Hello, my DS is a recent Aeronautic grad and is having trouble landing a job. This has been a recurring theme for him i.e., internships. He did have some internships but they were small local companies in our area and more or less CAD jobs. He suffers from anxiety and mild depression and this is hindering his motivation to be aggressive in the job search. He had a good shot at a job with a NASA contractor but that just fell through and now he is sitting at home with no prospects right now. Besides the online boards, any good advice I can share with him? Any good recruiting firms to suggest? Unfortunately, networking is very tough for him due to his anxiety, which he is currently working on with a therapist. He feels so low because all of his friends received job offers before graduation. Thanks in advance!
Has he reached out to the career center at his alma mater? Does he have a complete LinkedIn profile? Does he know how to use its alumni function? Has he uploaded a resume to Indeed? Is his resume ATS compliant (Google if that’s a foreign term)?
Yes to all those except perhaps the alumni function.
One of the biggest problems is that most grads tend to want to stay local thereby severely limiting there job prospects. There are jobs, just maybe not in the local area. Make sure his search is nationwide if he wants to land something.
I agree with the post above. If you can help him move to a city that has jobs then his life will be easier.
https://www.indeed.com/q-Aerospace-Engineer-l-California-jobs.html
I agree with the above wholeheartedly, a narrow geographic search can greatly limit success.
What school did he go to?
As for LinkedIn, have him look up his school in the search function. Once he does, he’ll find the “where they wok” function and start making connections with his alumni affiliation as the ice breaker.
Thanks all. He is more than willing to relocate. In fact he would like to get out of Ohio, our state. @eyemgh, he is a Purdue grad.
I think then he needs to be persistent. That’s hard getting rejected over and over, or as is more typical, hearing nothing at all, especially in those of us who suffer from anxiety and/or depression. I remember my son reading a subReddit about the ratio of applications to offers and it was something crazy, like 44:1.
Does he have any professors that he bonded well with? Maybe they can point him somewhere.
I’d do the LinkedIn alumni search too.
Referral candidates land jobs at a much higher rate than those who simply respond to online posts.
Wish him luck and tell him to hang in there!
Thank you @eyemgh for the encouraging words. I will pass them along.
Good advise above.
I’m an engineer, but I’m actually going to give some general parent advise (sorry - it’s probably not what you were looking for)… encourage him to exercise. I had a kid with patches of teen depression / anxiety and wish I had found a way to do so (it was pediatrician’s advise). These days a running hobby mitigates issues. Job hunting is easier when you are feeling upbeat. Good luck!
Note: a book I liked about benefits of exercise is “Spark” (by John Ratey, he has ADHD books too)
Be sure he links with all the students he knows, including any older grads on LinkedIn. Also anyone he met in internships and any profs on LinkedIn. He has a network, he just doesn’t know it.
Thanks @colorado_mom and @intparent. Believe me, I have been trying on the exercise. His psychologist is emphasizing it as well.
Sometimes grads think of LinkedIn as like Facebook, and think they need to be “friends” to ask someone to connect/link. I link with anyone I’ve met who might be a current or future professional connection. If they know who I am after I’ve met them, that is enough!
My son was laid off from his first engineering job ( along with about 30% of the staff when sales dropped big time). The company paid for a consultant to help with his job search. The biggest thing the consultant did was rewrite his resume. Key words popped out, the format looked a lot cleaner and it was a lot more “scan friendly”. With so many companies using automatic resume scanners, it is important to have your resume in the correct format.
LinkedIn is also good advice.
Keep plugging. Look at the medium and small companies also. Google searches, Craig’s list, etc. all the sources you can think of.
It may not be his first choice, but many aeronautical engineers can qualify for regular mechanical engineering jobs. He could search for those at both local and nationwide levels. Smaller companies which don’t have such a high volume of applicants would be a great starting point.
LinkedIn also has a premium version that has added features and connectivity. The first month is free and you can cancel at any time. My D tried it and found the added features helpful.
What are his qualifications, and what is he looking for? Appropriate advice for a 2.5 GPA grad in an oversaturated specialty will be different than for a 3.5 GPA grad in a high demand area.
A little late on checking this thread but DS landed a job in August. Thank you all for the support!
Congrats! What was his secret?
@eyemgh Friend from school who was interning at the company referred him.