Long time lurker here who finally needs help.
S1 graduated in June from a top 5 ranked college, and has not been able to find full time employment . He is only looking for work in Chicago and has sent out 5-10 job apps every week since mid-September, and sent follow-up emails.
Unfortunately he knows no one who can help get his ‘foot in the door’. Also unfortunately he struggled a bit in college , and took some extremely challenging classes and his gpa is is around a 2.8.
Out of the 100+ apps he has sent, he has heard from only 2 in response. No interviews at all.
I don’t know how to guide him, and he is feeling pretty miserable now.
Ouch!
He needs to expand his reach to other areas outside of Chicago and enhance the resume with intern experience.
Edited to add: Contact the Career services at his university and ask for help and alumni contacts.
Has he worked with career services at his school–had someone look over his resume, use career services job listings, career fairs, etc? Is he willing to look outside Chicago?
The problem with interning seems to be that just about all the companies require him to be enrolled in school still. He says he doesn’t want to go for masters/phd yet-good thing because I don’t think he could get into a funded program.
He is only considering Chicago, but is reluctantly starting to think about finding different work close to home.
He needs to head back to his school and use their student resource department to make sure his résumé is done correctly. He needs to get their help with mock interviews. He needs to learn how to adjust his résumé for each job he applies to. Computers may be kicking his résumé out before a person reads them if they don’t contain the word fragments from the job posting he is applying to.
Does he have any employment history? Did he have any internships? Did he do a senior project he can highlight?
Does he have any coding skills at all? Does he know any computer languages? Is he proficient in matlab or other programs?
If not, he needs to see what skills he is missing and become proficient in them while he looks for a job.
Also he may need to expand his location criteria. Has he signed up with a temp agency?
Just a few ideas. I’m sure there will be many more. Good luck.
He had career center review his resume, and he checks job listings they post. Other then that, career center was no help while he was still attending the school.
He has to go back to Career Services and meet with their advisors. Checking job listings is not enough. HE has to be proactive and make that appointment. If they have never met with the student, they have no idea about who he is, what he did, and what he hopes to do. They are not going to risk sending someone unmotivated to an employed alumni member. Sitting at home, on a computer is not going to get him ANY jobs. It will further depress him and won’t get him employed.
By interning, I was asking about his PREVIOUS intern experiences as a student. Those are the companies that would be interested in him. Did he not have an intern placement in his junior or senior year?
Maybe he should apply for jobs in NYC and California and move there if possible.
What kind of job does he want to have? He may need to have more than one resume to suit different kinds of job.
Biggest problem hindering him I think is lack of internships. No real work history except part time analysis work for dad currently. He was quite sick during most of college years, so it would have been difficult to maintain work schedule. It is really amazing that he graduated in 4 years, honestly.
No, don’t send him to California unless you can afford to pay his rent for a year (~$2K per month in big cities, average).
Lack of internships and experience is hurting his chances.
My colleague’s husband graduated with a degree in Math. He works for a type of “think tank” that does medical research. Your son may not know that a number of research facilities look for math majors to “run the numbers”.
I don’t have a link for you, so I can’t help with that.
He needs to let every relative, every friend, every friends parent know he is job hunting. Any job right now will be helpful to him. Even retail. Get a job. Show up. Work hard. Talk to people.
I know a kid who worked for a car dealer scheduling repair apps. He gave people rides home after they left their cars. He got talking to one guy for the ten minute ride to his house. The guy offered him a job when he graduated. He followed through. He is now working at an investment firm and has passed all his tests.
My sons last job came from a job offer he decided not to take. The interviewer suggested him to someone else. That job he took and LOVES.
My daughter met hundreds of people a day as a barista at Starbucks. She received many, many job offers.
In other words he needs to be out in the world talking to people.
When my D graduated from college, she found if she was applying to jobs in a location where she was NOT, her application was not usually considered. After returning home and working in a temp position for several months (and saving money), she moved to Chicago and signed up with a couple of temp/recruiting agencies and was working immediately. She was offered permanent positions from all her temp jobs (including the one at home) but was able to get an interview for a company that only worked through recruiting agencies. They did not advertise their positions. Her prior temp work gave her the background they were looking for. She was hired at a very good starting salary.
Temp/recruiting agencies do not cost anything to the applicants.