<p>Fallen - I read in a post from May that you had landed an internship at Wells Fargo. Did that fall through?</p>
<p>Also, just curious, why do you call yourself fallenone?</p>
<p>See that’s the problem. Only people who don’t try should end up like me. I try harder than anyone else but end up failing more than anyone else. Something’ terribly wrong. I’m not asking the career advisor to guarantee me a job; I’m asking them to do their job, which is to help me think of why. This isn’t your typical hard-to-find job situation, it’s a lot worse. The whole career needs to have a meeting and determine why; they’re the ones whose job is to help students land jobs and right now they’re not doing it. If my case really is a outlier (which you all seem to agree on), then it needs special attention. What if next year another student else goes through the same thing?</p>
<p>It’s really easy to get discouraged, but right now you have to fight through it.</p>
<p>I feel like we’d be more able to help you if you give us some more information. What, specifically, have the career advisers told you? What, specifically, have you personally done regarding your job search? Clearly something isn’t right, either at fault of the career center or you or both. Whatever the reason, there’s no shame in telling us exactly what you’ve gone through because we don’t know who you are and we can try to help.</p>
<p>I read tons of resumes and interview prospects for jobs quite often. If you want - PM me your resume and I will offer an opinion.</p>
<p>FallenOne - you’ve been asked this several times now but have not responded. What happened to the summer internship you were offered?</p>
<p>Regardless, I think you need to be talking to the counselors at SHS, not the Olin Career Center (but they’ve more than done their jobs if you’ve gotten at least 1 offer) or making baseless complaints like this on cc. I don’t mean that as a dig or insult - I know tons of people who’ve taken advantage of SHS mental health services for various reasons and it has been great for them. Taking advantage of resources like that is what you’re supposed to do when you hit roadblocks like this and can’t seem to pick yourself up. There’s zero shame in it. </p>
<p>Honestly, you’re showing some serious signs of depression on this thread and could probably benefit from talking to someone who’s qualified.</p>
<p>I’ll explain what exactly happened. To start, yes I did get an offer but it was the career advisor who recommended I don’t accept it because he didn’t think it was worth it; in that sense, it doesn’t count as a real offer. In reality I should’ve taken it because it at least paid well. If the job sucked, I could’ve at least spent time checking out Baton Rouge or New Orleans, but I instead chose to listen to the career advisor.</p>
<p>Here’s everything else they’ve lied to me about:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Put “permanent resident and work visa” on your resume, so employers don’t think you’re an international student who needs a sponsor. This probably made things worse because employers can’t assume my status, and they typically assume candidates are US citizens. By blatantly stating that I’m not a US citizen, I couldn’t get several interviews, let alone the job offer. I’ll have my citizenship before next year but I don’t know if it makes a difference because the US government doesn’t directly recruit on campus.</p></li>
<li><p>As details to your cover letter. This may be based on opinion but eventually I ended up adding too much details. They always tell me"Explain why this, why are you so interested in this job and not others, what do you hope to achieve, how does your background relevant, etc." Frankly my cover letters got so long to the point it was ridiculous, and employers didn’t even need to interview me.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The advisor who told me to do all this has resigned, maybe it was my fault. She probably never seen anyone struggling so hard to find job either.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The last times I went to the career center for mock interviews, they either told me nothing’s wrong or just the generic tips from website and pamphlets. What I needed to specific tips based a specific interview with a specific company. They failed to do that miserably.</p></li>
<li><p>The whole “you’ll be fine attitude.” I won’t be fine; this problem isn’t going to resolve itself. I realize the career center has no obligation to care what happens to me, but do they have no shame in doing nothing?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>That’s all for now but I’m sure there’s more. It’s my fault in the end, but not all of it. I started this whole job search based on the career center’s advice. I don’t have parents or friends who work in business, so I can listen to only the career center’s advice. All their advice turned out to be wrong, and I don’t blame them nearly as much I blame myself for being stupid enough to trust them.</p>
<p>OP, let’s step back. If you’ve applied for many positions and you don’t even get invited to interviews, it’s likely that your cover letter and resume need to refine, assuming your GPA is in range and the sought positions are realistic. That’s something pretty easy to fix, either by yourself (reading career guides) or seek help from the career center. If you get invited to first interviews and proceeded no further, arrange mock interviews with the career counselors. Own your own, research and think through the all the questions you have been asked and come up with good answers. Go over and memorize all that. Come up with your own questions, too. As far as interview coaching, I believe they even tape it and offer suggestions to you. If you get to the second round of interview and no offer, it’s little hard here. Probably the position/company you aim for is out of your range. Cast a wider net. I’ll go back to my original point with you: Be positive and believe in yourself. Nothing is more contagious than negativity. Good luck.</p>
