I originally posted this to 子女教育,and it got removed immediately. I thought I was doing them a favor but apparently the moderators their don't appreciate this kind of stuff. Anyway, I'd like to provide help to anyone who has child in college or about to go to college.
Tips for College Job Seekers
Spring has come and soon hundreds of thousands of college graduates will leave schools and enter the job market. Now, if you are a college graduate and you still don’t have a job offer at hand, your prospect of getting a job upon graduation is probably less sanguine than you’re hoping for. While many graduates have more than one job offers available for them, the less fortunate ones will have to double their efforts and at the same time planning on their post college life without a job. I have been a job seeker and I have experienced the anxiety of job hunting and the envy of someone else getting a job offer. Now, after being employed for so many years, I recently have been sitting at the other side of the interview table, asking questions, rather than being asked. After going to a few on campus recruiting events and conducting numerous telephone and face to face interviews with hundreds of job seekers, I think I am qualified to tell those who are looking for jobs a few things that a job interviewer feels about the candidate at the other end of the phone line or the other side of the table.
First of all, let me declare that the decision to hire someone or not is a very personal and subjective matter. It’s all about how the people who interview a potential future employee feel about the candidate. A company or organization may have certain guidelines or even formulas to evaluate the qualifications of a candidate, but in the end, decisions are made by people and with emotions. There is no absolute objectivity when it comes to offering or not offering a job to someone.
Thus, if you are a job seeker, you should always remember that you are talking to people. You may have excellent training, grades, and work experience, but how many times have you seen that someone who seems far less qualified than you get the job you wanted? There can be many differences, among them, the uncontrollable factor, luck, but to a large extend, many people who have not so solid data on their resumes somehow manage to impress the interviewers more than you have been able to. And that’s probably the main difference.
Based on my own experience, the followings list some of the top issues for those who experience more failures than others in job hunting. For each problem, I am also going to try to offer some solutions. Read my descriptions and suggestions with suspicion, these are only my own opinions. If you talk to someone else, he or she may have different views or even contradictions to what I say. So, don’t take what I write word by word. You may or may not get your job sooner.
Wrong job
Nothing kills the prospect for further consideration in a job seeking process than sending your resume or going to an employer at a job fair more than applying for a wrong job. That is, your experience doesn’t match the job description. At many job fairs, I’ve seen people applying for a computer software development job with a degree in mechanical engineering. The only reason that made them to talk to me about such jobs is because they have taken one or two computer language courses. They tell me that they’ve done some Java programming and therefore they think they can do other programming as well.
There is nothing wrong to apply for a job that is not a perfect match. But people need to know that there should be some match toward that perfection. Computer programming is not the hardest thing to do on earth, but most of the time we hire people who have gone through their entire college life learning about computers and programming. If you think that you can spend only couple of semesters in lieu of the four years of the others, you are either extremely smart or the other people are extremely stupid. Most of the time, we see average people and I’ve never seen anyone exceptionally smart. We’ve gone to some of the nation’s top colleges to recruit and I’m sure that at places like CalTech or MIT, there are geniuses who may be future Nobel laureates, vast majority of candidates need to finish a four year college to get a decent software engineering job.
The solution is that you need to know what the job requirements are before applying for it. Most people understand that this is the most basic thing in a job seeking process. But many new college graduates don’t do enough homework to match their course work with the job requirements.
Lying and exaggeration
Many people incorrectly equate highlighting their achievements to lying and exaggeration. There is nothing wrong to bring the job interviewers attention to some little thing you have done in the past if that thing relates nicely to some of the job requirements. There is everything wrong to make up or exaggerate something that was probably insignificant but because it seems to be utilizable to the current job requirements. Interviewers can’t do fact checking on the spot but most of the recruiters have experience about their jobs and can tell immediately if someone is making up stories. Most people don’t lie outright, but rather stretch the truth of something that the truth becomes only a tiny portion of the whole story.
The solution is simple, don’t lie. Again, do your homework and research the job requirements before you attempt to talk to someone or deposit your resume to the inbox of a potential employer. Back up all of your claims you list in your resume with real stories, which must be your own personal experience, not someone else’s or what you would have done if you were in those situations again.
Unprepared
One of the first questions I always ask to a candidate is: “how did you hear about us?” At every college recruiting event, I always got answers like, “Oh, I just see you now and I just want to find out if there is a job for me”. When I hear an answer like this, my inclination to move the candidate to the next level is immediately discounted by 50%.
Employers are people, they always like to have someone who has shown interests to them. It is absolutely inexcusable to go and present yourself to a potential employer without knowing some basic facts about the company.
The solution is simple as well as complicated. Be prepared! Know everything your time allows about the company. To the minimal, even if you know practically nothing about the company, say at least something like: “Yeah, I’ve heard your company, do you do enterprise software?” The internet is a great thing, at least for job seekers, it allows people to find out all the details about a company. Go to the company’s web site, read at least the “About Us” section. If you have more time, read about the products. If you really want to work for the company, try their products if possible. One of the best resources I’ve found is to read the company’s investors relations information. The 10-K statements and other SEC required filings should tell the truth about the company. Although these documents reveal mostly the financial data about the company, there are a lot of data about the company’s products and organizations as well. These facts help you to dive deep into more understanding of the company and this is the complicated side of the research on prospective employers.
