<p>If only that were true. These days You get one seasoned guy as the head of the project who shows up at the beginning and end and a bunch of new to three year people do most of the work. All about leveraging the name. But they do pay well and hire top liberal arts and other majors grads. Of course you work 6.5 days a week 12 hours a day and hardly ever get home more than a day at a time.</p>
<p>My son is in NY looking for a job with no luck. He was a history/political science major in a too ten school and has been unemployed now for a month. He says that job hunting sucks. I feel for him.</p>
<p>Sorry, that’s a top ten school. It wouldn’t matter, he’s still unemployed.</p>
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<p>It seems to me to be part of the theme of companies wanting employees
to take the risks in getting education and training with companies
picking from those with education.</p>
<p>In the past, companies hired people and expected to train them in
their own work. Basically they hired someone that they thought could
get the job done with their talent, character and other attributes of
the person. Today that isn’t the case as much.</p>
<p>The President’s plan to create a Community College certificate to
train a huge number of people for advanced tech manufacturing jobs is
interesting but the prospective employees take all of the risk and
incur the expense and time with no guaranteed job at the end of it
all. My friend’s daughter who didn’t do well at the local Community
College, entered a nursing program a few years ago where a local
hospital paid for her education and then hired her is my best recent
example of a company that took someone that didn’t do well in
high-school and had issues in formal education and made a productive
person out of her - paying for her education and taking the risks,
and, of course, reaping the benefits.</p>
<p>That said, I do think that older workers need to keep skills current
(I’m not the best example of this though I do have tech hobbies that
generated job offers in the past). I also think that it’s very
important to get healthy if you aren’t currently. I’m over at the diet
and exercise thread a lot - I was 245 and that didn’t present a nice
appearance. I’m about 196 right now and am in the best physical shape
that I have been in for the last 12 years. I don’t want physical
condition and appearance as a negative on an interview (btw, I haven’t
had an interview since 1994).</p>
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<p>I wasn’t familiar with the term but I have a better idea of how some
of these “companies” are using the term.</p>
<p>BTW, the job issue with our son has taken a fairly big load off of my
mind - it’s reduced stress in one area just as another area is popping
up - massive workload from now until the end of the summer. I guess
that I’m very happy to make the trade even though life may be rather
unpleasant for a while. I have a fair number of connections and
experience in the tools that he will be using and these are available
to him if needed. If he completes the 1-year RA, then my connections
will be far more useful in a job search.</p>
<p>Daughter has not heard about her retail job application. They wanted
her social security number and I told her to put: will provide upon
hire and that may have disqualified her. I don’t particularly like the
practice now of retailers having you apply online and putting your
private information out there. It may be that she has no choice in
doing so in the future for these kinds of jobs. Our headline
unemployment number is 4.8% in my state. The actual number is
something like 11%. Nothing to get excited about but considerably
better than the rest of the country. I’m going to ask her to ramp up
the applications. I am also considering giving her the “stock broker”
job that my son has now. I wanted him to place a trade for me
yesterday (it would have made a few thousand on the day) but he was at
his job. I can train my daughter to do the same thing now that he is
busy with his own work.</p>
<p>I am happy to see the enthusiasm of students and graduates here as
this is what gets you through life when times are hard.</p>
<p>Some summer internships including marketing internships from UMass Boston in the Boston area.</p>
<p><a href=“https://sites.google.com/a/umb.edu/step/internship-descriptions[/url]”>https://sites.google.com/a/umb.edu/step/internship-descriptions</a></p>
<p>Son received a request for an interview from a large medical device maker company in the Boston area this morning. I’ll talk to him about it tonight to see if he wants to talk to them.</p>
<p>So I got a call today from the company I’d interviewed with upper management for last week, and they let me know that they would like to consider me for another position next week instead. So I guess that’s exciting… not sure if that’s a good sign for my chances of getting hired here or not. This is the sort of position I’d have been looking to get promoted into from the position I originally interviewed for, so this could be good and it is not your run-of-the-mill entry level front desk assistant job. This is a “real” job where I would have a hands on opportunity to learn an industry. So I am looking forward to the interview, though not entirely sure what to think of this change of events. I am hoping this means that they like me.</p>
<p>^Yup, sounds like they like you and thought that you were over-qualified for the position you applied for. Good luck!</p>
<p>It’s interesting because I am sure I would never have gotten this interview if I had applied for this position directly. In terms of my education and background I was more qualified for the first position. The only thing I can imagine that would make me stand out for this position was all the research I had done about what the company does in preparation for the other interviews and the interest I expressed in getting into this field. While that’s all well and good I can’t imagine how I could compete with the people who would NORMALLY be applying for this position-- and I just went from a pool of 2-3 competitors for one job to a wide open one for another. So I will have to do a lot more homework and hope for the best.</p>
<p>Emaheevu, I got at least 2 jobs where the position that was advertised wasn’t really a good fit, but there turned out to be another position in the company that they hadn’t bothered to advertise for. Good luck!</p>
<p>My son, a college sophomore, went to a site for job shodowing. It was exactly as predicted, maybe worse. It started off with a pitch from the receptionist about how much she likes her job. Then, they moved on to explaining how you can make it to top management quite easily. Fortunately, son was skeptical from the get-go.</p>
