<p>I'm a rising senior and I am deciding between grad school and getting a job. In my field its somewhat deadly to take a year off in between undergrad and grad school, and I'm honestly not sure if I want to go to grad school because all the jobs I want to get after grad school I could probably get now. So, I was wondering when do seniors usually start applying for jobs?I've been browsing a few sites and have seen things that I think are interesting, but it is probably too early to apply.</p>
<p>companies start to come to campus in the fall</p>
<p>Why would you attend graduate school if you can land the jobs you desire now? What field are you in?</p>
<p>I started looking about 3 months before graduation. But I graduated in December, so I didn’t have quite as much competition as those graduating in May.</p>
<p>Recruiting for full time positions happens during the fall for banking, consulting and many engineering disciplines, which means that if you use on-campus recruiting, you should know your situation by Thanksgiving. Make sure you check NOW to determine whether the industry you’re interested in recruits during the fall or spring. The rest of this post assumes a fall recruitment season; for spring recruitment, just push this schedule back three months.</p>
<p>Approaching my senior year, I started submitting applications around this time if companies would accept them; there was only one private company that accepted an application so far in advance, but many government agencies were happy to accept the applications (of course, half of the agencies I applied to ran out of money before I even got to the interview stage haha).
Over the summer, you should be researching the industry or industries you want to enter. Determine which companies recruit at your school and which do not but still accept applications from students at your school (e.g. my school had about 200 companies recruit on campus, but another 1,700 companies accepted applications through our online recruiting system), and research the hell out of them.
Get your resume in order. Have an adviser tear it to shreds so that you can know you have a solid resume that recruiters will want to read.
Figure out some main points you want to include in your cover letter.
Relax because it’s going to be a semester of fury during recruiting season!</p>
<p>What industry are you planning to enter?</p>
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<p>applying to government jobs and government hiring is such a clusterf***</p>
<p>You could always apply to grad school and full-time jobs and then decide after receiving your acceptances.</p>
<p>I’m looking at grad schools for pure math, but I don’t want to be a professor. The area I am interested in working in after would be scientific computing and computational geometry. I’m a math and computer engineering double major. The only reason I’m interested in grad school is because I really want to learn more math.</p>
<p>Sounds like an excellent reason to pursue grad school. Would you do a PhD or a Master’s?</p>
<p>Phd because of funding. I have research experience. Its just that I already know I don’t want to stay in academia if I were to get a phd. So the phd would really just be for personal fulfillment. On the other hand, 5 years is a long time to stay in school and not be working.</p>
<p>for government/national lab stuff, apply typically between August - October. same goes for company on-campus recruiters for tech/consulting type firms. In early spring (January-February) of senior year, that’s when you want to start looking at the non-profit/scholarly/think tank type jobs (but still continue looking out for firm/government opportunities). The earlier you start applying, the greater likelihood you will have a job come graduation. Too many of my friends have waited until after graduation to start their job search, don’t let that happen to you.</p>