<p>To OP:</p>
<p>Advise your son to send his resume to various contacts he researches on this web site:</p>
<p>[The</a> IEEE Robotics and Automation Society](<a href=“http://www.ieee-ras.org/]The”>http://www.ieee-ras.org/)</p>
<p>A great networking opportunity would be to attend one of the conferences sponsored by the organization.</p>
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<p>Both DD and I are very techy but I’ve always maintained the importance of good communication/people skills to DD and she understand it very well too.</p>
<p>Looking down on LA major is a different thing as DW always complained about it too being a A.B./A.M. (English/Comparative Literature) major.</p>
<p>Maybe your DS follows “The Big Bang Theory Sheldon”.</p>
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<p>May the kids (daughters) oughta try going for an exceptional BF. Selection gets smaller after they graduate. Like in Seattle. </p>
<p>shuffle, shuffle,</p>
<p>I had a really awesome interview today for a great opportunity, so fingers crossed! He said he’d let me know by the end of the day tomorrow, and I have another interview tomorrow for a totally different kind of job. Hopefully they’ll let me know quickly too so I can choose between them if I happen to get offers.</p>
<p>You know, greganthony, I’ve been blogging for 11 years but I haven’t done a blog like that. Maybe I will! That would be a fun learning experience, if nothing else.</p>
<p>GregAnthony: Blogging -</p>
<p>Proper use of internet in this time and era is really helpful. Most of the companies and interviewer (myself included) search about the candidate online. It is just another dimension to overall process but is quite useful one. </p>
<p>Recruiters pay attention to linkedin accounts, so all aspiring candidates should have one such account. Again earlier the better (consider opening one in freshman years and start adding contacts).</p>
<p>Emaheevul07: Congratulations!, hard work is paying off.</p>
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<p>POIH…what does this mean? Your "good communication skills are not shining through here. How is this relevant to this thread?</p>
<p>thumper1: My lack of “good communication skiils” was the only reason to inform DD about it’s importance.</p>
<p>The reason for posting the quoted text was to indicate to ‘BCEagle91’ that it’s a very common problem and may be just a psychological feel on the part of literature/Art graduates living with techy people.</p>
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<p>Sounds great! Good luck on both!</p>
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<p>The tech equivalent of this is working on open source projects. I got
two job offers on open source stuff. The thing is that I didn’t need
them.</p>
<p>Some poeple are simply better suited to interface with hardware rather than liveware.</p>
<p>Son had an interview yesterday with a very nice company. Their HR department was professional all the way through. The interview went well - they asked him questions for ten minutes and then told him how great the work environment was. He received an email saying that they were impressed with his skills and qualifications but couldn’t make an offer at this time but they’ll keep his resume on file for future positions. I’m pretty sure that he would have loved this position.</p>
<p>He still has one other top-notch job in play that is dragging out - it’s a big company and they are going through their process.</p>
<p>He has received a few contacts from a recruiter at another local company that’s interested in interviewing him. He initially replied that he didn’t meet the required qualifications but the recruiter said that it probably wouldn’t be a problem. So that’s in play. I do not think that that position would be an ideal one for our son but it is in play. He will contact them in a week or two when his course projects and papers should be in better shape.</p>
<p>He received an interview request from a company that he applied to three weeks ago. This is a well-known global company with offices in our area. One of them is within walking distance of our home. The other is within walking distance to my office. It would be a great opportunity to work there.</p>
<p>Job postings continue to come through his university email account - he has to be choosy about the ones that he responds to; he’s finding that the interviewing process can be quite time-consuming.</p>
<p>BCEagle- congrats. Sounds like lots of action.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to cease and desist in your use of the word “Ideal”. I do courtesy interviews for graduating seniors all the time (relatives of people in my company, neighbors, children of customers, etc.) and I have to tell virtually every one of them, “Stop thinking about “ideal”. This is reality time”.</p>
<p>I’ve written before about my neighbors kid who graduated from a top program in TV/Media who turned down an absolutely fantastic job for a public television station because it was in Minnesota. I know kids now who want to live in Manhattan and won’t commute to Hoboken (for the non-New Yorkers here- Hoboken is one stop on the PATH train outside of Manhattan. It is a faster commute than from the Upper West Side to Wall Street.) I know kids who turn down interviews at Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings because they want to be doing “policy” and the interviews are for media relations or member services jobs. hello? How big are these places that you think you won’t have an inside track just by showing up and being diligent? Ever hear of “paying your dues?”</p>
<p>So as parents- please stop thinking or communicating that there is something called an “Ideal” job out there. It is not a sellers market; an ideal job is one that pays the rent and will allow you to learn and develop your skills. If it involves heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer that’s a bonus. But for god’s sake- no graduating senior can afford to start screening out jobs now, before there is an actual offer on the table.</p>
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<p>He’s getting responses at a fast enough rate that he can’t respond
to all of them. The phone interviews are convenient but even then,
he has to be available at a time and place and do the prep work on
the company. The in-person interviews require getting dressed up
and driving from school to the company and then back again. He
has to work these around his courses and his on-campus job.</p>
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<p>He would like to stay in the Boston area but he might have to look
outside. We have family supports in certain areas of the country.
