<p>Sometimes, what looks like “magical thinking” is really “I don’t understand the steps I need to take to accomplish this.”</p>
<p>The young person may need some guidance – perhaps detailed guidance – on what to do. For example, “you need a resume” may not be enough. That task can seem overwhelming if you’ve never done it before. The parent might need to sit down with the student and go through the process of developing the student’s resume together.</p>
<p>^^Great post erthswimming, thanks for taking the time to write it. Your candor as to how much effort you put in helps us see inside the mind of one of today’s 20-somethings. Kudos on eventually meandering onto the right path, however haphazardly you arrived there! (very glad it wasn’t law school). I wonder how much the slow speed and missed deadlines actually contributed to your ultimate path? As if the meandering was necessary to arrive at the destination? I sort of feel in my gut that direct, speedy, driven paths can lead to false (like law school?) doors for some kids.</p>
<p>In my mailbox every day I currently receive job ads for 3 markets (NYC, Phila. and where D goes to college), and for 4 different job categories. All the jobs require a previous internship or professional work experience, even the undergrad summer internships.</p>
<p>Also, judging from older S’s experience, companies seem to look for very specific prior experience and if yours doesn’t match exactly or very very near, you don’t even get an interview. So I definitely agree that rushing into a path could lock you in a wrong path for a long time. On the other hand, not having a path at all is worse! (Unless you are independently wealthy, lol.)</p>
<p>Another example: D had what we thought were good summer jobs. While her high school friends were going to the beach, working as camp counselors or lifeguards, or working at the local supermarket or Target, D did a business internship, energy use research for a public policy research company, and some statistically-oriented research for a professor. She is still only a college soph. and declared her major as economics. Regardless, several interviewers commented that she seems more of a public policy kid and why is she interested in business/finance/banking/wealth management/whatever. It is so hard to break in. If she doesn’t get a more economics-related job this summer, she will probably have no choice but to go to grad school (which we can’t afford) to do something in public policy when what she wants to do is business or finance.</p>
<p>* she has been aggravatingly lucky and some important stuff has surprisingly worked out decently for her, which only reinforced this thought pattern.*</p>
<p>Doesn’t that just aggravate as well. Seriously. When people don’t plan and then things magically fall into their laps, it reinforces this kind of “fly by the seat of your pants” behavior. </p>
<p>When my H graduated from grad school, he literally stuffed his car with his belongings and moved to Calif. He didn’t send out resumes ahead of time, had no leads, nothing, nada (and he had very little money to cover costs til he got a job.)</p>
<p>Since the job market happened to be good at the time, he was snapped up rather quickly for a well-paid position. Because of that kind of “right place, right time” situation, my H is convinced that things will just “fall into place” and there’s never a need to have a plan or anything. His whole family is that way. They think the world is just waiting for them to show up.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. </p>
<p>My daughter was an econ major. She had three summer internships, all in areas unrelated to the full-time jobs she applied to as a senior. She got plenty of interviews anyway, which led to two good job offers in fields in which she had not interned (even though internships exist in both of these fields). The companies cared more about her GPA and her performance in case interviews than about the exact nature of her previous internships. </p>
<p>What happens during the recruiting process for full-time jobs seems to differ dramatically from what happens during the recruiting process for internships – maybe because there are fewer internships. From my daughter’s experience, it seems that getting a full-time job may actually be easier than getting an internship. </p>
<p>When my daughter applied to internships through her university’s on-campus recruiting system, she never got a single interview (she found her internships in other ways). But when she used the same system to apply for full-time jobs, she submitted something like 25 applications, got at least a dozen first-round interviews, which were followed by about five offers of second-round interviews and two offers of very good jobs, one of which she accepted. </p>
<p>Your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>I think fear paralyzes lots of people. It’s easier to do nothing and have laziness/magical thinking to blame than to try and have a door slammed in your face. And sometimes, as evidenced by the above stories, doing nothing works out. Actually if you let ppl around you know you’re looking for a position that’s not actually doing nothing, tho it might seem simple because it is relatively little effort or time required. </p>
<p>Here’s a slightly off topic business article on types of ppl you don’t want to work with but that has some verbiage that is on topic:</p>
