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This page covers some of the questions we have been asked often by readers. Subjects that require a more in-depth response are covered in
our articles section. If your question is not answered on this page, please check our articles page to see if there's an article
addressing your concern there.
Q. Where's the best place to go to look for internships?
If you're just looking for an entry-level job, you can find them on most of the big job boards. An internship is distinguished from an entry-level job in that it provides the intern with a structured program to learn new skills and to learn about the profession in general. Internship programs often provide mentoring opportunities where you'll get a chance to spend time one on one with a successful person in the profession you're looking to get into. The following web sites are helpful tools for people trying to get internships:
- Wet Feet
 - Provides information on specific companies as well as listings of internships.
- Vault
 - Provides guidebooks on internships, reports written by people who've done internships or worked at specific companies, and internship listings.
Q. I've been in situations where I feel like the interviewer isn't planning to hire me. I've tried asking if there's any reason why I wouldn't be hired, and they seem to become defensive and avoid the question. What's happening here?
I suppose there are a number of reasons why someone might be uncomfortable telling you why they aren't planning to hire you. Sometimes a company might have already made a decision about who they're going to hire - perhaps the boss's son or cousin - and interviewing is just done to make things look legitimate.
If you honestly feel there's no good reason why a particular interviewer wouldn't want to hire you (i.e. that you are definately qualified for the position), their hostility could come from your essentially asking them to justify the unjustifiable. So it's a natural human reaction for them to get upset.
If you're going to ask an interviewer for feedback, you might first want to think about your own objective in asking. If you're asking because you're unsure of how the interview went or you're unsure if you successfully conveyed your qualifications, then that's an objective that's likely to be successful.
On the other hand, if you're asking to prove that the interviwer is unfair, they'll probably get upset. I'm not saying that you're doing that because I don't know. But some people do.
Another tactic when dealing with an unfair interviewer in a situation where you really want the position would be to be super nice to the person and ask them politely who else aside from themselves is involved in making the hiring decision.
Of course you risk offending the interviewer if they sense you're trying to go around them. But if you think they're unfairly planning to not hire you, maybe you have nothing to lose. Then if you don't hear back from the unfair person, you could try following up with the other person whose name they mentioned. This is a common tactic used by professional salespeople - going around an unfair decision maker.
Q. How can I get past third party recruiters, who seem to be acting simply to screen out candidates from the real decision makers? They seem totally unethical and ruthless!
Check out the 3rd bullet point in this article:
http://www.jobsearchinfo.com/JobTips.htm
In my experience, not all recruiters are ruthless. They may come across this way because recruiters typically are
highly motivated by money. So some third party recruiters will lie (or stretch the truth) and basically do whatever
it takes to fill as many positions as possible. If you don't come across to them as someone they can sell to
their client, the employer, they may be dismissive of you. This isn't something you should take personally. Instead,
think about ways you could present yourself differently so that you will come across as someone they can sell to
their clients (and thereby earn their hefty commissions).
When comparing internal recruiters (HR people) versus third party recruiters, HR people are often harder to work with because they don't have a big incentive to present the best person to the hiring manager (at least no immediate financial incentive).
On the other hand, 3rd party recruiters have a huge financial incentive to pitch a good candidate to a company. They are paid sometimes as much as a quarter of your first year's salary. So it's just a matter of finding some you have good chemistry with and being able to present yourself in a memorable way.
Q. I have more or less given up on this recruiter because she doesn't seem to keep me in mind for positions when they come open. I never hear a word from her unless I call her or send her an email, and sometimes even those times I only get her voice mail or she never answers her email.
Recruiters are VERY busy people. Also, they will ASSUME that you are not working with them exclusively and that there's a good chance you found a job if they haven't heard from you within the past week. Especially if they think you're a good catch. YOU have to be proactive and call them if you want to let them know you're still available. Even if it's just a quick call to say "Hi, I'm still available".
Q. I posted my resume on some of the job sites over 9 months ago. I don't remember my logins for most of the sites. What will happen
if I try to post my resume on these sites again myself or with a resume posting service like ResumeDirector.com?
If you haven't been active on these job sites for over 9 months, some of the accounts may no longer exist. Many job boards will
delete your account if you don't log in to their site for over a year. The time period a job site will keep your resume active varies. Most
job sites will send you an email if they are about to delete your account due to inactivity, and they typically will offer to let you keep the
account active if you log in. Job sites like to have as many resumes as possible in order to make their services as attractive to recruiters
as possible. However, they want to make sure the resumes are from people who are still interested in receiving job offers. Otherwise, the
recruiters who pay to search the resumes will get frustrated from contacting candidates who aren't interested in the jobs they're trying
to fill.