<p>PS - just saw your most recent post. I stand with my suggestions. I’ll add something more, now that I saw some concrete activities you’ve ad with the career center: read employment guides on your own. Look up interview tips, guides, coaching… on youtube. Take initiatives.</p>
<p>Also, I’ve done my fair share of recruiting. If you want me to look over your resume, feel free to PM.</p>
<p>I disagree with many of the tips that the career center gave you. First, keep it simple, and short. That is the golden rule in business. Folks don’t have the time to read every word - and so often they skim. Set the resume up in a way that facilitates skimming.</p>
<p>Also, an internship at Wells Fargo would look great on the resume. Regardless of your actual duties. It is a little hard to believe that career services advised to turn this down. My S has two internships this summer - one unpaid. The other at like $10 an hour. Duties probably include getting coffee. But it wouldn’t make sense to turn either one down. In fact, he negotiated with the paying internship to reduce his hours to be able to also work the unpaid internship - since they are vastly different in focus.</p>
<p>At this point why not look for a job. Better to make some money while showing some enterprise than do nothing. Plan B. And it can also look good on the resume if you depict it properly.</p>
<p>Johnson might be on to something with the suggestion for counseling. Take advantage of as many opportunities as you can that are available to you.</p>
<p>My career advisor personally recommended that. It wasn’t at a corporate office but at a mortgage retail branch.</p>
<p>So it seems like you agree that the career advisors aren’t exactly helping and they at least share the blame.</p>
<p>This really is not about placing blame. It was not a good decision to turn down that internship. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and I was not in the room for the discussion. Personally, I would have taken it regardless of the division or the duties, unless you had another option. Ever heard about the bird in the hand? Well it’s worth 10 in the bush.</p>
<p>Rather than continuing to complain, could you at least (finally) explain what you have personally done for your job search? We’re willing to give you some advice if you would just give us something to work with. Did you apply online? Did you look at on-campus recruiters? How many jobs did you apply to in total? Did you go to Junior Jumpstart? Can you give us a better idea of how long your cover letter is? What have you done in terms of networking? Are you still applying? Any job is better than no job. Some insight would be helpful.</p>
<p>I didn’t attend junior jumpstart because at that point I was already suspecting that whatever advice the school could provide would be useless so I chose to avoid that.</p>
<p>Cover letter should be 2-3 paragraphs and only a few sentences each. I know how long it should be and what should be on it.</p>
<p>I’m not applying online anymore because without knowing someone within the company my application won’t even be read. Don’t call me wrong on this one because I know it’s true. With companies receding 1000 applications a day, do you think they’ll read all of them?</p>
<p>Yes on campus recruiting is my primary target. But it’s still hard even here.</p>
<p>How can we help you if you don’t want to hear that you are wrong? Like or not - you are wrong.</p>
<p>Well I’m glad you know applying online isn’t worth it because in most cases, that’s true. I found Junior Jumpstart to be quite helpful, and several hundred of your classmates took advantage of it. Maybe you’ve had some bad experiences with the career center, but I think it’s pretty cynical to assume there’s nothing good they can offer you.</p>
<p>It’s discouraging not to have a job. As I said before, getting a job right now is not easy for anyone. I think regardless of your advisor’s advice, it was utterly foolish to turn down an offer when you didn’t have any other companies pursuing you. But again, there’s nothing that can be done about that now so I won’t lecture you on it.</p>
<p>If you’re not going to get a job this summer, there are certainly things you CAN do to increase your chances for next summer. Network as much as you can. Look for local groups and go to their meetings. Get in the habit of keeping in touch with people you meet. I’m sorry you aren’t happy with the career center and it’s never easy to get a job, but I doubt you genuinely think you’ve done all you can.</p>
<p>Also, I think Johnson’s suggestion to see a counselor at SHS is a great idea.</p>
<p>Going to continue to beat the dead horse, but I also couldn’t disagree with you more. Yours is one experience, and honestly the only time I have ever heard of someone downright hating WashU who also didn’t do anything about it. Every person I know who disliked WashU (and that would actually be only “person” singular) transferred out once they realized it wasn’t for them. </p>