<p>"…why would you or anyone make a ridiculously important decision “against your better judgment?” Because, at that moment, you choose to believe that pigs can fly. That miracles do happen. That universal laws don’t apply to you because you’re special.</p>
<p>You choose hopes and dreams over reason and instinct.</p>
<p>Well, here’s the thing. Pigs can’t fly, miracles don’t happen, the laws of physics do apply to you and hope is always a dumb strategy. Instead of hopes and dreams, learn to listen to your better judgment, trust your instincts, and keep these seven types of people out of your business." </p>
<p>[7</a> types of people you never want to work with - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57404872/7-types-of-people-you-never-want-to-work-with/?tag=nl.e713]7”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57404872/7-types-of-people-you-never-want-to-work-with/?tag=nl.e713)</p>
<p>D is not responding to my texts (I’m not bombarding her, in case you wondered.) I’m thinking this is not a good sign as far as the status of her job application efforts. She’s no doubt thinking that if she doesn’t answer me, I’ll “somehow” forget about her, lol.</p>
<p>GFG, you said that your daughter is only a sophomore. Many internships are reserved for students a year ahead of her in school. Sophomores tend to get them only through connections or luck.</p>
<p>My son got one through connections. (A friend of my husbands ran the internship program.) </p>
<p>My daughter got one through luck. (One of the places where she applied needed to fill an internship slot in a great hurry because a deadline was approaching. She got the spot not because she was the most qualified but because she was the first kid they called who was willing to say yes immediately.)</p>
<p>But not every kid has connections or luck. </p>
<p>Perhaps it might be a good idea to ease up on the pressure on your daughter and work with her to try to plan some other constructive activity for the summer if she doesn’t get an internship. For example, maybe she would like to take some courses in the summer session at a local college or do some type of volunteer work in your home community. If she does find an internship, she could always change her plans later.</p>
<p>Could those of you with more experience explain how/when/why we got here? </p>
<p>What’s wrong with a college kid getting a summer job? Just a crappy, probably minimum wage paying job with strange hours or less than wonderful working conditions?</p>
<p>I don’t work in HR, but it seems to me that I might prefer to hire a new college grad who had some experience working in “real” jobs, or who returned every summer to the job at the grocery store, where he worked his way up from bagger to something with more responsibility over the years.</p>
<p>I know “things are different now”, but I honestly know almost no adults who ever had a summer internship in anything. We worked doing things like seasonal jobs, maintenance jobs at college and hard labor (installing fences, lawn care, parks and rec summer camps, driving the bus that dropped river tubers back at the head of the river, concessions at summer concert venues, wait staff at resorts…). Even those jobs that we got through connections were pretty lowly. (Swing shift at a paper mill, garbage pick up, cleaning out and organizing the “dead” files in a business’s basement come to mind.) </p>
<p>I don’t come from a blue collar background, and live in a very white collar world in a part of thecountry where summer internships are legion now, so you’d think i would “get” the summer intern thing. But i don’t. I believe that ANY summer job is worthy. And while I think its nice if a kid gets an internship, I just don’t understand the hand wringing about the possibility of NOT getting one.</p>
<p>I tend not to believe kids who say they cant get hired for a summer position. In my experience that means they applied to a couple of jobs that sounded really great, but wouldn’t even consider a night job as a stocker at Target as being worthy. And their parents seem to agree that there are some summer jobs that are more worthy than others.</p>
<p>Sometimes I feel like I’m one of a nearly extinct breed of parent who thinks that when you are still in college all jobs are worthy, and that future employers might respect evidence of any work history, as opposed to one three week unpaid internship in a distant city that only the wealthy can afford to do.</p>
<p>My own college kids have worked their fair share of less-than-wonderful jobs, and have applied for summer internships that they may or may not get, and will be working somewhere, be it lovely or crappy, this summer.</p>
<p>Well, from my recent experience in the grown-up-job market, most of the “entry level” positions I have been able to find, with hours upon hours of searching for months, requsted 1-3 years of industry relevant experience-- which is maybe not a strict requirement at some places but they STRONGLY prefer it. I don’t have that experience and it’s been a serious problem for me. I can understand the pressure to do those summer internships and in hindsight wish I had, even just office experience prior to graduation would have made a difference for me. My salary started several thousand dollars lower than my peers at work because I didn’t have that experience and they did, they don’t care about all the time I spent working in the “kid” jobs. There’s enough competition that they don’t need to consider that, so they don’t.</p>