At the moment, there seem to be enough postings locally.</p>
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<p>Our son is in the middle of a graduate program so he can just continue
on his grad degree if he doesn’t find anything. I have a job for one
of my kids this summer - watching a computer screen during the trading
day, executing trades, analyzing charts and company fundamentals and
providing me with a report at the end of the day. I’d pay them $5K to
$10K for the summer and taxes wouldn’t be an issue. That’s if they
don’t get anything else. That’s not a bad summer job. My daughter is
taking relevant classes for this right now. I’ve trained our son to do
this a long time ago.</p>
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<p>One can set them aside if the recruiter/company is amenable to doing
this. Students only have so many hours in the day for job hunting
while classes are in session.</p>
<p>Blossom is not exaggerating. I know kids like the ones she is describing. Where do they get this arrogance? Are the colleges teaching, “You are special because you will graduate from College X?”</p>
<p>At some point, reality sets in but reality is different for every student.</p>
<p>I remember the internet bubble days where companies were giving away cars, stock options and huge bonuses to get graduates to look at them. It was a rock-star mentality for those looking for work.</p>
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<p>Then they are equally as hick as the midwesterners who wouldn’t ever consider the east coast.</p>
<p>Well, the company for today’s interview was ridiculous and I didn’t even finish it. The job was advertised as paying more than 10k above what it actually pays, job posting said benefits and there were none, and they told me I wasn’t even qualified to be their secretary because I only had a 3.0 in high school. Not sure why they wasted my time scheduling an interview, I sat waiting for the interview for an hour and a half and it seems like they only called me in to tell me I was stupid for applying, even though I met and exceeded all of the qualifications on the posting. This has been a discouraging day.</p>
<p>Pizza- it’s not hick. It’s assuming that the “youth magnets” of Seattle, SF, DC, Nashville, Boston or NY are the only places worth launching a creative career. I tell these kids all the time- if you want to work as an archivist and the jobs are in Salt Lake City, you go to Utah. If you want to work at a TV station-- anywhere you get an interview is your number 1 market. If your interest is historic preservation and your resume gets a second look in Baltimore or Racine or Biloxi- then that’s where you go.</p>
<p>My cohort seemed more mobile when we graduated. The economy was terrible; we had no email or fax or even answering machines in the dorm and somehow we all managed to scramble and get jobs after graduating. Nobody expected to be in their top 3 location; it was enough to have a job in your chosen field (or close to your field, or a good job outside of your field) and we knew we couldn’t be picky.</p>
<p>Now? I don’t get it.</p>
<p>Try An Antonio for engineering. Monster is full of those jobs. DD is trying to find employment, as well. She keeps losing out to experience. I want her to go to grad school, but she also is not sure where she wants to end up, so she is just substitute teaching, and I carry her on my insurance (so far.)</p>
<p>Emaheevul… a thousand years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I sat in an interview where the jerk heading up the research institute (I won’t name it becaust it’s a good place and he’s long gone)… told me there was no chance for me, because I was a BA and “our secretaries have master’s degrees.” </p>
<p>Lovely… this was back when - as you can see - women had a very rough time being taken seriously for professional jobs.</p>
<p>Well…</p>
<ol>
<li>Why did he interview me in the first place?</li>
<li>I went on to have a great career, around far better people than he.</li>
<li>I hate him still, lol… if I could remember his name.</li>
</ol>
<p>You just met another jerk (maybe my guy’s grandchild?). Glad you have us to vent to. Of course, it was a discouraging day… but as far as that company is concerned, the phrase “Good riddance to bad rubbish” comes to mind.</p>
<p>I have a hard time counting all the places I moved to get a job–or just a change of scenery. Austin, LA, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle. That does not count some just for fun moves to San Diego and Boulder or college move to Madison a few times. But I guess none of them sucked as in I never had to move to Cleveland or El Paso. But you can probably have a decent time in those places too.
Each move was a great adventure to me–never regretted a one.</p>