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Old 2011-06-30, 11:01   Link #1
DonQuigleone
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
Job Hunting/ Job Interviews

I'm in the middle of a looking for a job right now, and seeing as how I'm probably not the only person here doing so(or who have done so recently), I thought it might be a nice idea to open a thread to talk about our experiences of doing it, and maybe even exchange tips or how we go about doing it.

Myself I've only started a week back (mostly delayed out of procrastination ). And I decided to not be choosy and basically apply for anything I had the minimum requirements for, I used jobs.ie (an irish website), and basically set up a feed with for a wide variety of stuff, only excluding things like "medical" etc.

Anyway I've just been through a week where I got called for 6 (!) interviews. Now this might sound great, but alas the only people that called me were involved in "direct selling". Initially I was open to the idea (how bad could it be?), but after thinking about it I've come to the conclusion that it may not quite be right for me....

Anyway, you guys have any interesting job search experiences?
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Old 2011-06-30, 11:20   Link #2
Aqua Knight
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I am starting my internship in a finance consulting company next week. I hope it will at least be not boring.

Before I applied to one bank and another consulting company and had interviews. First one, in the bank, was very short because they needed a person who could have internship-work for at least 3 months. Nothing special just asked me about level of English and my University.

2nd interview was very harsh. I was really nervous when the interviewer asked questions like " Imagine a retail company wants to merge with other smaller retailer to get more market share, where would you search for such the small retailer?". I completely failed....

3rd interview was in the company where I will have my internship. It went much smoother. The 2 interviewers asked if I could speak English the whole interview, which I did, asked me some questions regarding their company, some basics in Finance( like variance of the portfolio) and Macroeconomics. And a week later I got a positive reply and an offer for internship.

I only prepared for the last interview as the 2 other were during my exam session.
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Old 2011-06-30, 11:24   Link #3
Endless Soul
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
Anyway I've just been through a week where I got called for 6 (!) interviews.
For different jobs or the same job? I was out of work for almost two years before I finally landed this one (CAD and engineer work for a HVAC controls comany). They called me in for 3 interviews before they finally hired me. The pay is only about 2/3 of what I used to make in the previous job, but I'm very thankful to have a job at all these days.

Being out of work for so long really teaches one about humility.
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Old 2011-06-30, 14:09   Link #4
DonQuigleone
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@Murasaki, congrats. How did you go about looking for the internship? Was it advertised, or did you send an application "blind", though from your experience it would seem to me that it was advertised.

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Originally Posted by Endless Soul View Post
For different jobs or the same job? I was out of work for almost two years before I finally landed this one (CAD and engineer work for a HVAC controls comany). They called me in for 3 interviews before they finally hired me. The pay is only about 2/3 of what I used to make in the previous job, but I'm very thankful to have a job at all these days.

Being out of work for so long really teaches one about humility.
Different companies, but all were essentially the same thing. The weird thing is that I sent applications to other places too, but none of them bit. I suppose I'll have to brush things up a bit.

Still interviews are pretty tiring. I had like 3 or 4 hours of commuting and waiting around to every hour spent in the interview itself.
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Old 2011-06-30, 15:10   Link #5
Aqua Knight
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Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
@Murasaki, congrats. How did you go about looking for the internship? Was it advertised, or did you send an application "blind", though from your experience it would seem to me that it was advertised.
My faculty obliges students of the 3rd year to have internship, but 2nd year can do it too, though this summer not obligatory. The company I'll intern is quite small and it's not even advertised, but I got info about the opportunity thru parents' friends. I guess I am lucky, early experience is never bad
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Old 2011-06-30, 16:37   Link #6
Malkuth
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Some years ago when I was looking for an internship, I just applied to every company that had anything I wanted to work with and was qualified to do what they asked, which pretty much worked out, I got interviews with Denso, Philips, EADS (which was humiliating, and I left mid-way), and BMW (which I ended up joining).