<p>I have loved every second of my time at WashU. I came to WashU because I wanted to keep growing and learning and be challenged rather than coasting through the next four years. Despite how hard it is and despite the fact that I was told within the first week of starting my first major classes that I should never expect to get an A, and would receive an A- if I was extremely lucky, my time at WashU has been incredibly rewarding and amazing in every way I ever hoped my college experience would be. When you put 6,000 high-achieving students together in one place, everyone is not going to get As. That’s just the way it works. No one ever said college would be easy. Part of growing up is beginning to realize that high school was as easy as it was ever going to get, and it’s only uphill from there. But I couldn’t have asked for a better learning environment than WashU, which has always been incredibly positive, nurturing, and has pushed me to excell rather than asking me to fail. Also, I’ve definitely had the chance to go out often (though not as much as I would have liked recently, but that is my own fault and no one elses and I take full responsibility for taking on more than I could handle).</p>
<p>And no one said that it was easy to find a job in the current market (though most seniors I know either had jobs by graduating or have recently accepted one or are continuing to gradschool). Despite being a member of the least-known school at WashU (really, no one in design has heard of it, aside from one company I applied to that a fellow WashU student had interned at the previous summer), I’ve still gotten internships I’m proud of. I’ve gotten jobs because I pushed as hard in my job/internship search as hard as I push and work in school. You have to cast your net as wide as possible (I’m not exaggerating when I say I applied to approximately 50 places) and not be too picky because everything is a learning experience.</p>
<p>I will agree though that the career advisors aren’t always the best, but if you keep going to them and make them work with you, they will. There’s also so many of them that if you don’t like the one you’re working with, there has to be one that works for you. As for the b-school advisors, I thought they were incredibly helpful the two times I was there (I was considering a second major or a minor in the b-school at one point…not anymore). </p>
<p>In all honesty, it seems like you didn’t know what you were getting into when you came to WashU. Since it doesn’t seem like you’re graduated yet (?), you still have time to get things together. College is what you make of it, and I can’t help but reiterate the need for a positive attitude. At times, this school has been incredibly hard academically and socially, but by putting a positive spin on things I’ve always made it through. </p>
<p>I seriously hope that things look up for you. I understand you’re coming from a place that seems impossible, but I’m sure everything will turn around eventually. </p>
<p>Also this post is incredibly rambling and probably non-sensical but I, like everyone else, really felt the need to respond…</p>
<p>I was not familiar with Junior Jumpstart - so I Googled it. Did you know that they bring in outside speakers from across the country? That alone would be a reason to go.</p>
<p>Yes, by no means was Junior Jumpstart merely an extension of the career center. Many of the speakers were actual company hiring managers willing to share valuable information like what they look for in a candidate, resume and cover letter tips, and more. The exact sort of thing that many people could use, including TheFallenOne.</p>
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</p>
<p>That’s such an incredibly foolish position to hold. Quite frankly, I’m not sure how you expect to succeed with how easily you give/gave up. For the record, the co-op I had last year I got through applying online via the company. I didn’t know anyone there at all, had no connections to them, etc. Also, just to keep count here, I had applied to literally dozens of companies - it’s all just a numbers game (several other interviews I’ve had were through the same method).</p>
<p>The things you claim to “know to be true” are clearly not always correct. You really need to gain some real perspective on life- you have such a skewed and false outlook on how the internship/job search works. Meet with some other counselors in the career center (as someone else said, there’s at least someone there who will work well with you), and stop the pity party already.</p>
<p>Think of the career center as a resource- not a job placement service. They advise, they suggest- then they expect you to use reasonable judgment to make your best decisions. </p>
<p>It is clear you are upset. What you may not see as clearly as we do, is just how negative you are coming across. We weren’t there with you at the career meetings, so we don’t know why they advised you as you say they did. Or, whether they gave solid advice which you didn’t- or couldn’t- quite follow. </p>
<p>You are at a crossroads. You have a choice: mourn the challenges and get mired in that OR acknowledge the challenges, then face them square on and move forward. Think about that. Breathe. Make the changes you know you need to make. And move forward.</p>
<p>To be fair, Johnson, I happen to know that among recent Wash U graduates, 50% got an job/internship through the career center and on-campus recruiting while only 10% got a job/internship through internet searches. So it’s not necessarily wise to give up applying online altogether, but it certainly is not the best option.</p>
<p>To further clarify, 22% landed a position through networking, 12% landed a position thanks to a prior internship or co-op, and 6% put “other”–I’m not quite sure what that entails. 88% met with a Wash U career adviser while 12% did not.</p>
<p>And for what it’s worth (personal anecdotes can be more helpful than statistics), networking has easily been the most helpful method for me.</p>