Kid is negotiating a very low ball job offer (think along the lines of what the OP’s kid got after his negotiation). She needs to stall them just long enough so she can have that interview at the local startup and - fingers crossed - get an offer from them. I doubt anyone would offer less than that offer.
Timely! Ds2 just got a call about a phone interview at one of the two companies he targeted in the city he wants! I think he’d be starting in a bottom-rung position, but there’s a clear path to advancement. And maybe with this bite, he’ll get more movement from the place he interned last summer. Everyone cross your fingers!
This is a hot thread and was lucky first time around…lots of finger crossing…keep sending good karma!!
Keeping my fingers crossed for all those whose kids are job hunting.
When my S graduated in 2011 he didn’t have a job. He interviewed and was offered a job with a terrible salary. No benefits and the guy wanted to pay him as a contractor. My S took the job, He worked for him about 9 months. The guy was nice but totally took advantage of S. He would send S home if things were slow. He also was slow in paying. All around not a great situation from our point of view. My S on the other hand really liked the guy. He introduced my S to all types of music including opera and classical. He taught him skills he hadn’t learned in school. My S felt the guy took a chance on hiring him and he was willing to give the boss some slack. My S felt he would have been happy to work for free just for the mentoring he feels he got. When he owed him some back pay at the end of his time working for him my S was willing to let it go saying he has a family he needs the money more.
My S has since had several employers and he still feels thankful to the guy who gave him that first job.
I only read the first three pages so far. great thread. Very practical and honest advice and this is where the rubber hits the road. The OP’s son did all that work and had reasonable expectations and now things aren’t going well. That is a tough situation and I extend my feelings to you and him. Hang in there.
I wish I had an answer or advice but frankly I do not. I read the first three pages of replies and thought most of them made sense and then when the OP said the location sucked and he really doesn’t want to work there anyway I thought geez maybe he should just say no. But, if you don’t have a date to the dance and the girl next door is standing right in front of you conventional wisdom says take her to the dance! Beggars can’t be choosers as the saying goes.
Anyway, really love honest threads like this instead of the “My son/daughter is perfect, 9,000 SAT, 9.3 PGA on a scale of 5.0, reads all day, works at the orphanage at night, etc.” Hey, if they are that amazing no need to apologize but I really like the threads where it sounds like people have normal kids even if they are amazing. My son is coming out of grad school in July 2017 so this is probably a good preview of what he will deal with. I am a little scared no doubt about it.
Just was at a group lunch with former co-workers, and one dad was concerned with one son who got a degree in marketing but still hasn’t landed something professionally, even after some time; working odd jobs. I asked if he was good in sales and he said he didn’t know. If he is good in sales, he pretty much can find a job IMHO. But sometimes it is the right opportunity at the right time too.
One has to play the cards one is dealt, and then go from there.
Marketing =/= sales. Lots of folks confuse the two or lump them together. Marketing is a mix of psychology, math, and statistics.
Kid has 2 interviews next week. She is sick of the job search, but does not want to grab the first low ball offer that rolled her way.
I’m glad she is getting plenty of interviews, Bunsen! Fingers crossed one of those will be the one.
I got a marketing concentration in graduate school. A big marketing program will have sales courses, product line marketing courses, a big variety. Interestingly, my UG had one of the majors in psychology.
However many jobs that are ‘marketing’ are sales - inside sales or outside sales. And many depend on one meeting the company goals.
I love statistics. In fact Marketing Research has statistics in it (as does any UG research course, and some grad research courses). I was shocked when I taught Mktg Research how basic I had to get with the UG students taking the course with statistics teaching.
I know with the job search it gets discouraging if done with school completed and still looking for the job. Have to continually work the job search like it is a job, as well as continuing to network and stay upbeat.
We have friends who had a D and SIL who had jobs and their bachelor’s degrees in the UK but when them moved to HI, they couldn’t land anything but sales jobs (which they weren’t interested in). They finally were able to have the friends (who are both teachers) help them get jobs at the school as teaching assistants and slowly they’ve both worked their way up to being teachers. The D is completing her teaching certificate and master’s degree and getting tenure now. It was NOT what they had planned, but both are enjoying the careers they ended up with and both are extremely good at it.
People who are good at marketing are not necessarily good at sales, just saying. 
So if the young man has a more introverted, number crunching-loving mind, sales might not be his cup of tea. He needs to take a good inventory of his marketable skills and go from there.
@atomom, did your DS start his new position yet? If so, hope it’s going well!!
Yes, S is starting his 3rd week on the job now. They had a nice orientation, he got a couple “welcome packages” from the company and his team, and a couple lunches out with them, and training the first week. He doesn’t share a lot of details, but he said he is on the “cloud team.” Mostly writing test code (?) He said it is sorta boring (S is very tolerant of boring) but the people are nice. There just happens to be an express commuter bus that is very fast/convenient–a near miracle in our city that is not at all known for its public transport–so that saves $ on parking downtown and gas, and the stress of rush-hour driving. So far, so good! Best wishes to those still looking!
@atomom, I’m so glad to hear they are treating him well and that the transportation situation worked out!! The worry never ends…will they get into college, get an internship, get a job…all we really want is for them to be happy, safe and secure. Well done!!
I stumbled across this thread and wanted to extend congratulations to the CS kids who have found jobs after long searches and good luck vibes to Bunsen’s daughter. It sounds like she’s well on her way to getting a good position. @atomom, it’s really nice to hear such a positive update.
I also have a daughter who has been involved in a prolonged tech job search so I’m joining this fairy dust thread in hopes of her finding a job and soon! She’s very personable and companies seem to want to hire her but once she passes the interviews and then the coding challenges, she freezes during the on-sites. I’m hoping that repeated practice will help. She is studying hard to improve her skills and attending every meetup and whiteboarding session she can find. I don’t know a thing about this industry but she reports that interviewers can see that she is continuously learning and showing progress on new projects and they tell her they like this. (Is there a place where this stuff is shared?)
I agree that there seemed to be a dearth of interviews during the November-January period and that now more opportunities are showing up. She’s got 4 interviews this week and next, some first interviews, others 2nd and 3rd. I am cheering her on as hard as I can so that she stays positive and upbeat.
Excellent for her! This is the single most essential skill for a coding career as things change so fast these days. A passion combined with the ability to learn a new language or platform fast is extremely valuable.
Make sure she stresses that to the interviewers: “I learn very fast and love to put in extra time to learn a new thing”.
And, maybe, that she knows going back over her work is part of the process, finding and fixing errors or making it smoother, more efficient. That is, without slowing down the final results. (Front end is the learning and using; back end is the quality of her work.)
Hello all, I believe we spoke about further up thread…anyone recall what the report/summary is called that colleges list where graduates have found employment? I’ve totally blanked on that. Any updates here?
It appears that only a minority of colleges publish career or post-graduation outcome survey results. Those that do also vary in what data they present in what format. Examples (the following all show results by major, which some colleges do not show):
https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/Survey
https://gecd.mit.edu/resources/survey-data
https://careers.calpoly.edu/search.php
http://career.vt.edu/about/postgrad-survey.html
Thank you @ucbalumnus … this is helpful!