<p>I had a look at a job post this morning and it definitely did say “Hard Work” is required. I haven’t run across any postings about “working smarter”.</p>
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<p>It does happen. I’ve been salaried (outside of running my own company) for 30+ years and do recall a period where we had paid overtime. We were paid for two hours for every eight hours that we carried a beeper. Of course we weren’t paid for the time that we worked if we were called in to work on a critical problem - we didn’t get paid for that as it was part of the job. We generally worked from 50 to 80 hours a week anyways - getting a little more for carrying a beeper was just a little bit nice.</p>
<p>I think that manager always carried beepers. I don’t know whether or not they got paid extra for doing so.</p>
<p>If it’s project work, then companies have to do this or the staff gets burned out. We have a definite project cycle which has its ups and downs in the various phases and there are times when there is a lot of pressure and times to relax. I think that manager try to time the down time with holidays and popular vacation times. Of course, things don’t always work out as planned.</p>
<p>Yep, interns get overtime and a generous stipend for mileage/parking when using personal cars on company business. I warned D not to get accustomed to the overtime but to enjoy it while it lasted!</p>
<p>No OT for D1 and she is going to work very long hours when she starts her new job this July.</p>
<p>She got a call from a mom last week to tutor her daughter again in June to get her ready for finals. She wants every hour D1 has available to just make sure the daughter is studying, and for that she is willing to pay $50/hour. Tutoring is going to pay better than D1´s real job, so D1 is willing to give up her last month of freedom for that kind of money.</p>
<p>Remind your kids that if they are “contract” employees, they will be getting 1099’s and need to make sure they are diligent about filing state and federal taxes next Spring. When you are being withheld and getting a refund you generally don’t need a reminder- if you happen to owe taxes, it is harder to remember on your own!!</p>
<p>They should also save those receipts for those restaurant “business meetings” with their colleagues. It might be worthwhile looking into what kind of business deductions they are entitled to (computers, business calls, etc.) as a contractor in an internship. I remember the good, old days before documentation was required.</p>
<p>My interview today went well, I think, and it sounds like it’s a really good opportunity. I thought I was just interviewing to be a receptionist but they said they were also considering me for some accounting positions and they liked my work experience for that, and they said they don’t hire receptionists to be receptionists forever and the idea is for them to advance into other areas of the business fairly quickly-- they mentioned HR, accounting, and marketing specifically. That was why they were looking for candidates who had bachelors degrees to begin with. Most of the interview had to do with skills much more significant than secretarial. So that sounds like it would be a good learning opportunity. They told me there would be three levels of interviews and they are just beginning the first round, so we’ll see. I really want this one!</p>
<p>I had mentioned something I had read about the company in my research last night because it was relevant to something I was talking about, and they asked me, “what else can you tell me about our company?” That was a scary question, I was glad I did my homework! I think I held my own really well, I knew all about everything relevant and was able to reference things I knew about the company in my response. Even if I don’t get the job, this was really good interview practice.</p>
<p>Son got called by a recruiter and was excited by a job that the recruiter wants to submit his resume for. I suggested that he slow down while I tried to figure out what the job was and what his potential commitments to the recruiter were.</p>
<p>I saw the description and the job is one of the lesser areas of CS. CS grads can do a variety of jobs (it’s a versatile degree) but there are some job areas with far less career potential than others. Taking a good starting salary now with limits on career growth is a kind of trap. I deciphered the fancy job title and description and provided him with an english version of the job along with the recommendation that he send the recruiter an email stating the type of job that he wants. Perhaps he should be a little more direct on his resume in the objectives section too. It is a solid job in a very solid company though it is a contract to full-time position.</p>
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<p>I think that the vast majority of candidates don’t do their homework. We mainly hire from elite schools and many candidates don’t know what we do. I can understand that students are busy with classes, projects and multiple interviews but it only takes two minutes to look us up on Yahoo Finance. Good work on doing your homework.</p>
<p>Son has an interview tomorrow - I’m going to remind him to read up on the company right now.</p>
<p>Son sent an email to the new recruiter stating what he wants. It’s interesting that the recruiter is on the West Coast. I guess that geography doesn’t matter that much in the age of the internet and cell phones - except that you can’t interview in person. I don’t think that he’ll hear back from the recruiter.</p>
<p>He read up for his interview today and sent a confirmation for an interview tomorrow.</p>
<p>I had a look on indeed.com this morning and found job postings (full-time permanent, coop and internships) from a few companies that have posted these before. I also found some new postings from well-known companies like IBM and Red Hat. The Red Hat job is interesting but they want someone with a CS undergrad degree and someone with an MBA or someone working on one. It’s a competitive marketing job (I used to be an MIS manager for a marketing and analysis group). Cool blend of skills and it sounds like interesting work.</p>
<p>Apparently that recruiter sent his resume in as he received an email from the HR department of one of those Japanese mega-companies. It appears that they are staffing up to do cloud infrastructure work (one of his interviews tomorrow is for another company staffing up to do cloud support in their server products). I had a look at their online job postings and they are mostly QA/build/tools jobs. In general, I’m pushing him towards research and development type jobs that are more about CS/math than those jobs that are more about using existing tools to support the R&D teams. I don’t think that it will hurt to talk to them though. I’m going to suggest that he talk to them to see what they are looking for as they might have positions open that aren’t advertised.</p>
<p>Your son is really lucky to have you helping him through this complicated process, bc. Between the two of you, he’s sure to find something that works for him. Just reading through this, it seems far more difficult to find the right job than it appears, with people not posting what they have, and people interviewing for things different than what they advertise.</p>
<p>I am the original poster for this thread and have been reading the responses all along. Interesting to see the twists and turns this thread has taken. It also prompted several private messages to me (and my son) with some specific advice. </p>
<p>He is really bogged down with his senior project right now. The school shop, who were the ones on the hook to machine some parts, couldn’t meet the necessary tolerances and the parts have to be sent out to a commercial shop. The college required bidding process (not bad if you know its coming) has slowed their progess considerably and his team is sweating it out whether they will finish on time. Going to be a fun next month.</p>
<p>Anyways, with his senior project issues, he has spent less time on the job search when I would like to see more. Just so many hours in a day however. I have noticed some replys discussing recruiters. My question: Are they worth it for his case, as a mechanical engineering major? Who pays, the company or the job seeker? What experiences have people had with these services? Recommendations?</p>
<p>I got my first professional job through a recruiter and a few later jobs that way too. That was a long time ago and recruiters established personal relationships with you so that they knew something about you, where you wanted to go, etc. Today, resumes and jobs are public so recruiters can try to score a quick commission by matching up employer and job-seeker. There isn’t necessarily a physical meeting though which depersonalizes the relationship.</p>
<p>All of the recruiting practices that I’ve seen in tech has the employer paying a commission to the recruiter which is why you see some job postings where they state that they won’t pay a recruiting fee. I would assume that the same practice is in place for mechanical engineers.</p>