Qualification
Your qualification is the most important asset you have to land you a job. For college students, we look at the GPA, any job experience, and internship experience. One of the ways I sort college candidates is by their GPA. All college graduates take basically the same courses and do the same projects, thus without work experience and internship experience, GPA is the only differentiation factor. Currently the job market still favors the employers, many times I simply through away any resume that shows GPA below 3.75/4.0.
College students, do really good on your core courses and work hard to get a better GPA whenever you can. It counts when it’s time to apply for a job.
Another factor is internship experience, which is another differentiation factor. If I see someone who has done internships at Microsoft or Intel, I’d be certainly interested and my questions often concentrate on the details of these internships. Unfortunately for us, students who intern at Microsoft or Intel usually have more than one job offers at hand.
It takes four years to build up your qualifications when you need a job upon graduation. Work hard on your GPA on campus and work hard on internships off campus.
Confidence
Lack of confidence for some job applications goes in tandem with unpreparedness and qualification. If someone doesn’t know about a company, he or she certainly won’t be able to talk in depth with the recruiter. Someone who doesn’t have sufficient knowledge about the job won’t be able to answer technical questions eloquently and effectively.
But confidence is not just about knowledge, it’s about the attitude and the candidate’s views towards life. I’ve seen many students who seem to be qualified but fail to impress me because they are unsure about what they say. When I challenge a college graduate with hard technical questions, I am not looking for answers only seasoned engineers can answer. I look for the way the candidate deal with such questions. I want to know if they are able to explore unknown territories with confidence. I want to know if they have a good idea on attacking something unknown. Confidence also means that a candidate feels good about what he has learned. He may get it wrong, but at least I can see in him that he is an eager and willing learner and doer. When I see someone hesitating, I start questioning the ability of the candidate when they are faced with something challenging.
Many students from China need to overcome this issue. But do not equate confidence with pretending to know everything. Confidence includes looking at me straight in the eye and let me see that your eyes sparkle with excitement and energy when you are working on a problem. Confidence includes the willingness to admit that you don’t know something but yet are able to quickly grasp the essence of an answer given by the interviewer.
Personal appearance
This is one factor that most significantly differentiates an American student and a foreign born student. I’ve seen numerous candidates who simply stink, albeit dressed in fine suits. When you go to a job fair, prepare your own appearance just as vigorously as you prepare for your resume. To a large extend, this reflects a candidate’s personal habits. I’ve seen people who have long hairs from their nostrils and numerous others whose mouth exudes unpleasant air. We try to ignore these factors and deemphasize the unpleasant feelings. We know that these young men and women will pay more attention to personal hygiene as they grow up. But still, if someone smells, I try to finish the conversion sooner.
English
I have seen many fine students from China who have stellar academic records and even extensive work experience but speak poor English. When I reject these candidates, I have great sympathy for them, I see in them myself, who spoke poor English when I was looking for my first jobs. My academic records were not as good as these candidates and my personal appearance and manners were even worse than many candidates I’ve seen. My job search was hard but eventually I landed a job at a small firm, which valued my master’s degree in Computer Science more than poor English, stinky mouth, and messy hair. Now I am trying to hire these people, whom I know are more than able to do the job, but when I compare them to others who speak flawless English, even those with strong accent, I have to opt for someone who is easier to communicate with. When we hire people, I am not someone who can make a decision by myself. I am one of those people who can influence a decision. Most of the time, I can decide whom to reject, which is where my true power lies.
Also, if I recommend someone to move further, I need to let my coworkers know that I have picked someone who is well qualified and easy to communicate with. If I constantly pick people who get rejected later, my own reputation is tarnished. I tolerate language difficulties in some candidates if I know that they can communicate and convince others that they can be hired. Most of the time, I can just see that some Chinese students just don’t have the necessary language skills to get hired.
The solution is simple and tedious, work hard on learning and speaking English. Do not always hang out with your fellow Chinese inside and outside of the classrooms. Living that way may be easier for you but if you want to find a job, you’ll know that language is a big obstacle.
Show your interests
Finally, a company hires people who want to work there. In addition to preparing for the job fairs with knowledge about a perspective employer, you need to show that you have a genuine interest in working for the company. Countless times I received candidates who simply told me that they just need a job. They treat each company the same way and they see that an employer is just a job opportunity. In reality this is truth, but if I have someone who tells me more about his interests in my company, I’d have an easier time to report the recruiting results to my superiors why it’s a good idea to hire this person than others.
Showing interest doesn’t just include that you say that you are interested. Too many times I receive an enthusiastic reply if I ask a candidate is interested in working for my company but fail to give a good reason. I like to hear people tell me that they like our products and they can have a good career with my company.
When you go to a job fair, do not stop by at a company out of just curiosity. Be always prepared to talk to a recruiter with interest and enthusiasm when you stop even for a moment at a booth. If you are sure that you are not interested in some company, just want straight away without looking at the people at the booth. Do not give a chance for the recruiters to talk to you if you are not prepared to talk with them at length.
Do not bring a friend with you when you talk to a recruiter. At one college event I talked to one of a pair and the other one just hangs around as an uninterested party. The impression I got is that the one talking to me needs someone to boost her confidence. She isn’t sure about herself and she needs to have a companion to confide her feelings.
Summary
The above observations may not be complete and some may be even wrong. So take them with a grain of salt. Regardless if you agree with me or not, being a Chinese who have lived in the US for many years, I whole heartedly wish success of those who come to this land to pursue their dreams. Thus I want to offer my tips and hopefully able to help them to get to the next level of their quest more easily.
So, good luck!
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