I don’t know if the returning seniors have yet absorbed how tough the job market is. They showed up on campus with an “anyone can get a good job” economy and are graduating into a different one. Heck, I know senior corporate employees who haven’t really baked in the impact of tariffs, declining dollar, cuts in funding for all sorts of things, etc. And when they’re called into a meeting to hear " you need to cut your budget by 15 percent" they are flabbergasted.
So I think he’ll have figured out a realistic plan by November once he gets the same message from professors, grad students and his classmates.
I hope your son goes into his career fair with an open mind and talks to as many employers as he can. In our experience, having the one on one interactions at career fairs is much more impactful than applying for positions online. The companies we know that recruit on campus go into these fairs ready to make job offers while they are still on campus.
OP…it might be worth engaging some What If conversations before he goes back. UTC ..big employer in New England. Some divisions work on military research. Others are purely commercial. Some do both (i.e. early technology which can be commercialized in a variety of ways). Will that be OK? Raytheon in Boston and Mass suburbs…they do both. Some companies research arms are just “skunk works”… developing cool stuff without a specific product or customer in mind, and then the technology gets sold, absorbed into a business line, licensed, etc. But early on you can’t predict what the purpose is going to be…
If he spends some energy working through the corporate affiliations of various things he’s interested in it will save him time later. The DOD is not the only customer of products which have a military application…lots of startups in aerial transportation ( drones, etc). Some monitor weather, climate events, crop health, are useful for botanists and zoologists. But are also used by the CIA, interpol…what then?
On that note, I am going to turn in my Berkeley simp card for a second, and share a gripe about the career center - my son is taking the Fall semester off to intern and they promptly revoked his access to Handshake. I almost wrote a nasty email offering to pay for this subscription but S22 wisely counseled me into inaction.
Back to Handshake, I think its a pretty efficient way to apply to companies predisposed to recruit from the school since many employers will post to specific target schools.
I honestly found (at Bama) most any job my found on indeed posted on handshake a few days later. I think many large companies at least - blast - at least to the major schools.
He had applied to many from indeed prior to them hitting handshake. He had indeed sending him daily feeds.
S22 isn’t actively recruiting for new grad but most of his friends are doing a combo of LinkedIn + Levels + Specialized github repositories that aggregate postings. It might be a california or CS thing but Indeed doesnt ever seem to come up.
My son finds that they are on Handshake and Indeed too. And he has found many(most?) jobs he sees in Handshake at Bama are the same ones his friends see at Michigan. When they talk or when we moms talk, they are applying for the same summer intern jobs. I’m sure some are different but it isn’t yet noticeable to us.
So! Unbeknownst to me, kid HAS been on handshake. Not recently, because he was focused on finishing summer internship (which ended last Friday) and hadn’t updated the resume (which happened last night). But today’s To Do list is: review and finalize (for now) resume; update LinkedIn page; take a stroll through Handshake and Indeed to get queries set up. We’ll see how that goes.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, (what is that from and why is it in my head?) my youngest heads off to freshman year next week, making me an about to be empty nester who has no hobbies. I still work full time, but I need SOMETHING to do to take the place of HS sports attending, child shuttling, homework nagging. Little does Older Son know that The Spreadsheet is likely coming back. Last year when he was getting anxious about finding a summer job I spent down time while waiting at practice, or waiting for S25’s event (he’s a sprinter, track meets are neverending) I built a google sheet with links to whatever jobs I found that seemed interesting for S22. He could apply to them, delete them, whatever no questions asked or nagging. But building it gave me something to do that felt productive, and some of the things I found for him ended up being interesting to him. I suspect that spreadsheet building is going to be my new activity while sitting with my spouse who watches WAY too much baseball on tv… S25 can never open the spreadsheet and ignore it all, but it will help me feel like I’m doing something with my anxiety, and maybe I’ll run into something interesting sounding to him. Who knows.
