students is time management, a skill they will need in the workforce. Many many students successfully maintain their GPAs while looking for internships, jobs, grad/professional school etc during their college career. If a student claimed that their job-hunting dinged their GPA, I would ask them what else the did in their “free” time that could have affected their GPA. Sorry, I just don’t buy it. Its no different than students managing school and a part time job.</p>
<p>As for grad/professional school, often interviews are required. I had several when I was applying for grad school. This is not that unusual. I know of premed students who are interviewing all over the place. The arent claiming they cant. They make it work.</p>
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And do tell, what job can one get if they don’t try? Unless someone is handed a job (where would that occur?) or expected to work in daddy’s business, I would love to know what job someone can get without trying at all. If they get a job offer after an internship, then the effort was placed earlier (when they applied for and worked in the internship). If they decided to go into business for themselves, then the effort starts with the development of the business and clientele. If they enter the military, they have to have applied for and been accepted too.</p>
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<p>Yes, the part-time job takes up time too.</p>
<p>Part-time job, doing labs for 40 hours a week, research work, looking for work and taking classes is time-consuming.</p>
<p>As most adults say, looking for work is a full-time job. So looking for work and studying and doing a part-time job is 2.5 full-time jobs.</p>
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<p>And they often are not.</p>
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<p>I didn’t have any; neither did son.</p>
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<p>Is it usual?</p>
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<p>How many can’t make it work.</p>
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<p>I was recruited after a year in college. A friend of mine gave my name to a headhunter and he called me in for an interview and they did a resume for me and I was hired shortly thereafter.</p>
<p>For my kids, they can always work for me. There’s lots of stuff that I need done that I could use someone for.</p>
<p>In this economy the likelihood of a student being recruited is slim to none. My s was recruited AFTER he had completed applications and attended job fairs. They didnt pull his name out of thin air.</p>
<p>Fine- let your kids work for you. As I said, most dont go to work for daddy.
You seem to be arguing just to argue. Not interested.</p>
<p>Just because you didnt have to interview for grad school doesnt mean it doesn’t happen. There is a bigger world out there.</p>
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<p>The economy today is quite similar to the economy after my first year of college. BC grads were working at the local Star Market (grocery chain) because there was so little in the way of jobs available.</p>
<p>After the dot-com bust, the hot major was accounting.</p>
<p>A friend’s son was recruited for a nice job out of high-school. He was on a high-school development team that made cell-phone games before they became popular. One of his classmates was hired by a major tech company for close to $200K/year - out of high-school.</p>
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<p>Son started his job last week. Daughter is looking for work. Fortunately unemployment is only 4.9% in my state and generally lower than the national average in the adjacent state.</p>
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<p>Just because you did have to interview for grad school doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. There is a bigger world out there.</p>