<p>And around here, 10+ people show up for interviews in the same time slot for Mcdonalds, and you’re competing with the townies who will be there year round and older more experienced people who are out of work and desperate. I tried, and failed, to get a job shoveling horse manure at a barn where I had extensive family and personal connections-- seriously. It probably would have been easier for me to find a stupid internship!</p>
<p>“kid jobs?” Almost any job will give you a chance to show your willingness to show up on time, to take shorter than necessary breaks, to be engaged in the work, to offer to take on more responsibility, to learn quickly, to show respect to your supervisor and customer, to have a positive attitude. </p>
<p>I surely wouldn’t be eager to hire someone to mulch my flowers, who referred to it as just a kid job. But I’m happy to hire the college “kid” down the street who has been running a seasonal lawncare business For several years, who has a couple of other kids who work for him. All of the kids who work for him treat their seasonal “kid job” as a real job.</p>
<p>Lots of people display a complete disrespect for starting out with A job, as opposed to THE job.</p>
<p>I do agree with you eastcoastcrazy, but I understand the job market to be exactly as Emaheevalu07 describes. That is also how my '10 son experienced things when he was in college. Although I’d like for D to obtain a relevant internship for obvious reasons, if she tries and fails, then she has to work in whatever job she can get no matter how “crappy.” She need the money for college. But that’s not simple either. </p>
<p>One problem is her school is on a quarter system and so she won’t be returning back home until a good month after the local college students get out. As it is, jobs are scarce and it’s likely that between the college students who get home in May, and the local teens who hold jobs during the school year and increase their hours for the summer, there won’t be anything left for D. Also, it’s not like she has any waitressing or retail experience, which seems to be necessary to get even those jobs. My friend’s D couldn’t get a waitress job this summer so far because she hadn’t ever done it before and there were other people with experience who applied. What complicates matters more is that as an athlete in season, my D couldn’t come home for spring break (happening now) to look for any local positions! She attends school on the west coast and we’re in the NE, so it’s not like she can come home for a weekend to job hunt.</p>
<p>Marian–she needs to make money, not spend it, so taking classes wouldn’t be a good plan. Besides, with the FA we get, she’d spend much more taking a course at the local flagship than the tuition at her elite school.</p>
<p>Eastcoastcrazy, thanks for the great post. You are not alone.</p>
<p>TheGFG, it sounds like your daughter also cannot consider unpaid internships. That makes things more difficult. </p>
<p>Would her budget allow her to work in her campus community and live in a summer sublet? That way, she could apply for local positions there, and she wouldn’t be at a disadvantage because she’s on the quarter system because most West Coast students are on that schedule.</p>
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<p>This made me laugh!</p>
<p>For my D1, we laughingly tell her that her favorite saying is, “Well, that took longer than I thought it would…” She always underestimates the time it takes to do any large task. Very much into magical thinking!</p>
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<p>I wasn’t saying that’s what /I/ think, that was just the attitude I got in the interview process about my past work experience. I agree with you that those jobs are great jobs and are a great place to get your start. If I could do it over again, I’d have done those jobs in high school and early college, and then as a last resort if I couldn’t get internships later on in college. I was just saying that, from my experience hunting for jobs, employers really didn’t care about those jobs, at all, and I took a huge hit coming into my current company in terms of salary-- and as such I can understand the pressure to go crazy looking for internships even though it doesn’t really make any sense. To be perfectly honest, the stuff I did in my volunteer jobs was way more valuable than what I did in my internship, but since it isn’t industry related they didn’t care. They had enough applicants with industry relevant experience, even at the entry level, that I couldn’t compete.</p>
<p>* we laughingly tell her that her favorite saying is, “Well, that took longer than I thought it would…” She always underestimates the time it takes to do any large task. Very much into magical thinking!*</p>
<p>I’m going to show that to my H. He always grossly underestimates how long something will take. And, then when it does take much longer, he chalks it up to “bad luck.” lol</p>
<p>One has to APPLY for even the unpaid internships…</p>
<p>^^Thats what S2 is doing. His university requires that his internship be unpaid. You would think people would be happy to have free help for the summer but so far that hasn’t been the case for S2.</p>
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<p>Yes, of course, but your daughter would have no reason to do so if they don’t meet the financial criteria you have established for her for the summer.</p>