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Having trouble finding a job after college
r3probate
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If you don't identify what this is, you will probably continue with this problem when you have a higher degree.
I would recommend listening to the manager-tools podcast (google), specifically the member only ones on resumes, interviewing, and the behaviour of personality types. While you may not be a manager, I've found these podcasts invaluable for getting some insight into how business at ALL levels works.
Is the town you live in pretty small? Part of my problem is that I live in a smaller town in west Texas, but I am moving soonish to another state/a larger metropolitan area, so that won't be a problem. My recommendation is to be open to moving, and to build up contacts. Isn't it all who you know?
Going back to do a totally different degree in another field would be inadvisable, unless you genuinely feel you hate finance and dont want to do it (which doesnt sound like its the case). Further study in the field is an option, however i'd be more inclined to get into a position first then look at industry accreditations, which can carry incredible value. Yes, you have to get a position first, but i'd invest my energy there rather than go back and lock yourself into more years of study... which will still leave you with no relevant experience.
You could also consider investing in a consultation with recruitment advisors. This could cost a few hundred dollars but it might help you hammer out any flaws you might have in your approach at present.
If you can't start high, start low. Look for work as an intern (oh yea, no cash) or in a similar "small-time" position and kick the shit out of it. They'll see you in action, plus you'll have the legroom to move up extremely fast with the degree under your belt.
It's pretty easy to think we did well at an interview, but I doubt you've ever interviewed someone for a position before, which means you don't really know what these people were looking for, or what would make you appear more favourable to them.
For example, how much were you observing the interviewee for their reactions to things you said? for their pace of speech? if they thought about something before asking a question? for whether they fiddled or not? These are little clues that you can use to adjust your behaviour to appear better in an interview, and it is very specfic to each interviewer.
I was going to suggest the internships. Do an internship. Or start targeting companies you're interested in and checking out job listings on their websites. If you're content with a large company its usually easier to move up even if you don't technically meet the requirements.
Temp agencies might be good too. So check those out.
I ended up taking an entry-level job that doesn't relate even a little bit to finance. The salary and the benefits are good, and I can get my master's for free (went with accountancy so I could sit for the CPA exam when I'm done).
If finance is what you love (I'm with you if it is), I would absolutely recommend going to graduate school for finance. Most (respectable) graduate finance programs are 1.5-2 yrs long and have an extremely high placement rate (like 90%) with 6 digit salaries. You might have to move to New York or Chicago, but that's not such a bad thing.
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I find it's typically much easier and helps you get more options to look for contract work if you are having troubles finding full time employment. From a private sector view, contractors are typically much easier to hire than a full time employee because it is on a contract basis rather than a large investment of time and money for extra headcount.
Places like Accountemps might be something you should look into. If nothing else, it'll help you get experience to gain a better chance at finding full time employment. Of course, depending on your situation, you may also need to look into getting an MBA in finance or accounting or some such.
No, seriously. Canada has five major banks: The Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Toronto Dominion, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and the Bank of Montreal. All five have been around for years and years, and they are currently the most stable financial institutions in the West. Their exposure to the American credit crunch was absolutely minimal (due in large part to Canadian banking regulations), and have been acquiring American banks and financial talent for the last little while fairly aggressively.
If you are good at what you do, you may very well be able to get yourself headhunted, or, at the very least, offered a job by one of the above (or perhaps their American branches - for instance, Harris' Bank in, I think, Chicago is owned by RBC).
If you want to work in the banking/financial services sector, this may be your best bet.
I don't want to say "you're fucked," but you're fucked (for now). It's a horrible market. Trust me: I'm writing this from an office on Wall Street where I should be working as a quantitative analyst, and I have a lot of friends in banking. A few things:
1) why didn't you work an internship? the established path for finance is that you intern at a bank between your junior and senior year of college, and then at the end of the summer they make you an offer. going outside of that path is very unpredictable
2) I have a friend who just finished an internship at JP Morgan here in NYC, and he said that out of a group of 50 kids, only 10 got full-time offers. that will likely be all of the offers that they extend for next year. this is a bad, bad market.
3) what are you applying for? have you thought about applying to consulting jobs? what about smaller banks?
4) try accounting jobs. they're less interesting than working on wall st, but let the bad market conditions blow over and put something on your resume in the meantime.
I'd recommend this as a short term solution. Its a good way to get some work and some cash, and if you can keep busy, it prevents any gaps forming in your employment history. Furthermore, temping has the advantage of exposing you to a number of businesses and work environments, and temping can lead to a permanent position.
