<p>Do any of you have stories to share about how your son or daughter found a full-time job for after college graduation? Did they use on-campus recruiting or other means of searching? When did they start looking? Were they able to find a job before they graduated? </p>
<p>My daughter will be a senior next year and will be hunting for a job. This is uncharted territory for our family -- everyone else has gone to graduate school immediately after graduation. I have been wondering what the experience of searching for a job during senior year is like.</p>
<p>I graduated in 2007 with a job lined up. It’s not a very exciting story, honestly. I applied to a bunch of jobs, got interviews at some subset of them, got an offer from one, and that offer was very good so I took it.</p>
<p>I started roughly in January of my graduation year, I think.</p>
<p>Some tips:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Ask alum friends about job openings at their companies. They may be able to refer you.</p></li>
<li><p>Use on-campus recruiting, career fairs, etc. You might as well.</p></li>
<li><p>Internet job boards are good - they are actually how I got my current job - but they should not be your only method of search.</p></li>
<li><p>Get someone who knows what they’re doing (the school’s career center, a friend or relative who’s a hiring manager, etc) to critique your resume. I’ve looked over resumes for friends, and, in my experience, a lot of undergrads write AWFUL resumes because they just don’t know how to write a good one.</p></li>
<li><p>Write cover letters! Write a cover letter for each place you apply that accepts cover letters. If you can, get someone to look over them as well.</p></li>
<li><p>Consider the non-obvious. If your degree is in computer science, for instance, you would want to look at software companies. But there are a lot of other industries that need/want software engineers, including academia (some departments hire software people as staff), biotech, health care, consulting, and aerospace/defense.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>D put all of her eggs in one basket (applied for a fellowship that she really wanted and then didn’t pursue anything else until she heard from them). By the time they told her no, it was May! :eek:</p>
<p>Friends had been asking since Christmas senior year what D was going to do after college. She told them that she didn’t have anything lined up, but that if they had some ideas, she would gladly entertain them. Once they found out in May that she was still at loose ends, some of them came forward with entry level programs that their workplaces ran for newly minted college graduates–programs that we would never have known about.</p>
<p>H was one of those whose workplace had such a program. She sent in a resume during graduation week, interviewed in the couple of weeks after graduation and started the 1 year fellowship program on July 1st. Program has led to a permanent job.</p>
<p>My advice–be sure to let your friends and acquaintances know that your kid is interested in a job in a certain area–your kid might get a lead from this network that might not be so well advertised to the outside world.</p>
<p>If she is a junior this year, the best advice IMO is to go out there right now and try to find a summer job or internship in a field and with a company of possible interest. </p>
<p>If she’s lucky, it will lead to a permanent job offer. If she isn’t, it will at least lead to a LOR from someone known in the industry and better networking possibilities. “Sorry, Stacey but we aren’t hiring right now. However, I know from a friend that XYZ is hiring and I’ll be glad to write a rec.” Or even “There are no openings here, but I called our XYX office. Call Y to schedule an interview.” </p>
<p>If that’s not possible, see if she can get signed up with a reputable temp company this summer. Hey, temp jobs aren’t official internships, but they can be a chance to get your foot in the door. You meet people. </p>
<p>Almost everyone would rather hire someone they know than an unknown. If they don’t know them, they’d still rather hire someone who is known to someone whose judgment they trust. </p>
<p>So, this summer is CRUCIAL. And yes, she should go to her college’s career center to help get the summer job this year.</p>
<p>These are good stories – and not dull at all, jessiehl. </p>
<p>As I said, this is totally uncharted territory for anyone in our family, so even the most routine stories will be novel to us.</p>
<p>jonri, my daughter does have a paid internship lined up for this summer (which she found through a job board), but it is not with a company where internships routinely lead to job offers. She will get that letter of recommendation, though, and if she likes the type of work that she will be doing this summer, your idea about networking is a great one.</p>
<p>Marion, my oldest son started working with the career center in November of his senior year, and FINALLY got a job offer in April before he graduated last year. It was very stressful! He went on a ton of 1st interviews, and finally got that coveted 2nd and 3rd with the company where he was eventually hired. He kept hearing over and over again how this year these companies were only hiring 1 or 2 people, when usually they’d be hiring 50. It’s tough out there right now!</p>
<p>I strongly recommend everthing said above, but also want to stress that using the college career center is SO important! They have resources and knowledge about who is interviewing and can help set up on campus interviews during her senior year.</p>
<p>My middle son is in the process of interviewing for internships, 3 this week so far, with 1 more tomorrow. So I’m crossing fingers for him now!!</p>
<p>Our S has been diligently networking and doing internships, research at school & summer jobs in his field of engineering. He has also been attending career fairs in his field, interviewing & sending out some resumes. He got 3 job offers in his field (all with federal government), tho he had hoped for private employer (all said no secure funding). He accepted one and will start work “soon” after graduation.</p>
<p>With D & my niece who have fields not known to be very “marketable,” we’ll have to wait & see. Niece just got a part-time job while she’s getting a masters in education so she can get a teaching job (no psych BS jobs materialized). D still is waiting to get into the school she is planning to major in & then we HOPE she will make strides to get some volunteer or work experience (in addition to her part-time school job in the field).</p>
