<p>It sounds like your son has posted his resume on a few sites and that
headhunters find his resume and try to get him hired at companies that
they either have exclusive contracts with or that are already publicly
posted openings. My son has had a number of contacts from these types
of folks. He is working with one of them now that has an exclusive
arrangement with and it’s going to turn into an in-person interview
once they can settle on a date and time.</p>
<p>They make a commission (it can be quite a bit) when their contact
eventually results in a hire. A lot of companies prefer not to go
with headhunters or refuse to pay a finders fee to save on hiring
costs. The headhunters can provide a service in the way of sifting
through resumes though.</p>
<p>He should have an “Objectives” section in his resume so that
headhunters have a little idea as to what he wants. Headhunters and
recruiters would like you to choose from the positions that they have
open. You could say that you’d like anything but headhunters and
recruiters typically aren’t experts in the technical areas for which
they are hiring for. They may understand degrees, majors and buzzwords
but they usually don’t have the technical depth to know how good a fit
you may be. If they think that you are a fit and will work with them,
then they can pass your resume to the hiring manager who does know what
they are looking for.</p>
<p>So it would help if your son went through their positions and applied
for the individual positions instead of saying “anything”. He should
also provide a cover letter - I’m interested in this position because
I like the area or I worked in an internship in the area or it blends
well with my courses in x, y, z.</p>
<p>Another tip would be to study the company before talking to the
recruiter if the company name is known. Knowing the company’s
products, names of their executives, annual sales, profits, major
customers can be helpful. The information may or may not come up but,
if it does, recruiters are often impressed that you know something
about the company.</p>
<p>Winning their favor: I think that giving them exclusive rights to
market you may help. One of our son’s recruiters asked for that. The
upside is that they will work harder for you because they don’t have
to worry that you’ve already applied for a position that they want to
work on for you - it improves their chances of selling you and it
prevents cross hires where they present you to an employer and the
employer then says to them that they already recieved your resume.
I wouldn’t go this route if your son is scouring the boards for jobs
and can jump on them with resume and cover letter fairly quickly.</p>
<p>That said, my first job was through a head-hunter and it was a good
match and I was very happy with the results.</p>
<p>Thanks BC. I like the idea of giving “exclusive” preference. My son is applying for finance jobs in an area where there seems to be a lot of finance jobs listed. Unfortunately, he isn’t directed enough to say he wants to do one particular aspect in finance because he needs the experience to better understand the industry. He always includes a cover letter and he has a broad “objective” in his resume. What he really needs is an beginner’s opportunity to learn, but recruiters just don’t want to be bothered. Jobs like that aren’t available anymore.</p>
<p>I deal with headhunters a lot, both for recruiting and for myself. </p>
<p>I would not do exclusive, always work with few headcounters. He needs to call them all the time. They are lazy. If they have 200 applicants like your son, they will send in the first 20 who come to their mind first. By calling them all the time, he´ll be fresh on their mind. I had one headhunter who recommended one candidate to me because she was bugging him everyday, and he thought she would be perfect for me.:)</p>
<p>What about your son´s interviewing skills? How is he dressed? To be honest, when I was in my 20s (not having many specific skills), headhunters used to like to send me to interviews because I dressed well and I was engaging (well spoken). If all else failed, they would get a feedback of “She was nice, enjoyed meeting her.” The worst thing for a headhunter is when the interviewer doesn´t think a candidate has right skills and is socially awkward (not saying your son is like that). This is especially the case in finance - right clothing, shoes are important (I imagine it is the case for most corporate or client facing jobs).</p>
<p>Shoes ARE important–when my former boss used to interview jurors after he had won trials, he was shocked to find out how many of them mentioned liking his shoes & how well they were kept clean & polished!</p>
<p>I do know a guy that we all think is extremely socially awkward but he has had MANY internship offers for both chem E & finance (his double-majors), as well as full ride offers for college. I guess his brightness helps compensate for his awkwardness. He’s VERY bright.</p>
<p>Is it possible for him to find a mentor that could go over job postings with him and describe what the jobs entail?</p>
<hr>
<p>Just saw an interesting couple of posts in my son’s email.</p>
<p>One is a $5K summer internship, Google Summer of Code style, for three positions working for software used by non-profits. They have a number of projects and you just have to submit a valid project proposal that you can reasonably deliver. These are projects for very good humanitarian causes. There are currently no takers from my son’s school which I am interpreting to mean that students in his school generally already have summer jobs.</p>