Plus, it makes networking tremendously easy if you're already in a workplace, even as a temp, you're easily able to meet people who will be helpful to your career.
You are networking right? Not just replying to ads either print or online I hope, because that job hunting method has the unique distinction of being one of the most popular and least effective ways to get a job. An extremely high number of jobs are never even advertised.
My brother, who was unemployed from February - June, swears up and down by Martin Yate's "Knock 'Em Dead." From what I've read so far it seems like very helpful, practical stuff.
Also, does your school have a career fair? If so, go. If not, look around. Atlanta has several non-academic-related career fairs over the course of the year. I have a few friends who landed jobs from the one in Cobb Galleria, though I think that's held in April.
I'll add my recommendations for that book as well for job hunting advice for the whole process.
Would someone who lets say, has a good enough GPA at a target school (but not Harvard/Whartons) with a VC internship and some extracurriculars including leadership experience be still fucked?
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If you don't want to do the whole government contracting kind of thing there is all kinds of money to be managed here. Average income here is much higher than the rest of the state. Anyways, check it out.
This.
I've been working in software QA for years. 100% of the jobs I have landed were due to knowing someone.
I'm lucky I don't have to move since CT has a pretty big tech industry.
To the guy before who asked if he was fucked: you'll be good. Things may start to clear up as early as next summer, and you interned at a VC firm. Approach that VC firm (and others) about job stuff and that'll definitely get you somewhere to work.
Plus, VC is fairly safe right now. The market is mostly bad for banks, hedge funds, and other financial institutions because of this ripple effect where institutions like Lehman go out of business and have to hold a yard sale to pay off debts ASAP. Then it's like, why buy Google stock from hedge fund H when I can buy it from Lehman for half the price? Then everyone's portfolio value crashes and these things called margin calls happen, and that makes someone else goes out of business, and go to step 1. We'll see what happens, but hopefully the government will end up stepping in or things will straighten themselves out.
I'm a recent grad who was lucky enough to have a retail job open for me after my graduation last year. I worked behind the counter 25 hours a week, lived with my parents, and made the remaining 15 hours into my "job search time." It took me a good nine months of interviews, searching and worrying before I found an Office Director position at a small non-profit. It's not the 40k opener (English/Religious Studies major...) that I had hoped for, but it's close enough to give me a good bit of savings and disposable income. Oh, and it looks great on a resume. I never thought I'd be in this job, but that's how it works, right?
I've had numerous friends in the same position who have taken crappy jobs to pay the bills while remaining engaged in a job search. The fact remains that in this economy you have to get somewhat lucky to land a decent position. We're taking jobs that we're overqualified for, because the ones that we're qualified for are being taken by people who are overqualified in turn.
Do something small if you can to pay the bills. Work at Starbucks or Barnes and Noble while going to interviews. Eventually you'll get an offer, and you'll take it. The important part, now, is just to be employed. When the market turns up and the not-great company you're at expands, you may be happy you took that job.
Whatever you do, try not to be unemployed for a year. Apply to retail, call center work or a temp agency. There's nothing employers hate more than seeing a huge gap in your history, and "I couldn't get a job" doesn't sound too good when explaining it.
In the morning, a van full of guys and a flatbed truck arrive at the worksite and with crowbars in hand, proceed to disassemble the dilapidated house or derelict building. At the end of the day, you would have neat stacks of lumber, tubing, glass panes, etc. We would then load the material on the truck and take it back to a shop to be refurbished (sanitized) and re-used.
If there was going to be a headline picture for a newspaper, I want it to have a picture of the old house in the background, and a line of my work crew and I standing before it, tools in hand. Below and to the left of that picture would be later in the day with all the neat stacks and an empty cement slab, a third picture could be everything packed on the truck, the van next to it.
With that as the starting company, I would begin seeking out skilled craftsmen from within the ranks and without (using the local unemployment agencies and IV Young Professionals Organization) and look to start a building-construction company.
The company would specialize in homes that are energy and water efficient, and filter air quality before it entered the house. Conceivably, one company could tear down the house, and the next day this other company would begin constructing the new home.
From there, I would start a third company that would focus on the interior decorating of the building, helping with flooring, wiring, and mounting of fixtures.
A fourth company for landscaping. This opens up the possibility of turning some home-owners unto gardening for decoration or harvest.
With these four companies, I might as well start a fifth company that deals with home owning, lending, and buying. I think I would aim for a goal that if a person can make payments for five (5) years, they will own that house.
