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Question: Just got done with first phone interview. The director liked my answers and praised my ability to think on my feet. He is convening the entire management for a Skype interview next week. In the interim, do I need to send him a thank you note, given the short time frame? The second interview is going to take place next Monday/Wednesday probably.
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Apr 10, 2012 22:06
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Peven Stan posted:Question: Just got done with first phone interview. The director liked my answers and praised my ability to think on my feet. He is convening the entire management for a Skype interview next week. In the interim, do I need to send him a thank you note, given the short time frame? The second interview is going to take place next Monday/Wednesday probably. I don't send thank yous. They want you to work for them and make them a shitload of money. It's business not a friendship. The larger a company, the less a thank you matters. Predicting the next person will say "yes, send a thank you." resident fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Apr 10, 2012 |
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Apr 10, 2012 22:19
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Yes, send a thank you, because it's what successful rich people do all the time and this book I read in seventh grade about how to be a highly successful person says that if you don't do it then you are totally doing it wrong and you will never get a job ever. I still think lots of businesses don't like people doing that though because I never get hired why is that???
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Apr 10, 2012 22:29
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quote:I don't send thank yous. They want you to work for them and make them a shitload of money. It's business not a friendship. The larger a company, the less a thank you matters. quote:Yes, send a thank you, because it's what successful rich people do all the time and this book I read in seventh grade about how to be a highly successful person says that if you don't do it then you are totally doing it wrong and you will never get a job ever. I still think lots of businesses don't like people doing that though because I never get hired why is that??? You're both totally missing the point. quote:Question: Just got done with first phone interview. The director liked my answers and praised my ability to think on my feet. He is convening the entire management for a Skype interview next week. In the interim, do I need to send him a thank you note, given the short time frame? The second interview is going to take place next Monday/Wednesday probably. No, it's not necessary after your phone interview. For your skype interview however, make sure to take mental notes of you who you're talking with, and ALWAYS get contact information whether it's an email or phone number. Afterwards, follow up. Even if you don't intend on following up, get the drat names and numbers anyway And by "follow up" I don't mean sending a two line message pointlessly thanking them for the interview. A follow up is a chance to elaborate on a point you didn't have the chance to make; address a manager's concern that you may not have adequately addressed; etc. Don't turn it into a six paragraph love letter though. Five or so sentences is adequate. For example, a couple years ago I went to an interview where I was asked how many clients I work with in my (then current) job. I gave a low ball answer that proved to be significantly understated. I followed up afterwards giving a more precise answer, with more elaboration on the client breakdowns and such. The amount of clients I worked with wasn't really important - what was important was that I demonstrated that I was paying attention during the interview and was carefully considering my answers. And yes, it also helps to keep your name in the mind of the interviewer, especially since very few people actually bother to do it (as you can see from the prior two posters). Yes, I was given the job. Admiral101 fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Apr 11, 2012 |
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Apr 11, 2012 00:19
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This is for a labor union folks, just to clarify. I guess the rules should be similar but the questions that I had to field were in the range of "what are the two biggest obstacles to people unionizing?"
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Apr 11, 2012 00:26
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Peven Stan posted:This is for a labor union folks, just to clarify. I guess the rules should be similar but the questions that I had to field were in the range of "what are the two biggest obstacles to people unionizing?" Also to clarify, I am a design engineer. The point was that its completely case by case and doesn't matter either way. It might make a difference and it might not but just do whatever feels right to you. Don't send out something half-assed as Peven already pointed out.
