Someday these job-related entries will stop. But for now, poll time.
I'm curious about where my peers pick up what they know about job-hunting. I hear a lot of general laments about how liberal arts education leaves people ill-prepared for careers that aren't academia, unsure of what other options exist, and I've certainly spent enough time being bitter about my own relative inexperience. At the same time, though, I
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I was just browsing through (I saw you on washingtondc). You've brought up a subject that I've actually thought about considerably over the past several months.
Most likely, you were taught to write across disciplines and explain more effectively. Also, your degree probably required you to have a base of management, economics, psychology, or sociology that helps you understand what motivates your co-workers, customers, and competition. Most of these skills are never explicitly required in a job description, but they give you a leg up and allow you to advance more rapidly. In the meantime, they also do a better job of getting you into a graduate program outside your field if you desire.
In my personal experience, the engineers I work with cannot write nor do they understand our customers and competitors. As a result, I look very good due to what I learned in college, and I also get paid a heck of a lot more for it.
As far as your questions go, I know I knew how to write a resume and cover letter before college, but my college's career office "taught" me all of the above.
People who hire a single position don't like to take a chance on college grads unless they have a personal connection that tells them you're not a slacker. You have to either find someone who is hiring a bunch of positions or you need to literally apply for a couple hundred jobs over time. Eventually you will be in the right place at the right time and find the right manager.
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Thanks for dropping by!
Most likely, you were taught to write across disciplines and explain more effectively. Also, your degree probably required you to have a base of management, economics, psychology, or sociology that helps you understand what motivates your co-workers, customers, and competition.
Close--anthropology. It's like sociology, without the useful quantitative skills part!
I never thought of my social science background as a means of understanding co-workers or customers before, but that totally makes sense. And it's good to hear that from a stranger, since my supervisor at my last job loved to tell me how I utterly failed to read people's intentions. (That is as much as I will say about the previous job in a non-locked entry. That and the fact that it ended with my leaving. In the unlikely event that you're curious, I'd rather take it off LJ.)
May I ask what you do?
People who hire a single position don't like to take a chance on college grads unless they have a personal connection that tells them you're not a slacker.
So college grads are assumed to be slackers until proven otherwise, unless people are feeling charitable? Isn't that what references are for--checking in with other people to verify that you're not a slacker? Or does no one check or take stock in references anymore?
I'm not up to the hundreds of applications mark yet, but I'm working on it.
Mind if I add you? You seem like a pretty cool person. As of now my LJ is mostly locked job-searchy whining, but that's subject to change upon actually acquiring a job, of course.
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In my experience, references are the last thing people check, after the interview has gone well, and sometimes they don't even bother.
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I'm a sales engineer for a telecom company. I design and propose data networks for the federal government.
:-)
Nice to meet you.
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