A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
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A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
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Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#2This is EXACTLY how I feel about life.
Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#3I feel the pain, but I also don't think there's much else someone in an HR department can do for you. There are no jobs and especially no entry-level jobs since they are the lowest priority to fill/create. What do you propose they do for you?
It's frustrating and wrong but it's not HR that put everyone in this mess. Edit: and it's definitely not HR that's going to get everyone out.
Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#4If you were my little brother, and you told me that you had applied to 100 jobs you were strongly qualified for and got zero offers, I would put on my big brother pants and make some fairly pointed observations about your skills, beginning with lead qualification. I would then advise working on skills like lead qualification over sending out 100 more resumes into a process which, as your big brother who loves you has to point out, you must have designed to fail. It should not be difficult to get radically better at it, because a) you've got nothing but free time and b) the place where you're starting from is not terribly advanced.
Also coming from the place of big-brotherly-introvert love: if you are aware that networking is important and networking takes place at events that you don't go to, this suggests a fairly obvious strategy that actually works.
Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#5If you were my little brother, and you told me that you had applied to 100 jobs you were strongly qualified for and got zero offers, I would put on my big brother pants and make some fairly pointed observations about your skills, beginning with lead qualification. I would then advise working on skills like lead qualification over sending out 100 more resumes into a process which, as your big brother who loves you has…
What do you mean by "lead qualification"? Searching Google wasn't helpful...
Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#6While this may not be the case with everyone of this age, it seems to me that a lot of people purchased a crappy education, and are now surprised to find themselves in debt with a worthless degree. As a 25 year old, I'm finding this is true of about half the people I left High School with.
Like buying almost anything, it's possible to pay a lot of money but still end up with something crap.
The real shame is that kids are not taught to think about education in the same way they they would consider the value of any other purchase.
Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#7If you were my little brother, and you told me that you had applied to 100 jobs you were strongly qualified for and got zero offers, I would put on my big brother pants and make some fairly pointed observations about your skills, beginning with lead qualification. I would then advise working on skills like lead qualification over sending out 100 more resumes into a process which, as your big brother who loves you has…
What do you mean by "lead qualification"? Searching Google wasn't helpful...
Evaluating whether the position, company, culture, and long-term prospects are mutually relevant to both parties.
Operationally, answering the question: "Are you selling what they are looking to buy?"
The more sense it makes for both parties, the higher the probability for the deal to get into more advanced stages.
Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#8If you were my little brother, and you told me that you had applied to 100 jobs you were strongly qualified for and got zero offers, I would put on my big brother pants and make some fairly pointed observations about your skills, beginning with lead qualification. I would then advise working on skills like lead qualification over sending out 100 more resumes into a process which, as your big brother who loves you has…
What do you mean by "lead qualification"? Searching Google wasn't helpful...
Your resume is like a sales lead. As someone who made a living selling these to mortgage brokers, they'd routinely ditch the low credit leads before making contact - they knew it'd be too hard to "close" that lead.
So I think Patrick is arguing that more qualification is necessary - it sounds like employers are seeing this resume as a low quality lead. Meet some people who can help you, do something that tells an employer "this person might make me more money!", etc.
Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#9Boo fucking hoo.
Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job
#10If you were my little brother, and you told me that you had applied to 100 jobs you were strongly qualified for and got zero offers, I would put on my big brother pants and make some fairly pointed observations about your skills, beginning with lead qualification. I would then advise working on skills like lead qualification over sending out 100 more resumes into a process which, as your big brother who loves you has…
I was thinking the same thing. If you send out 100 resumes a week, how great a quality can any of them be? If only because of how exhausted and frustrated you get after sending out 100 resumes. Take your time, research some companies where you'd be a good fit and REALLY do your best to write an excellent cover letter and a tailored resume.