As for real work, just be truthful to your real skills, and apply to relevant openenings. If you know your stuff, it will be apparent, unless you have to deal with HR who are in command of recruiting instead of the people who know what is going on.

Recently, I was looking to move away from Germany into UK, and was even easier, I checked gumtree for openings and in my field there were 3-5 openings per day, in the end I had to cancel interviews, since I got some pretty good contracts... at least for poor greek standards
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Old 2011-07-01, 15:59   Link #7
Sides
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I had only luck with seasonal jobs with local councils, concerning interviews. Other than that, i did have replies form random companies I posted off my CV, which I found in the yellow pages. Only problem i just get offered non-paid internships. If they cover my traveling costs or offer free accommodation and food, i wouldn't mind.
Sometimes randomly applying to a company does work, since in the UK at least, some companies do not advertise open positions.
Other than that newspapers and field specific publications are the place to look. Personally i'm not to fond about these online job helping sites, were you post your CV and a third party do the job. I rather try to get in contact with the companies I apply to.
The government jobcentre site is also worth checking out.
I actually had a job interview this week, was kind of fun, but then i had a look at the list of interviewees... dude that list was long for a 3 months seasonal job, same with my last two interviews.
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Old 2011-07-02, 08:58   Link #8
DonQuigleone
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Originally Posted by Sides View Post
I actually had a job interview this week, was kind of fun, but then i had a look at the list of interviewees... dude that list was long for a 3 months seasonal job, same with my last two interviews.
Yeah, that makes the whole thing kinda depressing. How are you supposed to stand out when there's 100 other people...
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Old 2011-07-02, 09:27   Link #9
Malkuth
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Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
Yeah, that makes the whole thing kinda depressing. How are you supposed to stand out when there's 100 other people...
Because you're way better, in IT most applicants are way too unqualified.
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Old 2011-07-02, 10:20   Link #10
ChainLegacy
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Join Date: Feb 2004
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My full time job right now is as a construction laborer. Long hours, hard work, and though I prefer using my brain I do enjoy working with my hands. Time definitely passes by much faster. Part-time, I'm security at Gillette Stadium; they have concerts on top of the obvious Patriots football (and soccer games too).

I'm finishing college soon as a history major and have no real course of action unfortunately. My real desire is to save up some money and start my own business. We'll see how that goes.
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Old 2011-07-02, 15:57   Link #11
Sides
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My full time job right now is as a construction laborer. Long hours, hard work, and though I prefer using my brain I do enjoy working with my hands. Time definitely passes by much faster.
I can complete understand, also reason why I stop pursuing a career in engineering and now looking for work in countryside or estate management. I reckon some people are just not meant to work in offices for a long period. A mixture of hands on and and management seems to be what most people are seeking nowadays.

But what I learnt about pass interviews is, do some research about the company and the department you have a interview with. Also if you know someone in the industry try asking them for advise.
It sounds quite wrong, but if you know someone in the company, you have better chances to get the job with them.
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Old 2011-07-02, 19:32   Link #12
Malkuth
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I can complete understand, also reason why I stop pursuing a career in engineering and now looking for work in countryside or estate management. I reckon some people are just not meant to work in offices for a long period. A mixture of hands on and and management seems to be what most people are seeking nowadays.
Engineering... ah... I was studying electrical engineering too, but both times lost my patience (first time mid-way, second a semester before finishing) and dropped.

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But what I learnt about pass interviews is, do some research about the company and the department you have a interview with. Also if you know someone in the industry try asking them for advise.
Eh... but would you already know this before even applying

