<p>I am an ME and will be receiving my bachelor's degree in a week. I go to a pretty good university with a decent gpa (3.34 cumu, 3.7 eng). However, I do not have any work experience. I have tried to look for internships in the past but became discouraged because I was not getting any replies. The only work experience I have is with my family business. Additionally, I don't have any references from professors because I didn't talk to any of them personally when in their classes. I introverted personality has kept me from being able to build relationships that is required to have references.</p>
<p>I have had interviews with 2 big companies, but they did not seem to get far. It seems like the smaller local companies are harder to land interviews with than the large companies. The reason why I don't interview well is because the interviewers like to ask about work experience and leadership on campus and I don't have much of those. Now I am regretting my past for not pursuing at least some type of work on campus or something. </p>
<p>If you were in my situation, what would you do? I am not a lazy person. I work well in teams and often contribute more than any member. I am just afraid my work history is going to ruin my chances of ever being able to demonstrate my work ethics. I am 23 years old and I just hope it is not too late to break out of the shell that I have been in.</p>
<p>Have you done any projects outside of school? That would help. So would your experiences in your family business. It’s all about selling yourself. If you know you’re qualified for the job, then you know that you’ll be able to prove it in your interview and in your work experience (you have plenty of time to prepare for interviews and I assume you’d be a competent worker). The trick is that you have to escape the giant stack of resumes by standing out in some useful way.
You haven’t had luck with interviews in the past? Well, hate to say it but that’s entirely your fault. You don’t go into an interview without preparation and hope they don’t ask the tough questions. You prepare for those tough questions by giving an answer that they would be happy with. Salesmen plan out 15-minute conversations days or even weeks in advance (not by script, but by considering all sorts of scenarios). In this case, you’re a salesman selling yourself for the job. If they ask a question you think you would have trouble answering, you’d better have an answer prepared that would impress the interviewers. And if you’re concerned about being seen as repeating a canned performance, you should practice enough to sound natural. The point is, you don’t go in hoping things will go well; you make sure things can’t end badly.</p>
<p>thanks for the tips, i definitely need to plan more for my interviews. I had a chance for a second interview on both interviews, but things didn’t work out. It may be a nice way to say I didn’t get selected, but they said “you were initially selected for a second interview, but the position was filled”.</p>
<p>Yeah, that sounds like a nice way to say that you’re not selected. They can already tell by the first interview whether or not they like you. Hence the importance of first impressions.</p>
<p>Not having any internships is a minus but not a very big minus IMHO. When I was interviewing applicants and discussing any internships that they had I was mostly interested to get a feel if they were team players. It was imperative to me that I hire people that could work well with others. It’s the old “I learned everything I needed to know in kindergarden” type of thing. There are ways other than internships that can convey that skill. Did you do a senior project? What was your role? Did you work with people other than your family (they HAVE to put with you!!!) in your family business job?</p>
<p>Overcomming your “introvertness” is probably a bigger obstacle. You can do that with knowledge. Learn everything you can about the company you are interviewing with. That will, hopefully, make you more comfortable. Have friends and family members conduct mock interviews with you. Don’t just give short or even one word answers. But don’t talk on and on either (most introverts wouldn’t anyways). Arrive in the company parking lot early and just sit in the car and relax, listen to music, etc. Show up at the door a couple of minutes before the scheduled time. Nothing beats being late to make one more nervous so you want to avoid that. Everyone is nervous when they are in this process including the one conducting the interview (they just have had more practce hiding it).</p>