<p>One of my friends is majoring in Civil Engineering and will be graduating this spring. He has a decent GPA and experience, but he's burnt out from all those years of school. Throughout his life, he's been pushed by his parents in middle school, by overly competitive peers in high school, and by himself in college.</p>
<p>So, would it be a good idea for him to take 3-4 months off after graduation to relax and do some fun stuff (going skydiving, learning how to surf, going on a roadtrip, etc)? Would the gap on his resume be a problem to employers when he starts looking for a job in fall? Also, is it harder to find a job after graduation than when you're still in school? He won't have access to on-campus recruiting, but he will get to spend all of his time looking for a job instead of splitting his time between work and school. It seems that all the emphasis is on finding a job before graduation, and he has little interest in doing that now.</p>
<p>I know very few people who started less than a month after graduating school. That said, it is not good to avoid LOOKING for a job until 3-4 months out. If you get an offer now, you will be asked, “When can you start?” You would then simply say the month you want to start (so, August), and that is that! If they have a specific training program that starts earlier than you want to start work, see if they have another one later.</p>
<p>He should DEFINITELY utilize whatever campus resources exist to help finding that job. It is a little late to start looking for jobs, but there are plenty of employers still seeking new people. At least if you look for jobs using your campus resources, you will know that they are looking for recent graduates, so you won’t waste your time developing cover letters for companies looking for people with years of experience</p>
<p>I know a lot of people taking a year off to travel or cool down from school, however these people are usually putting off going to grad school, not work. It’s a tough decision, and some people really need that mental health break, but sometimes it can cause even more stress after he’s taken that time off and realizes the jobs are going to the most recently-graduated with those campus resources and not those who have been unemployed for a certain number of months. Something he could do is look for jobs that are a little easier for him, or maybe a simpler entry-level-type job, that way he can still grab that experience until he’s ready to commit to moving up.</p>
<p>If he wants to take a “gap,” suggest internship/service programs such as AmeriCorps. They’ll look good on a resume, pay off student debts and build potential career networks.</p>
Spring break has reduced his mental burnout a bit, so he’s going to start looking for a job one month after he graduates. Would that be fine?</p>
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Unfortunately, his campus is mainly focused on research, so their job placement services aren’t that great. He went to the career center a few times last semester to have them look over his resume, but the only other on-campus event is a bi-annual job fair, which is also open to alumni. They do have on-campus recruiting, but almost all those postings are for business majors, not engineering majors.</p>
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He was awarded scholarships and financial aid, so he doesn’t have any student loans to pay off. Instead of AmeriCorps or similar service programs, he’ll try to volunteer and help out a city engineer to get experience if he can’t find a job that’s at least somewhat related to his major.</p>