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The reverse job applicant

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Re: The reverse job applicant

#301

Post by Dilpil »

One mistake many recent college graduates make is looking for openings in the wrong places. Its understandable- no one ever tells you how to get an entry level job.

To clarify, craigslist and monster.com are absolutely the wrong places for entry level job seeking. From what I hear, they kind of suck for any job seeking.

The best place is a company's website. Quite a few company's have a "students" or "new graduates" sub-section in their careers section. This is how I ended up at my job.

Networking and on campus recruiting are nice too, but they aren't always an option.

Re: The reverse job applicant

#302

Post by gaius »

potatolicious wrote: post #206
danhak wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot explain how much you have hit the nail on the head. I graduated from college in May and have been having the exact experience you describe. My generation has been described as entitled. Quite frankly, I do feel as if I am owed something, and that society at large has failed to keep its end of the bargain. For my entire life, I was told that if I work hard in school, bust my ass to go to a good university and…

Society didn't lie to you, society never struck a bargain with you. Your parents may have lied to you, maybe your teachers too. Whoever it was that lied, it wasn't us . It probably wasn't malicious, some people are/were genuinely extremely misguided about how the world operates (protip: not as differently as before). Here's what happened: you abdicated your responsibility in one of the most important aspects of your…

Seriously, just walk into these places and ask to speak to a hiring manager.

That is how I got my very first job in the industry. It was a small ISP, do you need anyone who knows Unix? My "interview" with the IT manager was in front of a terminal (no spare chairs, so I sat on a DEC server), showing each other stuff on the command line. Started the next morning.

It works.

Re: The reverse job applicant

#303

Post by mediaman »

LogicHoleFlaw wrote: post #295
mediaman wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen people become cynical in the face of consistent joblessness despite many applications. It worries me because it could cause permanent negative attitudinal shift with bright people -- the early parts of a career can be very formative, and it's not good if, instead of a good, supportive and developmental manager at a stable company, people feel stuck with bad bosses or cannot escape the tyranny of unemploym…

Perhaps I have missed something, but I don't see any contact info in your profile. The email field on the profile page is private to each user - only the about: field is public.

Good catch, fixed.

Re: The reverse job applicant

#304

Post by mrj »

mirkules wrote: post #241
randomtask wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know nothing of his situation and yet are willing to cast aspersions on his character. Before you go tarring a whole generation with the "entitled" label perhaps a little context from the generation that lacks humility might be in order. Friends of mine are in the same position as this guy. They recently graduated with good degrees from a decent university with no allusions that finding a job was going to be anyt…

In addition to all the comments to your post, I wanted to highlight this sentence: "Most of the time they get no reply from these companies (fair enough)" I don't agree that it's "fair enough". Rejection letters used to be actual letters in the mail -- it was someone's job to fill in the applicant's name, put their address on an envelope and stick it in the mailbox. The point being, these used to cost the worker's wa…

I don't think it's being rude. It's that 20 - 30 years ago, all executives had secretaries who would be tasked with responding to resumes. Now, communication is so easy that nobody needs their own secretary, but the executive is less likely to respond to every resume.

Also, the number of applicants has greatly increased because communication is so much easier, which greatly increases the pain factor trying to respond.

Re: The reverse job applicant

#305

Post by brianbreslin »

treeface wrote: post #257
brianbreslin wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly (and i graduated high school 10 years ago), so I may be a bit fuzzy on this. But in THEORY you could not calculate a max "out of 4.6" because you could take more credits than the baseline by taking summer school, college courses, etc. So one could end up with an "average" of 6.3 or 7 since they are divided by the baseline (i think it was like 28 classes? at 4points max each so 112) so assume I t…

Never heard of that sort of system, and I'd never before heard of a valedictorian having a GPA too far north of the 4.6 region. Well...I suppose it's difficult to say if my experience applies generally (I'm sure it doesn't). However, at least in my high school, the absolute maximum possible was something like 4.6. You could, and we regularly did, calculate it based on your own classes. External classes would usually…

I had a 5.2 graduating from hs (weighted of course). I took mostly AP classes, but wasn't a straight a student by any means.

I think honors classes were 5 points and AP were 6

Re: The reverse job applicant

#306

Post by gaius »

hogu wrote: post #58
chegra wrote: post #21

His resume: http://www.andrewhorner.com/documents/AndrewHorner.Resume.pd... * For your level of experience, Everything should fit on a page. * Take out the operating system part. They can infer them by the languages you use. * Take out high school * Create a section for awards and list them there * Take out familiar with MatLab and Latex * For each project give a link to a screen-shot or working project and ensure th…

matlab skills are highly desired for some jobs, If you know it well enough to put it on your resume, you should just lump it in with the other languages. same with latex(if you're possibly looking for anything academic/research lab)

Hmm, yes, but MATLAB is only a useful skill when combined with domain knowledge, e.g. DSP, control, whatever. No-one is using MATLAB to write websites.

Re: The reverse job applicant

#307

Post by yxhuvud »

Dilpil wrote: post #301

One mistake many recent college graduates make is looking for openings in the wrong places. Its understandable- no one ever tells you how to get an entry level job. To clarify, craigslist and monster.com are absolutely the wrong places for entry level job seeking. From what I hear, they kind of suck for any job seeking. The best place is a company's website. Quite a few company's have a "students" or "new graduates"…

Or, if it is a smaller company, a mail to jobs@company.com with a short introduction and resume attached.

Re: The reverse job applicant

#308

Post by werthog »

ajaimk wrote: post #91
run4yourlives wrote: post #72

If you really care which programming languages I already know or which applications I have used before, I can only assume that you're overlooking my ability to quickly pick up new technologies and adjust to new ways of thinking. I would encourage you to correct this, as it is a mistake. I know it's tongue in cheek, but my god does the current generation not have any humility at all? This is going to ruin your world v…

I disagree. This guy is indeed special. If for no other reason than for the fact that he had the fucking guts to write this.

Guts? That would imply that he had anything to lose by doing this.

Re: The reverse job applicant

#309

Post by aboodman »

randomtask wrote: post #159
run4yourlives wrote: post #72

If you really care which programming languages I already know or which applications I have used before, I can only assume that you're overlooking my ability to quickly pick up new technologies and adjust to new ways of thinking. I would encourage you to correct this, as it is a mistake. I know it's tongue in cheek, but my god does the current generation not have any humility at all? This is going to ruin your world v…

You know nothing of his situation and yet are willing to cast aspersions on his character. Before you go tarring a whole generation with the "entitled" label perhaps a little context from the generation that lacks humility might be in order. Friends of mine are in the same position as this guy. They recently graduated with good degrees from a decent university with no allusions that finding a job was going to be anyt…

This thread hit close to home, so I wrote a blog post I've been meaning to write for awhile, and framed it as a response:

http://www.aaronboodman.com/2010/10/wherein-i-help-you-get-g...

Re: The reverse job applicant

#310

Post by Tycho »

It's pretty funny. I took it as just an ironic take/satire on the demeaning tone of job adverts. I hope it doesn't backfire on him (judging by some peoples reactions in here, it might. Reading it I had thought 'I wish I'd thought of this.' now I'm kinda glad that I didn't)
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