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Apr 11, 2012 02:07
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This might not be the right place, but you can ignore me if it is. It's been 3 years since I've graduated, BS in Aerospace Engineering. I have yet to land an interview for anything in my field. I've had interviews with some other technical jobs (one for electronic security systems and another for designing the reclining mechanisms in cars), but the only jobs I've managed to land after college are $9/hr "barely need to pass high school to qualify" jobs. I get turned down for every job that pays higher than $10/hr because I'm either overqualified or they're afraid I'll leave for an engineering position. I had some decent leads, but now everything seems to have dried up for me. I'm networking with a few people, but it doesn't seem to be working. I'd like to get to some of the big confrences and air shows, but I can't affoard to, and there aren't any near where I live. I keep reading about having a blog with projects, which I'd love to do, but I have no access to Catia V5, which is the industry standard 3D modeling software (and my computer certainly wouldn't be able to handle it). At this point, I'm feeling like either I'm missing something obvious, or I'm hosed. I've already had one recruiter tell me he can't get me a job because of how long it's been since I graduated, and it's making me worried that it's become a hinderance. I can't go back to school because the company managing my student loans won't let me put them on hold long enough to wipe my rear end unless I'm getting paid 6 figures - and is also preventing me from doing 'fun' and 'interesting' things like Peace Corps or teaching English overseas. I guess my big thing is, is there something else I could be doing to help get my foot in the door somewhere?
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Apr 14, 2012 01:30
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YF19pilot posted:This might not be the right place, but you can ignore me if it is. I'm more or less in the same boat, but with a failed year of law school instead of an engineering degree. The most promising thing that has happened in two months is that I got a call back from Starbucks and freelance writing can keep food on the table. Is there some sort of trick to networking that I'm not getting?
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Apr 14, 2012 18:02
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Pollyanna posted:Thanks for the advice. So far, I've been applying to research technician jobs like the one at Beth Deaconess and NE and a few imaging related stuff with Goodrich and the like. Is that a good place to start, at least? Is that what I should aim for right now? I had a weird situation when I started working at my company because I started off as a contractor, but the job they wanted me to do didn't actually exist, and they had to post the listing internally/externally, so they ended up putting a bunch of stuff in the job description that no one on earth but me would've had the qualifications for. (funnily enough I do PACS client development)
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Apr 14, 2012 23:40
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Pollyanna posted:They don't expect you to already know how to do it, right? You can usually interpret that as a job description as much as you can a job requirement. As long as you know how to write portable C# code and have an interest or desire to learn to use it to untangle nematodes, then you can definitely feel good applying for the position. There are actually a lot of candidates that hit the nail on the head, so to speak, regarding those really detailed job descriptions. Those candidates typically have jobs and a good way to get them to consider applying is to make them feel like the job will be interesting and that they stand a good chance of landing it if they apply. Generic and unspecific job descriptions are usually tied to boring jobs. The fun jobs tend to emphasize there interesting and technological aspects in their descriptions.
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Apr 17, 2012 06:35
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Thanks, guys. It's been a while since I submitted applications for some of the jobs - sometimes as early as the beginning of the month - and I haven't gotten a single reply. About how long should I wait? What do I do if no one ever gets back to me?
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Apr 21, 2012 19:54
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Pollyanna posted:Thanks, guys. It's been a while since I submitted applications for some of the jobs - sometimes as early as the beginning of the month - and I haven't gotten a single reply. About how long should I wait? What do I do if no one ever gets back to me? Keep applying to every opening you see. Don't submit one application, wait for a response, then move on to the next one. I've just gotten two interviews and both responses came within a week of submitting my application (and by some miracle if I get two offers I can leverage them against each other till I get what I want). However, different companies will take different amounts of time to get back to you so ymmv. Keep churning out those applications in the meantime.
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Apr 21, 2012 22:23
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Keep applying to every opening you see. Don't submit one application, wait for a response, then move on to the next one. I've just gotten two interviews and both responses came within a week of submitting my application (and by some miracle if I get two offers I can leverage them against each other till I get what I want). However, different companies will take different amounts of time to get back to you so ymmv. What channel did you go through to get those submitted? Where did you find these openings? Did you follow up on them? Should I simply go directly to HR department of the company that has the job opening? I really feel like internet applications are useless.