<p>The other is three coop jobs (might be for six months): porting a QA system, development engineer, and R&D work. These are targeted at sophomores and juniors - my personal feeling is that their requirements are a bit higher than you’d normally see in sophomores and juniors (the want experience with Unix, Linux, Windows Server installations, PL/SQL and a few other things).</p>
<p>Second that. First impression take the interview far ahead.</p>
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<p>Isn’t this an overkill. Your DS is going to be a graduate student. Looking into his emails …</p>
<p>Maybe you need to let him handle his job hunt. It might be that he is unable to express his dislinking to the jobs you are forcing him to look at and since he knows you are monitoring his email, he is unable to apply to the places he really interested in applying.</p>
<p>hahaha HImom–I was juror for a 4 month trial and that is exactly what I noticed! I have since paid much more attention to not only the condition of my shoes, but also the style!</p>
<p>He’s already in grad school. He finished early.</p>
<p>We have conjugal access to email in our family.</p>
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<p>I usually avoid telling people how they should manage their family dynamics unless it’s specifically requested as it’s generally considered rude.</p>
<p>^^ You go, BCEagle. I just adore these folks who come on here to presume we parents are smothering our children, just because we’re their “go to” people, either for advice or acting, in effect, secretarially, for them if it’s a boost. </p>
<p>I don’t read all of my son’s emails, probably haven’t seen his email account in 3 years, but there have certainly been times when he wanted me to access either his email or some site where he needed to login and get info for him.</p>
<p>There are over-the-top helicopter parents in the world and on this board. Sometimes they need to hear it. Perhaps it takes a little more sophistication than POIH has to tell the difference between a family that functions as a “mutual aid society” and one in which parents “force” their children to do things against their will.</p>
<p>PS My father always told me that shoes must be perfect - “you can tell a man by his shoes” (you’ll forgive the lack of gender neutrality as he started his career in a different era).</p>
<p>limabeans, My thoughts are along the lines of oldfort’s. I think it is the interviewing situation where your S could use some improvement. This is probably a combination of style and content.</p>
<p>Our S is on the quiet side, definitely not glib. He did mock interviews (IDK how many) with his career services office. When he was a senior and was flown in to a company in which he had serious interest, he asked us to do some prep with him to come up with how to answer certain questions as well as good questions for him to ask.</p>
<p>I think, for example, that an interviewee should always be prepared for the “Do you have any questions for us?” and “No, I don’t” is not an acceptable answer. The interviewee should know enough about what’s going on in the company to have some intelligent questions about the direction they’re going. I think answering “Anything” to “what type of position interests” you is the same type of non-winnning answer. I don’t mean this as a criticism of him; just that he needs to plan in advance how to answer. Sure, he’s green and that’s okay. And it’s a little tougher when he’s talking to a recruiter who may represent an array of different types of companies. But he can figure out a type of position or two that he <em>knows</em> he would love and then show his flexibility by saying “I would love to have a position in xxx or yyy function, but I am just starting my career and would be open to other entry-level opportunities as well.”</p>
<p>I also think it is natural for many of us to choke or become tongue-tied at certain questions. But a number of them are predictable. My personal non-faves are the “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” type qx. So you and he could role-play until he has comfortable responses to all those types of questions that you can brainstorm.</p>
<p>I think it is very pseudo of the CC to pick and choose posts to apply logic. A logic is factual or truth iff applied to all things in equality.</p>
<p>Interfaring in children life to the extent of monitoring emails is somehow perceived in this context as less outrageous and to some extent acceptable in contrast to people coming after posts that ask children to call back home once a day 5000 miles away at college.</p>
<p>Way to go, I again and again forget where am I posting…</p>
<p>If a child comes to you to ask for help with a choice of internship then you are “go to” people. But if you are monitoring your child’s email then you are a extreem hovering/helicoptering parent.</p>
<p>The problem is that CC had told many parent to let children decide what internships to pick when questions were asked about it.</p>
<p>But CC is keeping mum on this subject which is really weired. It only points to one thing the problem is not the content but the posters.</p>
<p>Reading through this thread, I was thinking about the interview situation, especially the poster who felt that his/her kid seemed to have problems when it came to the interview. Which got me thinking: How does a kid get experience with the interview part of the process of job hunting? I don’t mean figuring out one’s responses to the typical questions that employers/recruiters ask–I’m talking about doing something like role playing where a kid could get some feedback about his/her manner/demeanor. </p>