<p>It proceeded to a point where son and a salesperson went out in search of customers who needed a new windshield b/c their windshield is dinged. (apparently it’s a law that states such windshields have to be replace.) The salesman went from store to store in strips malls and even asked strangers on the street.</p>
<p>As my son describes it, they’re looking for the most impressionable people to tag-team some guy trying to sell a product for very low margins. Pretty sad. Is this what unemployment has come to?</p>
<p>Lima–don’t let him shadow the Kirby vacuum sales people next!</p>
<p>BCEagle, at some point employers can not be said to be “picking from those with education”. Rather, it must be said that employers are picking those who have very specific training, training provided by someone else. If education were sufficient, then all those well-educated middle age mid-level managers that are getting laid off and passed over for interviews would be attractive to employers.</p>
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True of anyone who educates themselves beyond HS.</p>
<p>There are thousands of postings for jobs like that, limabeans. There is one company in particular, I think it’s called cydcor, that is just the same company under hundreds of different names. They interview dozens of people a day, take them out to “shadow” a “marketing manager” for a day during the interview process which consists of going door to door to sell coupon books, they take weeks and weeks to ever pay you, and it’s pretty much impossible to get promoted to management-- and why would you want to anyway. You have to research any company you haven’t heard of before even bothering, there are SO MANY of these postings out there. I got dozens of scam opportunities a week before I started researching companies before I even bothered to apply.</p>
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<p>Yes, good differentiation on terms.</p>
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<p>That’s what I’m hearing. If you’re in that category, you need to get your hands dirty doing something useful. In tech, it’s pretty easy to do because those inclined to can self-train in expensively.</p>
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<p>This sort of thing is news to me.</p>
<p>Son is going in to do his job paperwork on Monday. He’s had a look at the work that they’ve done so far (there’s no documentation) and is reading a book that I gave him to get up to speed on the technology that he’ll be using.</p>
<p>He replied to the medical device company that want time slots for phone interviews and said that he would be free in a few months. The manager said to contact them when he’s free as they’ll be interested.</p>
<p>I have a sneaking suspicion that hiring managers want you more if you’re already working in a job.</p>
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<p>I would guess that would be because you and your S are looking at completely different kinds of jobs. These are pushed as entry level marketing and business opportunities.</p>
<p>my advice to anyone looking for work is networking, the power of a warm introduction to a decision-maker level person at a company can rocket you past the impersonal HR/job posting mess. </p>
<p>All of my daughters college friends got their first job in 2010 through one of three types of networks: 1) school sponsored interviews aka the school network, 2) internships started while still in school and again from the schools internship network, and 3) through relationships aka profs, parents, and friends. None of them applied for jobs through job postings. Often they got a job that there was a posting for but they entered the interview process through a referral, and not through HR. </p>
<p>Everyone has a network. Whether you’re from a small town or a big city, small school or big school you know people who are only 1 or 2 degrees away from helping you land your first job.</p>
<p>And I’d say it broke down about 2/3rds through school sponsored interviews/internships and a 1/3 from profs, family or friends.</p>
<p>Emaheevul07, that’s exactly right. “Entry level marketing and business opportunities” apparently is the catch phrase for “cold-call sales”. BCEagle, you’re lucky your son is staying away from this niche. I wish my son could, but he knows now.</p>
<p>Pacheight, I suspect you’re new to this particular thread. Internships and networking: considered this, tried that. The kid who drew me here is my oldest son, a kid who wasn’t ready for an internship while at school. Now that he has graduated, not happening. And networking? Not something my socially awkward kid excels at, or comfortable with, or does easily.</p>
<p>There are real entry level business and marketing positions out there, but you just have to know what to look for. Once you start researching these companies you start to see some stand out indicators-- the job postings all kind of look the same. I google any company I’ve never heard of + scam and if you get any hits you can pretty much tell what’s legit and what isn’t.</p>
<p>Most of my interviews have been for administrative assistant type jobs at reputable companies that are looking to train well educated entry levels. The job I just interviewed for, most of their receptionists end up working in the marketing department. I met the girl they’re replacing and she is writing press releases and stuff now, working her way up. Answering phones is not a glamorous start but it’s a foot in the door. And like I posted about the other day, the one company is considering me for something better now instead. So that’s the kind of tactic that I am taking. I’m not going to be making big bucks for a while but my degree is getting me in the door and a chance for upward mobility if my prove myself, and I don’t really need anything more than that!</p>
<p>^^^Oh, I hear you, limabeans. My son wants no part of networking or looking for internships. He’s a brilliant kid, hard working, gets right to his studies when he gets home from summer classes. I would love for him to start chatting up the professors at the summer school for volunteer research opportunities, now that he’s finally finished the last of his spring school work, but I know there’s no way he’ll do that. </p>
<p>In the meantime, his buddy barely passes all his classes, but has a dad/uncle/friends in the engineering field. He will no doubt be the one to get the paying job first. Really stinks, doesn’t it? Especially since he only passes his classes thanks to the free tutoring he gets from my son.</p>
<p>Getting a foot in the door is an important first step. Once you’re inside, it is often easier to look for a more suitable position.</p>