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Apr 21, 2012 23:05
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Pollyanna posted:What channel did you go through to get those submitted? Where did you find these openings? Did you follow up on them? Should I simply go directly to HR department of the company that has the job opening? I really feel like internet applications are useless. Both were blindly through job boards on the internet, but both had an email address to send my application to in the job posting so I knew an actual human had to look at them at some point. One of them I emailed to the email address listed and she sent me to the company's online job page to apply that way and they called me a week or so later to schedule an interview. I've sent out over 80 applications and this is the fourth interview I've gotten and these are the first two from just blindly applying without any contacts at the company beforehand. Just keep trying. I have never gotten an interview through filling out the online forms. I suspect it might be because my resume is a PDF with non-traditional formatting and the resume robots probably get confused by it and immediately discard it. Once I submitted my application through an external site and it vanished somewhere between hitting submit and the company's HR department, so if there's a job you really want I'd recommend finding a way to get in touch with HR to verify it actually got there. I've had much better luck with going through job boards tailored to my field (coroflot for design stuff, dice for computer people, etc) rather than the huge sites like indeed or monster.
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Apr 21, 2012 23:16
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I've had much better luck with going through job boards tailored to my field (coroflot for design stuff, dice for computer people, etc) rather than the huge sites like indeed or monster. I've had the same experience as you with online forms and applications. None of them have had, like, a specific person listed for contact. I think I might just directly contact their department or anyone tangentially involved with the job, now. The job boards thing seems much more helpful for me. Hopefully they're much more likely to offer a real person to contact. What's also funny is that my school had a huge senior year project presentation day on Thursday, and for my department one of the companies sent out an email telling students to check out their job openings to a professor. The professor forwarded it to the entire undergrad list telling us to contact the woman in the email, who then told us all not to contact her or the HR department and to instead do their online forms. Funnily enough, I log onto the website's job pages and there are 20 jobs open, 16 of which are for sales positions. We're an engineering major.  It's such a blatantly empty token gesture that it's utterly hilarious to watch and also incredibly depressing.
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Apr 21, 2012 23:37
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I've gotten some luck by just spamming my resume carelessly. I've got an interview with Google on Monday and I had an interview for a SAS programming position last week. Google's not very likely and the programming job looks like a dead end, so I'm going to keep going. Best of luck people, just keep applying like if you don't get a job you'd be unemployed... oh wait
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Apr 22, 2012 21:05
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Pollyanna posted:What's also funny is that my school had a huge senior year project presentation day on Thursday, and for my department one of the companies sent out an email telling students to check out their job openings to a professor. The professor forwarded it to the entire undergrad list telling us to contact the woman in the email, who then told us all not to contact her or the HR department and to instead do their online forms. Funnily enough, I log onto the website's job pages and there are 20 jobs open, 16 of which are for sales positions. We're an engineering major. There was an engineering career fair I didn't go to when I was in college, but a buddy of mine did. He was telling me that there were some companies there who did not have jobs and were not hiring. Apparently they just showed up to "provide a presence and support the university." And the department putting on the job fair let them do this. Job fairs and the subsequent "go to our website and apply!" instructions given to anyone who shows up are a loving joke. Same with professors who get "job leads" which are clearly out of the range of their students are looking for but don't even look at them before mass emailing them to the whole department. Example I encountered: An "entry level" position requiring at least 5 years of experience with mySQL is probably not suitable for a bunch of undergrads in Urban Planning getting BA degrees.
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Apr 22, 2012 23:03
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bytebark posted:There was an engineering career fair I didn't go to when I was in college, but a buddy of mine did. He was telling me that there were some companies there who did not have jobs and were not hiring. Apparently they just showed up to "provide a presence and support the university." And the department putting on the job fair let them do this. Seriously, this. If all I'm going to be doing is applying online then I could've just stayed home in my pajamas and gotten the exact same results. I also love the companies who show up and don't actually know what they're looking for. I went to one and just hit the booths that specified that they were looking for people in my major, and at least half of them didn't know what the difference between Industrial Design and Industrial Engineering was (hint: THEY ARE NOTHING ALIKE.). Or in one case they just clicked "select all" and were just looking for peons to work at Target stores, not work at Target corporate or even management. Yes, I want to get a degree and work retail for minimum wage. That's totally my life goal and why I came to the career fair 
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Apr 22, 2012 23:21
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I discovered a career fairs are largely useless unless you are using them to gather information on entire career fields. For example, I had no idea that Open Source Intelligence Analyst was a thing until I talked to representative from the CIA that came to one.
