Employers (yes I said employers, not the job market) are absolutely ridiculous. Im a senior and applied to 20 internships last spring as a junior. 19 rejections and one offer that was basically to be a secretary for low pay, that I left after a few days. Its terrible to spend 5-10 hrs for every resume/cover letter, based on the tailor your [document] for employer and they dont even have the courtesy to notify you of a decision, or more importantly, even spend more than 3 seconds on your application before they BS some generic reason why we have moved on with other candidates. The 3 seconds is for the lucky folks who dont get auto-screened out on Taleo. Even for the 3-4 times I got an interview, I was so sick of interviewers who didnt prep, hashed out canned questions, and were rude-one even asked called me while I was eating breakfast and told me to do a phone screen right then because she was going on vacation afterwards. I was then invited for a long interview in office before getting rejected without any feedback. So: 100-120 hours on applications 8-10 hours on interviews and travel at my own personal expense Total result: $0 Its not all bad-I ended up meeting one good org that treated me right despite no offer. But the vast majority of it is bad. I dont understand how people who are dont work that hard in school (sorry, I meant candidate has street smarts, and is not a book nerd), are arrogant (sorry, I meant assertive about their skills and talents) get the job by schmoozing and being friends with the wealthy people in consulting/tech (sorry, I meant networking) and by saying how they are better than everyone else in an interview (sorry, I meant explaining why you are different from other candidates), and making up how much they love the company because they hang out at the same bars and daddy works in the industry (sorry, I meant explaining your interest in the firm and our work). How do firms expect people to think on their own during a case interviews that are expected to be answered with a standard model out of Case in Point? How can candidates show independence when things like minor resume formatting decisions that deviate from the expected norm cost people the chance at just an interview? If firms are tired of hiring posers, why do firms expect that you put what you accomplished (eg 20% increase in sales!) as opposed to what you did and the quality of that work? Only the people who have no shame about tooting their horn a million decibels high get the job so often. Firms will keep making the same costly mistakes when they only will hire people who are just like them. Doesnt surprise me how major financial institutions made major mistakes several years ago; whens the last time someone who actually had to worry about making enough money to pay rent, food, gas, utilties, etc. ever got hired at Morgan Stanley? Cant say you didnt see it coming that your analysts would blow millions of other peoples dollars when youll only hire wealthy and connected college grads who never had to worry about saving money, driving the speed limit, or not getting shitfaced drunk every Thursday night.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:50:25 +0000