<p>Son didn’t get the job that he interviewed for the week before last but at least they sent him an email to let him know. He had a phone interview last week that he’s waiting for a result on and another phone interview for either tomorrow or Tuesday. The interviewer called today but my son was tied up at the time. He received an email from another company this past week requesting a little more information on his resume and he has sent out several other resumes for good matches late last week.</p>
<p>He has been playing telephone tag with a headhunter too on a junior DBA position. So there are a bunch of things in play. </p>
<p>There is one course that he could have taken this semester that would have improved his chances significantly of a certain kind of position that is currently in high demand and it is something that he is interested in but he took more mathy/theory courses this semester. At any rate, we’re all fairly optimistic as there are a fair number of companies looking for people in the Boston area.</p>
<p>One of my co-worker’s sons hasn’t found anything yet (engineering major at an Ivy) - I’ve looked with my co-worker for internships in his area and we didn’t find anything. He’s also talked to contacts in his network and the problem is that the level of demand for his major is low in our area right now.</p>
<p>Another co-workers’s son (engineering at a very well-regarded school) lined up an internship but it’s 3,000 miles away and I don’t think that he’s going to take it for practical reasons. He does have a safety in an unpaid internship in a big pharma company if he wants it but he still has some time to look.</p>
<p>So I think it is hard out there; I don’t know if it is impossibly hard but graduates have to really put the effort into looking, even while they are busy with their courses.</p>
<p>Here’s an audio on the take on the job market for the Class of 2011. Basically it’s better than 2010 but it’s still tough.</p>
<p>My d’s summer internship (in DC) pays almost $30/hour plus overtime, plus pay while in training, plus travel expenses, plus benefits. (They see it as tryout for a full-time position - after she completes a year of grad school.) Her problem has been to figure out how to turn offers down gracefully so that in the future the companies will remember her. (International accounting)</p>
<p>There are definitely good opportunities out there (congrats!) and being in the right place can help considerably. I’ve had a look at openings in NYC and there are a lot more jobs down there in his area than there are up here.</p>
<p>“There are definitely good opportunities out there (congrats!) and being in the right place can help considerably”</p>
<p>I think you are exactly right. When my son got his internship, a bit later they asked him if he had any friends from his school that were interested, because they needed more interns. He checked with the two he knew didn’t have internships yet, and they had gotten one within the last week. Plus they were not interested in working in that area of the country (mid-South). Though he thought, who cares where it’s located, it is great experience and it’s only for the summer. It is much harder when you limit yourself to specific areas of the country.</p>
<p>Son is getting monster.com emails daily now with job postings in his area. They apparently use some kind of a matching algorithm as I noticed that the postings tag some of the specialty areas that he has studied or worked on. I think that it is mainly sending him jobs in his local area but he also gets jobs from other areas where the company provides relocation. I guess that’s reasonable. It provides a nice look at what is in demand in other parts of the country.</p>
<p>One of the companies that showed interest asked for times that they could do a phone interview and he provided them but they called a few days ago when son was busy and he asked them to call back later. They haven’t called back and I’m wondering if they were a bit offended. The company is holding an open house this week looking for candidates and I asked if he wanted to go but it would interfere with his current job so they might be off the list for now. They are looking for CS and marketing majors.</p>
<p>Yesterday he received an email (unsolicited) from a company that would train him for six weeks in highly relevant industry skills and then put him to work. They would also provide him with housing as the cost-of-living in the area is high. The downside was that it was an outsourcing company and I don’t think that he liked the idea of working for a company with the main business plan of moving jobs offshore. It’s also 3,000 miles away.</p>
<p>A large company at the school’s twice-yearly career fair has been doing a slow-motion dance with him. They’ve been asking him questions by email and he has been answering them. They recently asked him what he was looking for (salary) and that may be a good sign as some of his other interviews didn’t get to that stage.</p>
<p>A local and medium-sized company will be on campus this week recruiting CS and management majors. He can’t make it do to his job commitments but he is trying to get a hold of the recruiter outside of the recruiting event.</p>
<p>He has an interview lined up with a trading software company this week.</p>
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<p>I hope that I’m not highjacking this thread but I thought that some might find reading through the job hunting process in these difficult economic times interesting. I’m trying to provide some detail but not enough to identify the companies involved. New job postings are still showing up in Monster and at his career center.</p>
<p>BTW, I’m not terribly concerned as to whether or not he gets a job. A job would interrupt his graduate degree (we’re fine with that) so he can just continue his grad degree if he doesn’t find something. I have lots of work for him to do for me that would provide him with useful employment skills for this summer too. I’m also on the lookout for jobs for my daughter now and a few things have caught my eye. She’s looking for work too.</p>