If you'd like to check to see if you have an account on a job board but you don't remember your username
and password, this is usually not a problem. Most job boards provide a "Forgot Password" feature that
lets you look up your password by providing your e-mail address. If you registered on a job board with
an email address you no longer use, you can log in with your old email address and update it to your new
one once logged in.
If you use a resume posting service like ResumeDirector.com, the service will register you on the job
boards using your current e-mail address. If you had an old account on one or more of the job boards
with an old e-mail address, you will end up with two accounts for sites like these. However, this generally
does not present a problem because when recruiters search the job boards for resumes, the most recently
updated resumes come up first in the search results. So a recruiter will most likely never see the resume
you entered over 9 months ago. In the unlikely event that they do, they would come across your newer
resume first, and would most likely notice that both resumes were from the same person, and come to
the conclusion that the newer one is your most up-to-date resume.
Q. I have a question for a family member who was layed off after being in the Insurance industry 25 years. This individual has a very strong background insurance; however didn't obtain a college degree. The question is how should we handle the topic of education within her resume. Is it appropriate to list High School only or do we leave it off?
My opinion is if the person has an impressive work history, it's ok to leave out education. When an employer's
looking through many resumes, they are probably not going to be looking for what kind of college degree
the person has. There are exceptions for certain professions such as for lawyers where the firm may
want someone from an Ivy league school.
Especially if the resume is more than one page long, the recruiter will probably just scan the first
page of the resume and if the person looks qualified, they'll call them in for an interview. At the
interview, the recruiter may take a closer look at the resume and may ask about education.
Another option is if the person attended college but did not receive a degree, the dates of attendence
can be listed.
For example:
State University of New York at Albany
Bachelor's Degree Program 1990-1993
I would recommend against listing just the high school diploma because that would call attention to the
lack of a college degree.
You may also wish to engage the services of a resume writing service. They may have some creative
ways of presenting the resume. Click here to visit ResumeEdge, a highly-regarded resume writing service.
Q. I am working at my job through a temporary placement agency and I just found out the company I'm working for is being billed at a rate twice what I'm being paid. Also, I was told the company would give me a full-time, permanent position if they liked me but they haven't.
A bill rate of twice the pay rate isn't unreasonable for an agency to charge. Most of that fee goes to their overhead expenses. Included in that bill rate is the cost of cutting checks and the payroll taxes that go to the government. If the company were to pay you directly instead of paying the agency, they really wouldn't save much (if at all).
Although you didn't say it, your question implies that you feel you're being paid too little. The best course of action may be to talk to your rep at the agency and ask them to ask the company you're working at for a raise. The company may be able to pay you more as a temporary worker than if they were to hire you full-time. This is often the case with publicly traded corporations which usually do not include costs of temporary employees under the Payroll cost and head count listed in their annual and quarterly reports to stockholders. Expenditures on temporary employees are often included with miscellaneous expenses (which would include costs like electricity and office supplies), which therefore make the company appear it is more competitive by keeping payroll costs down.
The company may be under pressure to keep additions to their payroll to a minimum, and therefore may prefer to keep you on as a temporary employee until market conditions change, at which point it might make more sense for them to bring you on to the payroll.
The important thing to keep in mind here is that the temp agency is on your side - it is in their interest to help you get paid more. Plus, if the company does eventually hire you full-time, the agency will get a commission for that too (called a liquidation fee).
Q. I am a graduate student who will be getting a master's degree soon.
Since I don't have any industry experience in my area, do I still
consider myself an entry level job seeker? Shouldn't 3 additional
years in grad school count as some kind of work experience, especially with
a thesis and several other projects?
If you have a graduate degree but no actual experience working in the
profession and industry, you wouldn't be considered entry-level in the
same way someone with just an undergraduate degree would. But most
companies still prefer someone with experience over someone without -- even
if they have a grad degree.
Many graduate programs have special job placement services. Especially
for MBAs and law graduates, companies often have relationships with the
graduate programs to recruit people. If your grad school does not have
any special placement programs, you can also inquire with companies as
to whether they have a special application process for whatever degree
it is you have.