<p>I worked in textbook publishing–a field where we had lots of summer interns (usually English majors). There were lots of kids who could have done the job, but the ones who ended up getting the job were those who presented themselves with a certain level of confidence and interest. I have a D who wants to be an actor. She has more confidence than most people her age. I’m sure she could go into an interview situation and walk out with a job. I have an older D who is very quiet (not shy) and doesn’t warm up to people quickly. She feels it’s “bogus” to “sell people” on her skills. I disagree–I think attitude/demeanor/enthusiasm/personality (I guess I can’t pin down the right word) is a big part of the interview process and might be almost as important as having the qualifications to do a job. I think most kids could use a little help/coaching in this area.</p>
<p>I looked further into the CC option, if nothing else just to get me out of the house while I am looking and maybe keep me in parents favor so I can stay here longer while I look, and actually any of the business programs that they offer and the accounting program all look very, very doable with the coping skills I’ve developed since receiving my LD diagnosis-- I found out freshman year of college so there is a big difference from then to now. I wonder if it might be helpful even to just take a couple of courses just to have that background if nothing else, make me more well rounded than just the BA in poli sci. It would cost a chunk of change and I’d have to work my way through, only a handful of the courses I’ve already taken are usable, so I guess it’s just a matter of whether or not it would make any difference at all in my job hunt. If it might help I’d be willing to give it a shot. The business program looks like a lot of fun, as does accounting.</p>
<p>My university’s career center does interview practice, I think. My high school definitely did. For a while I made it a point to go to interviews even if I wasn’t interested in the job just to get the interview experience under my belt, my parents have insisted on that, but I usually only need to do one if I haven’t done any in a while to find my groove again. I think they’re fun!</p>
<p>^^^^^Best of luck. I know several college grads (recent and from the seventies) who have taken cc accounting courses while applying for jobs in a difficult market, some just until finding a full-time job in their field and others to get enough background to apply for entry-level jobs in accounting.</p>
<p>Many cc’s and even some 4 year universities have programs specifically geared towards giving college grads from any major the additional credits and courses needed to eventually take the CPA exam.</p>
<p>The career center usually offers mock interview services. They might
even take a video so that they can point out strong and weak areas.</p>
<p>You can go to various websites that show strong and weak mock
interviews too. I believe that Monster.com has these kinds of videos
in addition to videos on how to do an interview.</p>
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<p>I agree - you need to sell yourself unless your skills and/or
background are so strong and in high-demand that the employer doesn’t
care about appearance, demeanor, speech, etc. We hire many like this.</p>
<p>Doing presentations is usually done in K-12 these days so students
should have some exposure to public speaking, panel interviews, and
forums where they can gain composure and poise.</p>
<p>There are public speaking clubs where you can pick up skills useful in
interviews too.</p>
<p>oldfort, jmmom, and HImom: you’re right. My son, who has Asperger’s, has tons of social awkwardness issues. He’s particularly bad when he is expected to say anything much beyond, “Nice to meet you”. The good news is that he has had a job since last fall, and he’s (finally) becoming more comfortable. He’ll never be a chatty guy, but at least it’s a good sign. Meanwhile I’ll have to check out his shoes, maybe he should have “interview shoes”.</p>
<p>We joke with my younger one that, if she gets to the interview stage, she’s got the job. Or the college placement. Or virtually anything. Doesn’t matter if the odds are 40:1. Just get her to the interview… It has worked time and time again. For her Big 4 accounting internship this summer, there were 200 applicants for 3 places. Applicants from Wharton, Georgetown, Columbia, Princeton. Almost all with at least one more year of school than she had, and accounting experience. Didn’t matter. Two full days of interviews. Every department picked her first. When she called to turn down an amazing job she was offered (there were so many), the folks on the other end asked her to PLEASE stay in touch, and that they’d have another job for her whenever she wanted it.</p>
<p>But I haven’t a clue how to bottle it. It isn’t an academic skill, and it has nothing to do with SATs/ACTs/GREs (hers are “challenged”, to say the least.) She doesn’t get it from me or her mom. It’s just that, after five minutes with her, she’s just someone you want to be around, preferably for a long time. </p>
<p>Call it “the intangibles”. I wish I understood it better.</p>
<p>^^^^
I have a child with these skills as well. They are born this way I’m convinced! As a very young child he could walk up to an adult stick his hand out to introduce himself and engage the adult in conversation. He can talk to young and old alike. It helps that he is tall, athletic, good looking and confident but his people skills are out of this world. Teachers, coaches and adults who interact with him are floored by him. He has friends all over the place - I have 3 other kids - all are great - but none with these skills! Wish I had them.</p>