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Apr 22, 2012 23:58
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The place I work often shows up at career fairs but isn't looking for any entry level people. They are just considered a platinum sponsor for the career fairs at various universities and therefore, just make their presence known to get their money's worth from the sponsorship. They pay that money in case they are looking for entry level people but since it is an employer's market, they often find people with experience instead.
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Apr 23, 2012 01:56
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Yeah, my own experience with career fairs is basically the same as you guys'. There was one case where I talked to a Philips guy about working with some MRI machines, but other than that the whole thing was a bust. Given the way Organogenesis seemed to treat us, I guess it's par for the course to just not care at all. Kinda makes me wonder how people actually get past the entry level stage if they can't get to the entry level stage in the first place.
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Apr 23, 2012 02:19
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Seriously, this. If all I'm going to be doing is applying online then I could've just stayed home in my pajamas and gotten the exact same results. I also love the companies who show up and don't actually know what they're looking for. I went to one and just hit the booths that specified that they were looking for people in my major, and at least half of them didn't know what the difference between Industrial Design and Industrial Engineering was (hint: THEY ARE NOTHING ALIKE.). Or in one case they just clicked "select all" and were just looking for peons to work at Target stores, not work at Target corporate or even management. Yes, I want to get a degree and work retail for minimum wage. That's totally my life goal and why I came to the career fair Let's all head to the bar and have an airing of grievances on Job Fairs! One company I remember sent this girl not from HR, but from their engineering staff, to a particular job fair. It was pretty obvious that the only reason she was there is because she was young/pretty and, I dunno, maybe could better relate to the students coming up to her seeking employment? I honestly have no idea and neither did she because when I asked what that company was offering, she said she didn't know, they just sent her down there for the day, she didn't know why, and she'd take my resume but didn't know what they would do with it. The only time I got ANYTHING from a job fair, it was a rejection letter. I had given my resume to a high-end civil engineering firm well known for their execution of large we-do-everything projects, and received a short but courteous letter less than a week later indicating that they didn't hire people with my degree background and that if they needed that sort of work it was always contracted out. It had obviously been specially typed out and was not a stock form, and that shocked the hell out of me. The Experiment posted:The place I work often shows up at career fairs but isn't looking for any entry level people. They are just considered a platinum sponsor for the career fairs at various universities and therefore, just make their presence known to get their money's worth from the sponsorship. They pay that money in case they are looking for entry level people but since it is an employer's market, they often find people with experience instead. I think the primary reason job fairs exist is to provide good PR for at least one of the parties involved, whether there are any jobs to be had or not. It could be a university department who wants to be able to say "look! we're helping our graduates with this career fair!," a politician calling it their one-size-fits-all solution to the local economy's unemployment woes, or a corporate participant just wanting to show their name in a positive light. For shits and giggles, here's a list of concerns you will always find at every "general" job fair: - UPS (hiring package handlers) - Local hospitals with openings for nurses - Vector Marketing (sell knives!!!) - Armed Forces recruiting/National Guard - Local colleges hoping you'll want to go back to school - AFLAC or some other insurance company offering commissioned sales positions bytebark fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Apr 23, 2012 |
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Apr 23, 2012 02:31
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I will be graduating university in June with a BA in History, currently I work part time in retail but I'm looking for anything full time that isn't retail while I figure out a career for myself. I came across a job posting for a mail room clerk, this was part of the job description, and I quote "A MINIMUM OF 2 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN A MAILROOM ENVIRONMENT IS MANDATORY TO QUALIFY FOR THIS ROLE". I thought this was fitting to post in this thread. Even the most basic entry level jobs require years of experience, it's times like this I just want to give up.