With the above as my base, I would being branching out into other business ventures which may or may not work.
6. Website/Radio station. (I would start this once the first company got off the ground, or alongside the launch since it is intended for publicity.) The website would feature videos of the local community (govt meetings, festivals, games, etc) and a directory for finding local businesses. It takes a year to start a radio station, and eventually one would be built and be able to stream it's audio online. The radio station would have a live morning show that people could call into, and would cover local issues and have contests and entertainment. Would play modern rock (some of what I play on my Pandora "radio station") and feature local artists.
7. Not-for-Profit Charity. (Started at same time as first company.) Based on Interfaith Services in San Diego county, this open-budget company would act as a "community liason" between charities and services and businesses both local and foriegn, as well as politicians and celebrities. Using the SD branch as a model, trainer, and oversight, it could grow into a multi-million company and provide services ranging from day care, after school programs, summer camps, veteran services, recovery services for addicts, battered women shelters, adult ed, senior services, while at the same time helping local groups like churches, Elks Lodges, Rotary Club, Fire Dept, Police Dept, etc in their functions and charity drives.
I would have the NFP begin programs for my workers, and me, that would involve college classes, vocational training, and even as stepping stones towards leaving the valley and getting their kids into college.
8. A health food restaurant. Using the "gimmick" of the Blood Type Diet, the "ABO Cafe" (don't think that name is taken, and bet the doc who came up with the diet would get a kick out of it) would have a simple message of mentioning health problems caused by diet or possibly linked to diet, and that eating at the cafe breakfast, lunch, and dinner, would have an equivalent, and better, impact as what Jared did with Subway sandwiches. (And not charge people at the least $6 a pop for a meal, or keep "secret" what the ingredients are.) It would feature local cuisine, with the twist of ingredients. (I could envision franchising this.) I would start in Mexicali (with it's larger population), and if the cafe did well, make a proper sit-down restaurant (with delivery/take-out service), and build a restaurant in El Centro. Then try expanding both within and without the valley. The menu would feature vegetarian dishes, and there would be a buffet.
9. Comic Book Company. Using local bilingual artists, would seek to create comics that are in Spanish and aimed at both an American and international audience. Also, english and bilingual comics. Might also seek to do depict historical events that reflect hispanic history/culture and caucasian interactions.
10. Internet business company. Using contacts I made in San Jose, connect with businessmen in Mexicali, and thus a doorway to other businessmen in Mexico, and begin making websites and applications to be used in Mexico, with Spanish, and/or bilingual.
11. Reality TV show. Find a neighborhood on the U.S. side of the border that has relatives and connections on both sides of the border, and in all walks of life on both sides. This includes kids in school and teachers, elected officials, people in Border Patrol and Customs, prison guards, police, fire fighters, IID, civil servants, field laborers, farmers, and even illegal immigrants. The "slant" of the show and the editing would be determined later. Could begin this on Youtube.
12. Bar/Entertainment venue. Essential a large building to feature a large crowd section, a seated section or two, VIP lounge area over looking the stage. Would have open mic nights, guest bands, a house band that performs Thursday-Friday-Saturday, etc. Music venue would be varied, and I would encourage the house band to try different genres throughout the night.
While I begin these companies and start my new life, I will fill my nights and weekends taking college courses. Each of the above ventures I will start myself from the ground up so I know the industry and learn all the roles and positions. I would also hire people who know what they are doing to assist and work with and for me. Likely I will start with military veterans to help establish the word code and ethic that each business will have and use to achieve it's best efficiency. That way, individuality should not be stiffled by subsequent people who come in, especially teenagers.
I will also follow the paradigm that a person could start in any one of the companies at the ground level and be able to work, and learn, in each of the other companies to expand their own personal skill set. This will hopefully lead to the employees being able to always have opportunities of advancement and even to start their own businesses.
To begin all of this, I will need to generate capital, and so will look into working as a contractor outside of the country for a year or so. Maybe try to get a job in Latin America to help improve my Spanish.
I applied at a shitload of jobs, including temp work, admin assistant, and other crap.
I'm in a market that's bigger than yours and when I say "yeah, it's not my big ideal thing but there are NO jobs" they don't even blink during the interview. It's that bad. I've had interviewers tell me they're seeing a lot of Master's and PhD degrees atm.
Basically, take anything you can get, go lower than you think you have to, and something that will help you survive will come. Try to get something with the Internet so that if it sucks you can apply for jobs while you're there :winky: