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<p>New unemployment claims have been ticking up for a few weeks and previous numbers have been revised upwards. The employment situation is stalling somewhat because of risk factors in the economy.</p>
<p>ellemenope, thanks for the reminder. I keep telling my D that but it’s hard to keep believing! </p>
<p>TheAnalyst, that would be a great idea but the current apartment that D is renting does not allow sublets. If the job she is interviewing for next week falls through that is what she will try to do. With a management company that does allow sublets. </p>
<p>BCEagle91, thank you again for all of your cheerleading and advice. You’ve commented on my musing before and I really appreciate it. I remember your S and his job hunt last year and it gives me hope.</p>
<p>One of her friends received a job offer from one of the companies she interviews with next week. My H asked why him? Not only will he has a masters in Engineering but he also accepted a job where he will travel 100% of the time. Sometimes in developing countries, something my D did not think she was equipped to do. </p>
<p>When you hear that MIT grads are accepting what they call “regular” engineering jobs and not the glam tech firms, it also trickles down to those in the next level of ranking. That is where my D resides. It’s still a hard job market out there.</p>
<p>I am getting tired of friends and family telling me that it should be so easy for her to get a job. A girl in mechE, good GPA and the media telling us how STEM is the place to be as far as getting a job. Yes, I know, she’s trying as hard as she can. I’m not disparaging yet. At least that’s what I’m telling myself, my D and everyone else.</p>
<p>Deb- your D needs to pop in during office hours to see every single professor she’s had in four years to give them a quick thank you for being so inspiring (even if they weren’t) and then drop off a copy of her resume, and follow up with an emailed version. And it wouldn’t hurt to send a copy to the department chair’s secretary.</p>
<p>At this point in the hiring cycle, your D is up against the “invisible” job market. Someone who has an offer already and accepted it and was supposed to start in July decides to take the fully funded grad school offer instead and head off to a PhD. So now company has an “emergency” opening. Or a department which hired the four new grads it needed suddenly gets hit with a new business initiative and now needs another one. Etc. So these people don’t necessarily go through the whole formal HR, posting, reading 1200 resumes business. They make pick up the phone and make three phone calls- one to their favorite engineering professor from college, one to the department head, one to a buddy who is in a similar job someplace else (or at a government agency, etc.) They say, “hey, we need a new grad, do you have a strong student to recommend?” Make sure your D’s resume is on the top of the desk of every professor she knows for the next few weeks.</p>
<p>Then she needs to be aggressive in asking for feedback for every interview she has which doesn’t end up in an offer. Maybe she’s doing or saying something inadvertently which signals something negative.</p>
<p>Then she needs to sign up for a couple of job fairs-- as much as kids dread these. It will put her resume in front of 50 people in a matter of an hour, will give her more experience doing her “elevator pitch”, and who knows, there may even be a company there she’s interested in.</p>
<p>Finally, she should check out both the hiring website of the US Government, and a couple of the job boards devoted to the defense/security industries. She may want to revise her resume in applying for these types of positions- if she’s a US Citizen that needs to go on the resume (don’t assume the computer that’s doing the first cut will know that she is) since that’s a requirement for certain types of clearance. All programming languages that she knows should go somewhere near the top, not buried in the text. And she can’t assume- again, if she knows R or Matlab and therefore assumes that everyone will know that she’s also proficient in SAS or SPSS-- don’t assume. Every single packaged software or other kind of computer type skills she has needs to go on the resume even if she’s not looking for an IT job. And things that her corporate employers will assume “proficient in manipulating large datasets” and stuff like that… needs to go on the resume when applying for government jobs. The computers literally go through a checklist before selecting or rejecting resumes.</p>
<p>Does she know the grad students in her department? They are a wonderful source of job leads… they have friends and colleagues all over the country at other universities.</p>
<p>Is she on a first name basis with every career counselor at her college???</p>
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<p>Yes, that’s how my D got her spot in the training program. And that’s what happened to her friend also. Somebody bailed out of a marketing training program, the sister of the friend’s boyfriend knew about the opening and recommended the friend for it. Found out on a Friday and started on a Monday. </p>
<p>Time to let everyone in the networks (parents AND kids) know–you never know who has knowledge of an opening.</p>
<p>Son received an offer today. YEA!!</p>
<p>Hooray!! Wonderful news! Summer only or is it a career job?</p>
<p>Listened to NPR about the problems facing French young people. The young woman being interviewed had been interning TWO years without pay. She was supervising 5 people. She spoke Croatian, a language the company needed. The company wanted her to continue interning. She said she was ready to be paid. She was not hired. </p>
<p>I worry that this “internship” nonsense is also happening here…</p>
<p>Hurrah, D1 got an offer today! She found hers through a friend from college who is a year older. Friend mentioned in an email that her company was looking, and did D1 know anyone who would be interested? D1 talked it over with me (it is a bit outside her area of study, but she has some qualifications for it – and thought the job sounded intriguing). She applied, interviewed, and was offered the job today. Location is Washington, DC, which is where she wants to be. Good pay AND great benefits. 
Added bonus is that her friend has a room to sublet in the house she rents in DC for the summer through Sept, so D will live there relatively inexpensively and apartment hunt with some close friends for the fall.</p>
<p>All that said, this is the only interview she got from sending out dozens of resumes and making many contacts through former internship employers and co-workers, alumni, friends of friends, etc. But it only takes one.</p>
<p>Hooray, intparent!! I know that some companies offer bounties to their current employees when they recommend someone and that person gets hired. Gives a great incentive for employees to reach out to their friends…</p>
<p>Congrats intparent. S2 graduates in two weeks and has an eleven week unpaid internship starting mid-May. We’re really hoping it could lead to a job offer.</p>
<p>Full time job. Great location, great benefits, good salary and exactly matches his interests and training. What a relief. The great Penn State alumni network works as advertised.</p>
<p>Great to hear two hires on this thread.</p>
<p>D2 was hired in early March. (Job will be a time out for her before she [hopefully] starts med school in 2 years.) OK pay, excellent benies, tuition remission, opportunity to publish, and —most important to her --in the right town. (She wanted to be in the same town as her BF.)</p>
<p>She had several interviews and at least one other job offer before she accepted her current employment.</p>
<p>She a bio/math double major.</p>
<p>We’re up to four hires on the thread now. </p>
<p>D just accepted a position (had two offers out of four interviews). Trying to protect her privacy, but she’s a graduating senior at NYU - College of Arts and Sciences. </p>
<p>Best of luck to everyone - tell those kids to check their departments’ listserves for positions too… Also, internships definitely make a difference…</p>
<p>My cousin graduated last June and was in the same position many talked about-no job! One month later he landed a paid internship that resulted in a full time job offer. The pay/benefits are excellent! He said his company is still hiring and that he sees a new face monthly. They had him contact friends in his field that will be graduating this June as they are expanding. He is a graphic designer that works with computer interfacing ( I think that’s what they call it). So he’s sort of an art/tech guy. The company = EBay in SanJose, CA. Might be a place to look into as I think they hire many different types of grads.</p>
<p>I am sooooo envious of those who have children who have been job hunting (never mind all the ones who are employed already!). My D is graduating in a month and hasn’t sent out a single resume yet. She’s a double major in English and Photography (yes, I know, with that background, she should just go to Starbucks first…). Her school requires significant senior projects for both fields on top of a full courseload and she’s taken on an internship that requires her to be away from school two full days each week. She’s dropped her part time job and still is getting only a few hours of sleep each night.</p>
<p>I’m sure, Stradmom, that your D is developing great skills that will help her in her job when she gets her degree. Congrats to her in sticking with it & working hard on her projects.</p>
<p>We’re hoping D will complete all her course requirements & finish those incompletes she still has on her transcript (tho one has already expired). It is a journey. D’s plan is to do an UNPAID internship upon graduation–it’s fine with us.</p>
<p>stradmom- I’m with you honey! Seems like “everyone” else has a job, or at least many interviews, but I know that can’t really be true. Counting down to one week left for S1, just completed Senior Design Project, but still has two major papers and and one other major project that I can’t begin to understand. Not to mention the distraction of NHL Hockey playoffs. . . job hunt is not the priority right now.</p>
<p>I know “looking” for a job is very different now than we actually left the house and “pounded the pavement”. I am worried how irritating that will be to me when he comes back home and is surfing the net to find a job. Just doesn’t seem proactive. Ugh.</p>
<p>Wayoutwest - Congrats!!! What type of job did your bio/math major land?</p>
<p>All of D1’s engineering friends at her university have found jobs. One has 7 job offers. 2 has internship that pays reasonably well, could lead to a full time job.</p>
<p>DrGoogle- that is wonderful!! Then again you have to really “look” for a job to “find” one. I keep telling S1 that they are not going to just come knocking on the door to my basement looking for him. :(</p>