Get A Job

Some comments on No Experience, No Job--Not Really.

From Spice--I got my first job after strugging for 11 months. This after having a Masters degree in Computer Science. This was in the year 2002-2003. Even though, the times were bad back then, 11 months seem to freaking long. My only suggestion for college grads, hang in there, there is a job out there for each one of us. Just don't give up trying no matter how long it takes, well definitely improve the methods if you think you can better them in any way. NEVER LOSE HOPE

and

from Kira--You can also cut a lot of the crap by working jobs during college and getting some good references. I worked a total of 11 different jobs during college and when I graduated I had four at one time. I think that fact alone impressed the hell out of the people I interviewed with and I had a job two months after I graduated. Plus, I got more money because one of my jobs was sort of kind of related.

Great comments and great stories.  Stick with it through hard times and prepare before hand with all kinds of jobs, any jobs that set up a pattern of employment and hard work.

So what is the common denomainator?  What will get you that job you want?  Beats me but what one famous golfer (Nickalaus?) said rings true "The harder I work the luckier I get."

I also believe anecdotal stories are the best.  Theory is theory but real stories are based on what works.  So here is the story, or an update, on Margot, my daughter. 

Margot is in Edinburgh, Scotland, and has been for the last month in training for her new job as, I will call it, assistant account executive for a petroleum consulting company.  Loves it.  If she didn't bonk her head out horseback riding this weekend she will be home, Houston, on Friday.

A year ago she was a newly minted BS in business from Texas A&M looking for a job.  The resume looked pretty good--good GPA, sorority activities, semester in France.  The best thing was DJ and marketing director for the local school radio station--the station in College Station.  So what to do?  Found a job as a technical recruiter for a small company in Houston specializing in placing computer geeks in local companies.  I added up the pros and cons--good job market, entry level job, high risk because commission based and I've seen a  million of these jobs.  Some people are very successful at this kind of thing.  The vast majority are not.  But still not bad for entry level.  What I did not count on was a boss with a Napoleonic complex and Hurricane Rita.  So after three months of some success but not much the boss told Margot that Rita was just going to blow over.  I said no, get out of Houston and don't look back.  She did and got out but if she had waited then it would have taken her 24 hours to go 50 miles.

The attitude of the boss basically woke Margot up to the fact that this guy was a nut.  So she resigned.  I don't always recommend this kind of thing but the fact that the boss had fired two of the three people hired with Margot after two weeks amplified the fact that this guy was indeed, a nut.  So an apartment in Houston and no job.  The Bank of Dad stepped in which was fine with me as long as itdidn't last too long. 

The chase was on--tomorrow we look at the advertising agency vs. the 'safe' job.