I recommend turning his lack of experience into an asset.
“I’m smart and have the education and if you give me the chance to get the experience to go with it I will work like a sled dog in return”.
A common young person mistake is they believe they have to convince the interviewer they are already the equal of the peers. They are not, so that is ineffective. Build your hand around your strongest cards: Hungry, young, smart, hungry, dedicated, eager, and hungry.
That is why QA is such an excellent entry point. A QA guy who can troubleshoot code for an experienced programmer (whose time is much more valuable) really contributes to overall productivity.
He can’t lose his confidence, because that seems to be what this interview game is all about. BS and confidence. I guess the positive is that if he’s getting rejected, at least he is getting interviews, and that is something. If nobody is even talking to you, you don’t have a shot…but if you are at least getting partially through the interview process, at the least, you’re getting practice and learning for the next time. Though it’s hard to hear, “No thanks,” once again.
What location is he in right now? It seems that people are more apt to interview you if you’re local, that way they don’t have to pay for your transportation or a move.
Is there anyone here that hires CS new grads that can help @atomom’s son? Either with advice, or a chance?
Sorry for being MIA, we unexpectedly got the opportunity to adopt a dog yesterday, and he is very needy and time-consuming.
Is this normal – the recruiter got back to him yesterday with more specific benefits for the job (vacation days, amount he would have to contribute to insurance, etc.) and is pushing him for a decision by the end of today. It seems they don’t want to give him too much time to think about it. She told him they always expect an answer in 24-48 hours. She also said that the company wanted to hire someone more senior but liked him and want to give him a chance. And that seeing so much game-related stuff on his resume, they’re afraid he’ll leave if a game job becomes available. To which he wanted to reply, “If they’re so afraid I’ll leave, they should be offering me a higher salary.”
I’m still so confused (as is he) and barely slept last night. I’ll read a couple replies (and I’ve been getting private messages too) and think he should turn it down, then I read the replies from atomom and kitty56 and think he should just take what he can get. His interview was very much like kitty56’s son’s. While this company has been in existence since 1988, there are no reviews on Glassdoor. The other in-person interviews he went on lasted for hours and involved sample code and coding tests. I don’t think this one required either, and it only lasted a bit over an hour.
The decision would be so much easier if he drove and could commute from home instead of moving. Believe me, I’ve tried to get him to get his license. He did learn to drive after his freshman year of college but decided he didn’t like it and that was that. Maybe this experience will be the kick in the pants he needs.
Keep us posted, @kappiemom! I totally feel I’ll be in your shoes in a couple of years. There’s a certain amount of luck to this, but also a certain expectation in being very aggressive in the search and this is really hard for some of our otherwise terrific kids.
That seems odd that there are no reviews on this company after all these years, I wonder why. And no salary information either, online?
Expecting an answer in 24-48 hours is definitely not industry standard, they are trying to rush him. It’s a negotiating tactic. My younger son just got one of those “expedited offers”, and he countered with, “Either I need a week extension to consider this offer and see how my other interviews go, or I need a 7K boost in the salary”. He got the salary increase. I think some of these recruiters are trying to take advantage, they need to seal the deal to get their commission, and that’s the major incentive, not putting him in the right place.
But I still don’t know if this job is going to offer him good skills and experience in the industry. Is he doing something that will be helpful to him in the long run, or is this just killing time? If it’s going to give him a better resume and have him doing something he wants, it may be worth it, regardless of the salary.
He might decide that if his options are either learning to drive or having to pay to live on his own, that learning to drive is cheaper and less of a hassle…unless there is plenty of housing nearby to the job, that he can share with others. Tough to support yourself on that salary.
If your son should decide to take the job, I would suggest for him to get temporary housing (through Airbnb or short term furnished lease) instead of signing a long term lease. If after few months he likes the job then it is not too late to get a long term lease. If it turns out to be a flop then he could easily quit and move back home. He could also not include it in his resume if he should leave after a month or two.
I don’t think it is that big of a commitment. Try it out for few months to see how it works out.