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It sounds quite wrong, but if you know someone in the company, you have better chances to get the job with them.
Nothing is wrong when dealing with HR, their job is to screw you
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Old 2011-07-02, 21:11   Link #13
DonQuigleone
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Engineering... ah... I was studying electrical engineering too, but both times lost my patience (first time mid-way, second a semester before finishing) and dropped.
Wow, that must have been hard, what did you do after that? I could imagine that people wouldn't think well of quitting just before the end, though I sympathise as I myself often considered quitting studying Eng, and never did due to lacking the guts.
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Old 2011-07-02, 21:51   Link #14
Malkuth
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Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
Wow, that must have been hard, what did you do after that? I could imagine that people wouldn't think well of quitting just before the end, though I sympathise as I myself often considered quitting studying Eng, and never did due to lacking the guts.
I am doing what was doing before, during, and now (pretty much after)... work as a programmer, well now as a software architect, got recently an upgrade

The problem I had while in university, was quite practical, since I was working simultaneously, I was having a very hard time putting up with the antiques of professors, who are usually totally detached from reality, and are under the delusion that they are both smart and knowledgable. Especially, during my last year in Germany, I had a hard time finding a professor with more non-teaching work experience than me, but still had to say yes to all the crap they were telling me.

But yeah, dropping out from university to work is really hard, many people still think of higher education as it was a couple of centuries ago, rather than an oversold product, that has utterly lost its original purpose. And it's very hard for friends and family to understand that it makes a lot more sense to do something you like and get paid, instead of licking an old geezers boots, and in addition paying him
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Old 2011-07-04, 05:40   Link #15
Aqua Knight
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I guess higher education is more like a socially accepted rule. If you don't have it, it's like being deviant from the society.

But still, if you want to apply for a good job you still should have like BSc degree. It always makes your CV better.
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Old 2011-07-04, 05:50   Link #16
Ending
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Got tired to my old job. Applied to study in China in a program funded by the chinese. Was the only one eligible, due to very special requirements, so if I go there and learn mandarin, I'll have three lifelong jobs to choose from. All with superb pay.
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Old 2011-07-04, 06:32   Link #17
Aqua Knight
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I'd say if nothing is holding you where you are now, got for it. Well, I'd do that.
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Old 2011-07-04, 12:31   Link #18
Kafriel
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My semester's ending this week. When it started, I decided to go job hunting for whatever I could find, since I wouldn't be attending any courses...I made a CV and signed up on some sites, walked around town. First week got me nothing, so I started searching a bit farther away, dropped about 20 CVs around mall stores, asked if anyone had a job for me at cafes...rotten luck though. At about 2 months, I stopped searching; the e-mails I got were most of the time irrelevant (I am about to graduate from electrical engineering and got job offers for mechanical engineering, automation engineering, and many other kinds that I have nothing to do with). Mall stores require 2+ years of work experience, and I have none...the only job I DID find came to me via mail a few weeks ago; part-time salesman, no experience necessary, high school grad. Too bad it's 500km away
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Old 2011-07-04, 16:27   Link #19
DonQuigleone
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Originally Posted by Kafriel View Post
My semester's ending this week. When it started, I decided to go job hunting for whatever I could find, since I wouldn't be attending any courses...I made a CV and signed up on some sites, walked around town. First week got me nothing, so I started searching a bit farther away, dropped about 20 CVs around mall stores, asked if anyone had a job for me at cafes...rotten luck though. At about 2 months, I stopped searching; the e-mails I got were most of the time irrelevant (I am about to graduate from electrical engineering and got job offers for mechanical engineering, automation engineering, and many other kinds that I have nothing to do with). Mall stores require 2+ years of work experience, and I have none...the only job I DID find came to me via mail a few weeks ago; part-time salesman, no experience necessary, high school grad. Too bad it's 500km away
I wouldn't reject the other engineering roles so quickly, there's a lot of overlap. Furthermore Electrical Engineers and Mech Engineers often work closely together.
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Old 2011-07-04, 23:55   Link #20
Kafriel
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I know, but we specialize in different fields, for example although I know everything about engines, my drawing experience is limited to autoCAD and MATLAB, so I'm lacking the knowledge of 5 drawing programs or something that were required for the job. Likewise, I can't program in C++, FORTRAN, etc. and I certainly don't know Oracle, so I can't take a position as a programmer; even if I could work using these, why pick me over an actual programmer?
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