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Apr 23, 2012 18:42
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Skulduggery posted:I will be graduating university in June with a BA in History, currently I work part time in retail but I'm looking for anything full time that isn't retail while I figure out a career for myself. Years of experience is bullshit. The job I have an interview for next week specified BS plus 4+ years experience. I'm graduating in a few weeks with two internships under my belt. If it specifies anything less than five years experience required I apply anyway. When my mom was initially job searching a while back some job posts had requirements that specified 5-7 years' experience in a programming language that had only existed for two years tops at the time of the job posting.
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Apr 23, 2012 19:56
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Every job fair I've ever been to has been half retirement homes looking for nurses, and the rest are poo poo like Vector Marketing. The job market here sucks unless you want to deal with the olds or rip people off I guess. But yeah I have a question. If all goes well, I'm graduating with a Masters in Library Science in December. I'm planning on moving to the East or West Coast from the Midwest because there's not a lot of opportunities for someone with my skills in the city I'm in right now. Networking is really important in my field so I want to start meeting people in the cities I want to move to, but I'm not sure how to do it when I'm stuck in BFE. Any suggestions? Also any tips for long distance job hunting would be awesome.
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Apr 23, 2012 20:15
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Flying to California for an interview with Google   
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Apr 25, 2012 02:34
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Anyone have an idea on hard it is to get an engineering internship without any experience, volunteer work, or membership in any organizations? I was just wondering because I'm graduating this semester with a BS in mechanical engineering and I don't have poo poo to put on my resume except for education, relevant classes, and something about my senior design project. I have a major gpa of 3.86/4, but I feel like I'm being outclassed by hundreds of other applicants with multiple internship experience and leaderships roles in engineering organizations. Currently, I'm looking for internships online through my school's career website and other online sources. I don't really have anyone I can contact about any internship opportunities.
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May 1, 2012 03:00
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Years of experience is bullshit. The job I have an interview for next week specified BS plus 4+ years experience. I'm graduating in a few weeks with two internships under my belt. If it specifies anything less than five years experience required I apply anyway. Self-quoting 'cause I just got an offer for this job. Evidence that experience requirements are total and complete bullshit. There is light at the end of the tunnel! RoosterBrewster posted:Anyone have an idea on hard it is to get an engineering internship without any experience, volunteer work, or membership in any organizations? I was just wondering because I'm graduating this semester with a BS in mechanical engineering and I don't have poo poo to put on my resume except for education, relevant classes, and something about my senior design project. I have a major gpa of 3.86/4, but I feel like I'm being outclassed by hundreds of other applicants with multiple internship experience and leaderships roles in engineering organizations. Currently, I'm looking for internships online through my school's career website and other online sources. I don't really have anyone I can contact about any internship opportunities. Just keep applying, I guess there's really not much else you can do without contacts in the industry. What might give you an edge (if you can afford to do this) is to take the summer off and apply for fall internships. The applicant pool for fall/spring internships is much smaller, therefore giving you a better shot.
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May 2, 2012 05:25
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RoosterBrewster posted:Anyone have an idea on hard it is to get an engineering internship without any experience, volunteer work, or membership in any organizations? I was just wondering because I'm graduating this semester with a BS in mechanical engineering and I don't have poo poo to put on my resume except for education, relevant classes, and something about my senior design project. I have a major gpa of 3.86/4, but I feel like I'm being outclassed by hundreds of other applicants with multiple internship experience and leaderships roles in engineering organizations. Currently, I'm looking for internships online through my school's career website and other online sources. I don't really have anyone I can contact about any internship opportunities. Don't take a loving internship after you graduate. You have an engineering degree, find a real job. Don't just go to big companies with websites, apply at small places too. Take up an engineering related hobby. Teach yourself AutoCAD or whatever you MEs use for drafting. Yeah, you should have gotten an internship, but that ship has sailed. You have a good GPA and you should be able to find something to get your foot in the door, especially if you are willing to move to some crappy place in the boonies for a year or two. That will open way more doors than an internship.
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May 2, 2012 08:16
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I was under the impression that no one really hires for real jobs without any sort of experience since there hundreds of people applying for them with actual experience. I thought I needed to get some kind of internship to have a chance at a real job.