I see all kinds of red flags with the recruiter pressure - tell the recruiter he won’t even think about it until he has a formal offer from the company (in “writing” which can be email) indicating everything - salary, benefits, title, etc. At that time, he will need 3-5 business days to consider it. Once he has something official from the actual company he should speak to the person making the offer(whoever’s name is on the emai/letter) about how he feels the salary is too low - keep the recruiter out of that negotiation.
Kiddie, thank you, that is the kind of concrete advice I’m looking for. (Not that I don’t appreciate everything other posters have said.) This is totally outside my and my husband’s experience.
Busdriver, I wish he had other interviews in the pipeline to counter with.
There is very little information about the company available online, just a short blurb on Bloomburg and a lot of PR releases. I can’t even find how many employees there are. However, the CTO has been there since 2003.
@kiddie, I don’t know about keeping the recruiter out of the negotiation. Isn’t that how they negotiate, is through the recruiter, when that is whom they are working with? But he should be seeing a formal offer for him to sign with the company, I would think, not just a word of mouth offer through the recruiter. What do all you experts think of that?
I agree with Kiddie’s advice. Don’t let him get pressured to respond immediately. If that’s a requirement, then he should walk away. It send up a red flag to me, as does the fact that they only interviewed him for an hour or so. I totally agree that he needs to have the offer in writing, from the company. (An email is acceptable.) Then he can deal with the person at the company who sends the offer.
Sounds to me like their primary requirement for this position is that he can breathe.
Correct, the recruiter can’t be circumvented. I think it’s reasonable to tell the recruiter he needs an extra day or two to review the benefits, employee handbook, whatever. It probably wouldn’t take 5 days to “decide.” Personally, if it were my son, I’d tell him to take the job. I agree with the others that much time has gone by and he still has no “real” work experience on his resume and is now bumping into the next group of newly minted graduates…
I am a VP in the tech industry for more than 20 years. I have been following your post about the low ball offer. I may be able to offer some advice in this situation. The recruiter that your son is dealing with is he an in house recruiter (works for the company that is hiring the position) or a 3rd party (that submits candidates to multiple companies and earns a commission)? The answer to this question will help in the approach to take. As for not having an offer in writing, I have seen this as becoming more normal, as companies do not want candidates to “shop offers around”. As for your question about the need for a quick response, is in my experience the more time between the offer and deadline the more chance there is to loose a qualified candidate. Very much like when buying a car, keep you in the showroom, because when you walk away, the likelihood of you coming back are smaller.
Another thought. The months of November through January are a hiring dead zone. My kid is on a job hunt, and she has not had a single bite during those months except one interview, but of a sudden, the floodgates have opened up despite the fact that most positions in her field are on hold due to hiring freeze and budgetary uncertainty. OP, your son needs to hit the job search full speed before the new graduates begin to flood the market in the summer.
Regarding the general topic, we hire entry-level development staff consistently. Most of our entry-level staff are intern conversions and intern interviews are often trivial. It’s a simple “try before you buy” system. For the positions that aren’t filled that way, it’s refreshing to see a significant number of resumes for a position (this contrasts with our experience on senior reqs which are more likely to fill via referral). One of my teams had two SW Engineer I positions open recently and we immediately got 50 resumes that were worth considering. What do we look for in entry-level tech staff? It’s simple really–quantitative and articulate. That’s pretty much it. In my experience, young men are far more likely to have trouble with the second requirement than young women do. I’ve never checked our stats but I suspect young women are more likely to get an offer than young men are.
For this specific situation, I’m surprised to say this but I’d recommend turning down an exploding $40k developer offer. It’s $2-3 hour less than we pay interns who’ve completed their sophomore year. Furthermore, if your kid’s into game development, he should prepare to be low-balled. Game companies often have reputations for exploiting their workers more than other tech companies do.n Anecdotally, EA has a terrible reputation for this while someplace like Popcap didn’t. Since EA bought Popcap With Popcap, I expect McDonnell Douglas culture (EA) to trounce the Boeing culture (Popcap).
My son is not articulate. (That is why he went into CS–because the head of the Actuarial program told him he needed good verbal communication skills. . .)