<p>My other niece who graduates in a few months in a science field will be going on to podiatry school & has no summer job lined up.</p>
<p>We know it’s tough because we have seen the same difficulty with getting internships. I think that many young people may have to settle for jobs that are not exactly what they wanted and may have to go through many, many applications and interviews before they find something. My daughter seems to have been lucky in finding an interesting internship after only applying to 38 places and interviewing with 6; she expected to have to do more. But even that relatively small amount of internship hunting was stressful. I don’t think she’s looking forward to the even more difficult process of full-time job hunting next year.</p>
<p>My niece, who graduates in May from a top public university, attended their interview recruiting days. Large corporate firms visited the school and the students have to have signed up in advance. From this, she got an internship after her sophomore year (which she didn’t like), and interned at a different company after her junior year. By November 2009, the second company, a large financial consulting firm, offered her a job.</p>
<p>My son wanted to leave the northeast unless he was offered a LOT of money to work in NYC (which wasn’t going to happen). Most of the firms that recruit at his college are from the northeast. He was competing against Wharton kids (he is non-Wharton), too. He learned that a lot of companies do not talk about their college hiring programs on their websites, even though they may be actively recruiting at various colleges. He used contacts to gain access to the job boards at colleges that were more likely to attract employers from the areas of the country in which he was interested. If the recruiter’s name/email were listed, he contacted them directly. The job he got was by contracting a recruiter that was interviewing at a college in our home city. The recruiter told my son that he would love to interview him if he could get home (with 3 days notice). We flew him in, he interviewed and stood out for a variety of reasons. He made it to the next round and was flown to the company HQ along with about 50 other college seniors for a fun recruiting weekend. They got tours, had several rounds of interviews, met the CEO and were wined and dined. They had candid discussions with last year’s hires (the “first years”), who were all very happy with the company and their jobs. This is a very desirable city and my son did get an offer. It wasn’t the 6 figures he thought he would get when he started college, but it is solid and a great start at a wonderful company. I am very proud, since last summer he and I had a screaming fight when he bailed on the law school plan and I was saying “You will never get a job in this economy.”</p>
<p>mowc…that’s a great story. It REALLY helped that your son has initiative, was willing to try creative routes, AND was willing to relocate. DS is not willing to relocate at this point, which makes it tough. There are only so many jobs in this area. We have a long summer ahead of us. I’m trying to look at the bright side. No more moaning about the empty nest :)</p>
<p>I might also mention that one of his friends at school (a Wharton kid) went through every possible avenue and could not find a job, and finally was granted an interview at the company my son found and got an offer. This company tends to interview at some large state universities and some large private universities. My son felt that his school helped him stand out for all the reasons we beat to death on these threads.</p>
<p>Don’t you love it (and kinda hate it) when they prove us wrong! ;)</p>
<p>It’s like the story with my son, where for 2 years I was *****ing about the time he was spending as the bartender/manager of a club while he was in college. I swore that it would hurt his grades and he would never get a job. </p>
<p>What stood out most on his resume and what did they most want to talk about during the interviews? His “management experience” at the bar! So, that darn job is probably what led to his current employment!! Okay, I admit it, I’m stupid!</p>
<p>so mowc, maybe my kid should start applying out west since many folks out there confuse Penn State with Penn anyway :)</p>
<p>We’ll see how this all works out. I have a feeling ds will land…it just may take a while.
In the meantime, the tips on this thread are helpful. And we are grateful that he has lots of time to look with no major financial pressures. It’s scary to read about the kids graduating with major loans.</p>
<p>My niece at Penn State (Sr. Engineering) has no job yet and my sister is about to kill her. She is limiting her search to, basically, downtown Philadelphia and, perhaps, something outside the city that she could get to from a downtown apartment. She hasn’t tried too hard yet…</p>
<p>MOWC, my niece is currently getting her PHD at Penn State in engineering, and works as a TA. Maybe our nieces know each other.</p>
<p>She worked for a while in DC for a govt contractor, but found that she’d go farther with her PHD, and I think she has a hankering for teaching eventually.</p>
<p>Actually, we’re hoping S will continue his education, but he really wants to take a break & will be starting this job after graduation instead. He insists he does plan to go to grad school & too the GRE & LSAT, so we shall see. Don’t think he took the GMAT, so maybe he should do that as well.</p>
<p>S graduated two years ago. He took a path that we never expected.:rolleyes:</p>
<p>That said, in two years, he has lived and worked in various parts of the country, traveled around the world, learned a different culture, worked in a high pressure job, been promoted twice, met the US vice president, negotiated with high level Iraqi officials, was involved with security allowing the Iraqi elections to be held, and has a staff working for him…</p>
<p>He took a break before graduate school to serve his country. At the time, we thought is was a big mistake. Now, we see that his potential is unlimited. He already has graduate school paid for, and has been offered a number of future opportunities.
We hope he continues to stay safe and will be home from Iraq in five months.</p>
<p>In this economy, this path may have been a good move for him. I can’t think of another entry level job that would have provided him with the experiences he has had to date.</p>
but it is solid and a great start at a wonderful company. I am very proud, since last summer he and I had a screaming fight when he bailed on the law school plan and I was saying “You will never get a job in this economy.”</p>