How about volunteering at your local Y, boys and girls club, etc and offering your expert spreadsheet making to a HS senior who is getting zero support at home for their college aspirations??
There are kids who really need the help…and ■■■■■■■■ online postings for your kid is truly an anxiety provoking activity with a very low payout. Trust me ..he can find a job. He is a successful college senior in a rigorous major.
But I bet your town has kids falling through the cracks .
I served on the board of a nonprofit which provided “last dollar” scholarships to needy kids. Some of their essays were incredibly sad. These weren’t the kids being written up in the local paper for bagging tens of thousands of dollars in merit money. These weren’t the kids living in a homeless shelter heading off to Yale with full freight plus incidentals. These were kids taking the bus to a public college 45 minutes from home who needed $500 for lab fees for their bio and chem classes. Many of them had the stats which WOULD have snagged more money at a better resourced U which would not have required a family contribution or the 3k in student earnings. But the guidance counselor was responsible for 300 kids. And this high performing kid who never got into trouble met the counselor once in four years and was told “here’s the application for eastern overshoe University and you will get a fee waiver”.
Your expertise is really valuable. But your son really and truly can launch himself. And if one of his professors is prepared to pick up the phone and call in a favor, that’s worth more than a thousand online applications.
I too am a fan of the spreadsheet lol. I did something similar when S21 was applying for internships. I didn’t create a spreadsheet, but I’d periodically send him an email with links to internships I thought he might be interested in.
I’ve just seen a report by BoA called “the robots are coming”…. Looking at the long term but estimating that total humanoid robots in ownership could reach 3 billion by 2060! Across industrial, service and household applications. And (as I thought before and mentioned upthread), one significant use is expected to be hazardous tasks. They’re expecting half a billion within about 15 years (reading off their chart).
Serious question for everyone. As parents how involved are you in your kid’s job search? I have a S22 and this thread is causing me some serious anxiety. I haven’t been involved in his job hunt thus far and was never involved with his older brother’s either. His school doesn’t use handshake. Does that put him at a disadvantage? He is a physics major and just wrapped up an automotive engineering internship that he found through good old fashion networking that he did on his own - hubby and I don’t know anyone in that industry. He went on a few informational interviews set up by guys he met at the car club in our city and his resume was passed along to someone who hired him this summer.
Long story short, he absolutely loved his internship and now wants to go into automotive engineering. The company hasn’t given him an offer. His team took him out to dinner last night and told him if they have an opening, the job would be his. Due to tariff concerns, they don’t have the green light to hire anyone now. He should keep in touch and they will let him know if something opens up. They also said they would love to have him back as an intern next summer. I’m not sure if it makes sense for him to do? He is now talking about doing a masters in automotive engineering and is taking the GRE next week. He only wants to apply to Clemson. I’m not sure how useful the masters degree would be - but a couple of the engineers on his team are graduates of that program and really talked it up to him. I’m not worried about the cost, just don’t know if the degree is necessary. He is thinking if he doesn’t get an offer from his company, he would intern with them again and start his master’s next fall. He doesn’t seem all that motivated to do a large scale job search. In the current job market,I’m not sure if grad school is a good plan or not.
I wa also not involved at all. I didn’t know where they applied, or when they had interviews. They might make comments in passing about an interview coming up or complain about being ghosted after interviews but that was the extent of it.
A lot of parents are tapping into their network to help get referrals. At firms that receive thousands of applications for every job opening, merely applying online is unlikely to produce much success. Referred candidates at least get a look (at most firms).
Did your kids start their first job this year, or are they looking to start next year?
I haven’t been involved in his job hunt thus far and was never involved with his older brother’s either. His school doesn’t use handshake. Does that put him at a disadvantage? He is a physics major and just wrapped up an automotive engineering internship that he found through good old fashion networking that he did on his own - hubby and I don’t know anyone in that industry. He went on a few informational interviews set up by guys he met at the car club in our city and his resume was passed along to someone who hired him this summer.