Regarding internet resources - there may be specific internet resources
for your particular degree. For example, if you're getting an MBA,
there's MBAGlobalNet.com. Companies also recruit MBAs from the job boards
of the leading business schools like NYU, Harvard, Kellogg, etc. If
your school does not have a popular job board for grad degree recipients,
it may have a relationship with other schools where you could get
access to their job boards.
Q. I have been
asked several times to complete these forms where age and several other
illegal personal facts are requested as a matter of compliance with the US
government. Is this legal?
Ironically, many companies will ask job applicants to fill out a form asking information about age, race and other
personal data in order to comply with regulations set forth by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). If
a company asks you to fill out a form for EEO compliance, the form must be completely voluntary and you would have the
option of declining to fill out the form. In addition, if you do fill out the form, the company must have procedures
in place so that the information you provide is not used for making hiring or promotion decisions. Therefore, most companies
will have a separate person or even a separate department handle EEO compliance.
You could also be referring to an I-9 form. This is a form that must be submitted within 3 days from starting employment
to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). It would be unusual for a company to request that you fill out
an I-9 form before being hired unless you're interviewing for temporary positions with a temp agency. It is standard
practice for temp agencies to ask you to complete the IRS form W-2 and the INS I-9 form before placing you in temp jobs.
They do this mainly to get it out of the way so when a temp position is available, they don't have to scramble to make
sure you are legally eligible to work at that point.
That being said, it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against a job candidate based on age -- even temp agencies
are subject to that law. Many temp agencies have a separate person or department review the INS I-9 information since it
involves seeing your date of birth.
It is not illegal for a temp agency to ask you to fill out the I-9 form. In fact, it would be illegal if they put you
out on a job without asking you to fill out that information and confirm with your identification papers/cards. But it
would be illegal for a temp agency to use that information against you when making hiring decisions.
If you feel you have been discriminated against based on your age, you can follow up with the EEOC at www.eeoc.gov or with a private attorney.
Q. Do you have to put when you when to school on you resume or when filling out
an application? To me this is like putting your age on the resume or
appliciation. I with to a PA career center, they had me fill out a form, and on the form
they asked for my birth date.
You may find this article on age discrimination helpful:
http://www.jobsearchinfo.com/agedisc.htm
No, you don't have to put when you went to school on your resume. You could just put down something like this:
Education
Harvard College, Cambridge, MA - B.A. in English Literature
You may wish to check out the Resume Edge site for some sample resumes.
On a job application with a company, that becomes a trickier question. If the PA Career Center you went to was a
government agency or a non-profit, they may be asking that question to help with government funding (for statistical
purposes).
Employers are not supposed to ask date of birth on job applications unless the information is not seen/considered by
people making hiring decisions. For example, an employer could legitimately have an electronic application system
where you enter your application on-line or into a computer and their computer system only reveals the birthdate to people
and departments within the organization who do not make hiring decisions.
If the employer asks you to fill out an application on paper and there is a blank for birthdate, you have a few options.
One option would be to leave the birthdate out - this would probably be a good option if the application is long and most
people would not notice it's missing.
If it would be obvious to someone glancing at the application that the birthdate is missing, that could call attention to
you and it could be interpreted in a negative way.
Another option would be to take the paper application with you and walk out the door to an employment lawyer and sue the
company for age discrimination. The problem with this approach is lawsuits typically take a long time and with all the
appeals and lawyer fees, you might never see any compensation.
You could also fill in the birthdate on the application and either hope the hiring manager doesn't see it, or use the tips
in the age discrimination article I mentioned to frame your age in a positive way.
Q. I have just graduated with my MBA and was in my present job to pay the bills
while going to school. Would it be detrimental to my success of landing a new
job if I resign from this one now before I get a new job. My present job is
not challenging and routine, I truly cannot take the time to look for a new job
with my work schedule. Please advise. I think if I was going to quit now
would be the time because i just graduated and looking for a new career path.
I think it would be fine for you to quit your job to focus on your job search. The only way it could look bad would be if you have a pattern in your career history of having periods of time when you're not working or if you have a history of staying at companies for only a short period of time.
Employers and recruiters would totally understand your wanting to quit your job to search for a new one. In fact, most employers would appreciate that you are honest and wouldn't want to do your job search on company time. So from that perspective, it is a positive. Again, the only way it could be a negative would be if there is something in your history that could let someone interpret it in a different way.
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