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May 2, 2012 09:12
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RoosterBrewster posted:I was under the impression that no one really hires for real jobs without any sort of experience since there hundreds of people applying for them with actual experience. I thought I needed to get some kind of internship to have a chance at a real job. My anecdotal experience with this is that it's not required, but preferred. Being right out of college they're probably not going to harass you about internships or experience. Me, on the other hand, am constantly buggered by recruiters and interviewers about why I have no experience having graduated 3 years ago.
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May 2, 2012 13:37
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Gonna sticky this poo poo for a while. It's graduation season!
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May 2, 2012 14:11
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YF19pilot posted:My anecdotal experience with this is that it's not required, but preferred. Being right out of college they're probably not going to harass you about internships or experience. Me, on the other hand, am constantly buggered by recruiters and interviewers about why I have no experience having graduated 3 years ago. Out of curiosity, what do you tell them? I may need this information soon.
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May 2, 2012 15:05
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Mons Hubris posted:Out of curiosity, what do you tell them? I may need this information soon. Basically I blame it on the economy (the aerospace industry tanked right before I graduated and it's still in the rough), but also try to sell my interest in other industries by mentioning other interviews I've had (like Diebold and Imasen). Not sure if that's the right thing to do, but I'm usually talking to recruiters when the question comes up, so it's like my argument why I would be interested in, say, a Quality Engineer position with Gojo. I've only had one recruiter ask why I didn't do an internship, but my reasons for that were financial.
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May 2, 2012 16:19
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RoosterBrewster posted:I was under the impression that no one really hires for real jobs without any sort of experience since there hundreds of people applying for them with actual experience. I thought I needed to get some kind of internship to have a chance at a real job. Yes it would be easier to get a job if you had taken an internship during college. But no you really aren't out of luck, plenty of people get jobs without having interned. If you had a liberal arts degree, yeah you might be out of luck. But even with the economy being bad the market for engineers is still doing all right. Broaden your horizons and focus on finding an actual job. You should not take an internship making $30k when you could get a real job making $60k. There are not hundreds of people applying for every engineering job unless you restricted yourself to Apple and Google or something. Like I said, look at small companies and look at factories/chemical plants in the boonies. There are tons of them, they have trouble hiring people, they pay well and after a year you can ditch it and have real experience to get a job you want.
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May 3, 2012 05:29
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Like I said, look at small companies and look at factories/chemical plants in the boonies. There are tons of them, they have trouble hiring people, they pay well and after a year you can ditch it and have real experience to get a job you want.
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May 3, 2012 05:56
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Well right now I'm looking for jobs around Chicago so I could live at home and save money. Also, is it a good idea to send resumes to small companies in which there is no career page on their website and to ask if they have an entry level jobs?
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May 3, 2012 09:04
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RoosterBrewster posted:Well right now I'm looking for jobs around Chicago so I could live at home and save money. Also, is it a good idea to send resumes to small companies in which there is no career page on their website and to ask if they have an entry level jobs? The worst that can happen is that they can say no and you move on to the next one. Go for it.
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May 3, 2012 11:40
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How do employers look upon large gaps of time (2+ years) between when you graduated and when you're applying for their opening? I'm debating teaching English abroad for a year as I haven't been able to find gainful employment in Canada since graduating last year and I really need to start paying off some loans. I'm worried about my degree getting stale and digging myself deeper into the "degree with no relevant experience" hole. Or being seen as a flake for running off to teach English after spending two years earning an MA. edit: removed unnecessary background info. yadayadayaba fucked around with this message at 01:08 on May 4, 2012 |
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May 3, 2012 18:16
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Don't take a loving internship after you graduate. You have an engineering degree, find a real job. While in general I agree, don't rule out internships unnecessarily. Some engineering internships pay quite handsomely, and can be great stepping stones into "real" jobs. I'm in aerospace software engineering, and the interns at my current customer are paid $25/hr (caveat: no benefits). Of course, salary positions in the industry start at about 75k+benefits for "entry level" positions, so its all relative.
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May 3, 2012 23:33
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