<p>You’re not hijacking anything, BCEagle. Thanks for the detailed update. Yes, it’s interesting to see how difficult the entire process can be - so good luck to both your kiddos.</p>
<p>BCEagle, I can see that a company would be concerned if your son gave them times to call for a phone interview and then he said he was busy when they called. Good luck to your kids with finding jobs. My sophomore son just found out a couple of days ago he’s got a job for the summer so that is a relief.</p>
<p>Normally a company asks for a few times that they can call and then they pick one of those times. This company asked for times when they could call and didn’t confirm which slot they wanted. They then called outside of the time periods that he provided without any notice.</p>
<p>Companies have far more good candidates than slots. We’d probably do the same thing–on to the next person on the list. He was in no position to bargain or make them wait. In their view all the candidates are probably already acceptable and it moves the decision to who is ready to claim the job first gets it.</p>
<p>Sorry about that. The company is in rapid growth mode and it looks like things are hectic there. They want to fill a number of positions, both technical and business and it appears that their HR department (if they have one) is overwhelmed.</p>
<p>Well, this is only true if one is desperate for a job and that’s not the case here.</p>
<p>If a recruiter had called you while you were working at your current job, would you do an
interview there with customers waiting for you to serve them?</p>
<p>All of the other companies where he has had phone interviews have handled it professionally.</p>
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<p>Does your company call candidates at random times of the day without notice?</p>
<p>I’ve been very reluctant to post on her about my D. She will be a rising Senior in Mechanical Engineering and does not have a position secured yet. She is still applying, applying, applying and is getting very discouraged about it. She knows her options are getting limited and is not really sure of what to do.</p>
<p>I just wanted to ask a question based on BCEagle91 comments. My D had someone email her with her availability for a phone interview. She told him when she was available but then heard nothing else. The interviewer called her after business hours (he was in a different time zone). She was very unprepared and in a crowded computer lab. She probably is not a great interview in the best of times but she admitted this did not go well. She called back the next day with questions and felt that things went well. A decision was to be made in a couple of days and the interviewer said he would call her either way.</p>
<p>You guessed it, she has heard nothing. She emailed him at the end of last week and nothing. It was a nice I’m still interested, do you have any feedback for me, blah, blah.</p>
<p>My question, is there anything else she could have done when the interviewer called. I guess I’m just trying to figure out how she should handle things like this and how she can work on this in the future.</p>
<p>She is desperately trying to find something for the summer. She’s been looking on line and on her school career center. She says that all research positions have been filled at this time and needed a earlier deadline. She has a 3.0 GPA and feels that it is really holding her back at her school.</p>
<p>It’s really discouraging when all you hear is that you need an internship to get a job. Then you try and try to get an internship and nothing is working. I know everyone is trying to be helpful but it’s discouraging to keep hearing this.</p>
<p>I don’t think that there is much that you can do if an interviewer calls you at a random time.</p>
<p>My son has also received the “we’ll get back to you” line and some do and some don’t. I think that that’s a professionalism issue but they have the jobs. I doubt if any of this is personal but that doesn’t necessarily make you feel better.</p>
<p>I told my son that he should have been looking a lot harder last fall - at the time he was undecided about graduating early, getting a job and/or going to grad school and he had only applied to three or four places landing three interviews. It was a casual search. But what’s done is done.</p>
<p>Students should start looking for research internships in December and then have their applications done in January as some have January deadlines. Others have deadlines in February and March and even later but I think that there aren’t that many after March as they have to go through them, make offers and then maybe make more offers.</p>
<p>The reason I recommend doing the applications in December and January is that you need letters of recommendation from professors and they typically have more time during winter break to write LORs. This also means that you have to target your applications for your background as professors will usually only write a limited number of LORs for students.</p>
<p>I would recommend that she continue to look and try her network including you and your network. Also consider jobs unrelated to her major. Employers can afford to be dismissive right now and some are taking advantage of that. Nothing that we can do about it except to keep trying.</p>
<p>I think DD upcoming summer internship does satisfies all the criteria and she is fortunate enough to be paid $6K/month for it. The program seems very structured and should be a very good learning experience.</p>
<p>There are only handful of companies that can afford to put in that sort of money for development of future employees. Most other employers try to use interns as short term resources if possible and there is little to no training involve as part of the internship.</p>
<p>I’d say that there are far more than a handful but would agree that the percentage that can do this is pretty small. Mozilla is a non-profit organization but has a fabulous internship program.</p>