<p>Last spring, I tried desperately to get an internship at any company I could. At that time, I had almost a 4.0 GPA in mechanical engineering but no relevant job experience aside from high school jobs. After applying to over 50 companies and meeting with tons of reps at our career fair, I got exactly one interview offer. Not job offer - just an interview offer. By some miracle I did receive a job offer from them, and I now have an internship with a respected fortune 50 company on my resume.</p>
<p>Fast forward, and i'm now a senior, so i'm busy applying again. Only this time, it's for full time positions. With a summer of gerat work experience on my resume, I thought that would make the difference for me and i'd start getting some interview offers. But no - the first five companies i've applied to have once again rejected me flat out for interviews. Each has between 8 and 16 interview slots to fill at my campus, but somehow I can't seem to make it into one of those. It's frustrating, because I know the success rate of getting offers after interviews is typically low, and I can't even manage to score a simple interview.</p>
<p>I'm left wondering.. what does it really take to get an interview? What could I be missing that other people have? What more can I do?</p>
<p>Some additional information would be nice.
-Are you going through career services in your school? What is the process of campus interview for you
-How is the structure and format of your resume? 1 page and no grammar errors?
-How is your networking?
-Do you still have a great GPA?
-Are you following up on your contacts and using all your sources to get your interview?
-Are you just applying online?</p>
<p>You have a 4.0…and? Companies want well rounded interviewees. If they look at your resume and see that you’re spending all your time studying, have had no extra-curriculars, haven’t worked to support yourself, etc etc - than one internship at a big corporation isn’t getting you squat. </p>
<p>As comment said, what networking have you done? What company was your internship with? Just because it’s a big company doesn’t mean it is a good internship unfortunately. Many of the huge corporations don’t let you get any experience. You’re just a hired goat. </p>
<p>You need to provide a lot more info but I can guess that since you haven’t worked since high school and mentioned no extra curricular activites that is probably your problem.</p>
<p>Lol. I didnt have an uncle who was a manager either. If you think that’s what networking is than you need some serious career counseling. Going to job fairs and talking to employees, getting their contact info, and following up is all networking is. If you haven’t started doing that by now (I started when I was a sophomore) than you are behind and need to play serious catchup. Find out when your schools next job fair is and go to it and be ready to kiss ass and ask good questions. Talk to your engineer society officer and ask them if they have any guest speakers from some companies coming in and go to them. </p>
<p>You are way behind so you need to kick it into high gear NOW. </p>
<p>Here is a good example of networking. This is a real scenario of a friend but I will use the name John to keep it anonymous.</p>
<p>John went to a decent school and had good grades and was studying accounting. He wanted to work for the big4 but he does not know anyone from the big4 and he has no connections with recruiters from the firm. He went to his college career fair and networking events but the recruiters there are bombarded by so many resumes and all the college students are trying to get face time that it is ridiculous. In order to get a recruiter 1 on 1, he went online. John used social networks such as linkedin and facebook to search for “recruiters” for the big4. John lived in NY but the person he found was for another state. John contacted the recruiter and told him he was very interested in a career in accounting. He had the grades and was looking for relevant experience. He told him his story of going to the career fair how it was difficult to get some face time. He asked the recruiter could refer him directly to the NY recruiter. The out of state recruiter asked for his resume and a few days later, John received an email from the NY recruiter.</p>
<p>so i do career fairs on behalf of my firm, and if you stand out in demonstrating interest and/or in the questions you ask, we remember it - and that is correlated to whom we choose for an interview</p>
<p>Hey, it happens… a buddy of mine didn’t apply to a single company, but had an uncle working for a big defense company. His uncle pulled a few strings, he did an over-the-phone interview without submitting a resume, and he had himself an internship.</p>
<p>Of course, that’s not an option for me. Anyway, these are some good tips. I’ve tried multiple approaches at the career fair over the years. Fall of last year I did as suggested, researching a select 7-8 companies, coming up with a good set of questions for them, and spending all of my time at the fair speaking with their recruiters. No bites. In the spring I took the broad approach of simply dropping the resume off at every company I could, simply asking a few general questions of recruiters. Again, no bites (the company I ended up interning with never came to our career fair - I got the interview through applying online through my school.) </p>
<p>I like the idea of contacting reps through linkedin - I hadn’t considered trying that. I’m thinking it would take some luck getting the ear of the right person, but it’s something I haven’t tried…</p>
<p>Mark, a lot of times, it all comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Luck plays a huge role in the whole job process. You have good grades so just keep at it and your time will eventually come. Keep reaching out to recruiters and keep your options open.</p>
<p>You should start with the internship company and trying to work yourself in. Perhaps you did not do a good job that is why you are not invited back. But if you did a good job, you should start with those people you worked with at the internship and networking from them. Perhaps they do not have an openning right now, but they may be able to refer you to another division or subsidiary.</p>
<p>Remember, things are TOUGH out there right now. Don’t give up so easily just yet. Stay in touch with anyone whom you’ve contacted/connected with.</p>
<p>You may be frustrated, but consider how really frustrating it must be for those who have families to feed, are wondering where the next paycheck is coming from, and who are seeing their savings (that they may have been counting on to retire) disappear with no chance to recover anytime soon.</p>
<p>Consider those who then face this situation and have politicians talk about how programs like unemployment insurance and social security are “welfare systems” or who demand that employees receive only minimum wage until politicians can pass a state budget (as has happened in California–where the minimum wage of $8.00 has been what many state employees have been getting since July 1st).</p>
<p>Now consider students like you–only who graduated in the past two years. Many of them saw the students who graduated a year or two earlier than them easily get jobs–but the students graduating the past two years entered the worst hiring environment in at least 8 years–and in certain places–like here in California–entered a hiring environment where the unemployment rate is the worst in recorded history (as long as California has been keeping records.).</p>
<p>These people expected their education to be the key to a good life–but many have graduated with no jobs–and saddled with thousands of dollars in debt.</p>
<p>So try to keep your frustration in perspective–things could be a whole lot worse for you than things are now–and the reason things aren’t worse for you is largely due to the efforts you have made and are continuing to make.</p>