I’m in uni, i haven’t had much luck with applications so far. I know that most people actually get places by having stuff to show off e.g projects, clubs and GOOD GRADES. My grades are “mid,” and I’ve had no time for clubs and projects (engineering student, supporting family, poor mental health)
Spam applying for places feels like it will do more harm than good. Am I right to feel that? Or completely wrong? One argument against might be that no human is going to see the application most of the time, so it really is a persistence game
Make use of your university’s career services department/center whatever its called. There are resources. Inside tracks on internships Help on resumes. Etc…
In my career, I’ve had the most luck finding jobs through networking. If you have the ability to (and I will fully acknowledge not everyone has the ability), networking can help you get your foot in the door.
Aside from that, yeah, spam your resume.
Spam away. The jobs you want may not be hiring, so send out applications for the jobs you need. You can keep spamming until you make your way to where you want to be.
Take the time to tailor your resume and cover letter for the jobs you want.
Then spam away at everything else.
Save your energy for the good ones.
Never once have I sent a cover letter. It doesn’t seem to have had much impact on my career.
I HAVE sent a cover letter, and it WAS mentioned in the callback. Mind you, I drop Easter eggs into them for fun. “Look. I’m an 80% for for this job on day 1; 90% if I’m on enough caffeine. Let’s talk” etc. I shouldn’t write them at 1am.
And I’ve never read one!
Yeah, it’s too much effort just for a bot/AI to gloss over it, especially if you’re actively applying for tons of jobs.
Spam away. I’ve been on hiring committees, and sometimes we have tons of qualified applicants and a hard choice, sometimes we have none. If you spam you’ll have a better chance of hitting a company when there’s fewer people in their list. As long as you’re somewhat qualified, at least; no reason to spam for jobs that are vastly outside of what you can do.
Unless you have time to troll Nestlé or some other dicks. In that case reschedule the interview once or twice and bullshit with confidence
Far and away the best way to get a job is through someone you know.
Otherwise, I have a friend that worked for a sort of agency that hires a bunch of juniors, does some light training, then contracts them out to other companies. You do that for 6 - 12 months then convert into a full-time position directly with the company you were contracting for. Not glamorous, but it’s an option and can lead to good outcomes. It worked out well for my friend.
This 100%, especially since OP says they are currently in uni. Make friends with other peeps in school, they’re the ones that will get you into other jobs even if it’s just a lead or recommendation. That’s why often you’ll see offices/companies with a few people from the same schools, lots of times they already knew each other.
And sometimes the uni friends are people that start their own company to do their own thing, once I worked in an office where 80% of the employees were just other dudes the owners went to school with.
TBH meeting people to get into working my field was the only valuable thing I got from going to college.
To add onto this, many colleges have programs that help students find internships. It’s usually in their best interest to get their students into roles. But ultimately networking will be the best option.
I have a very specific skill set so my experience may not apply, but I’ve had the best results going through technical head hunters.
Tempt to perm positions lasting six months to a year, then they decide if they want to hire you.
Yes spam away, it’s not like your credit score is getting dinged each time you send one.
My only caution to this approach is that you want to be sure to research the company before any interview, don’t show up and be like “Well, ya’ll were the only one of the 500 I sent out to reply, what do you do?”
Go to your neighborhood bar, make friends, and when you land something through a relationship, respect it at least until they moved on.
I aim for 20 applications a day when looking for a job. Usually takes me about a week to find work and I realistically get only a handful of calls from the 100 or so applications I send out.
Send as many applications as you can, yes, but ensure you’re spreading them out across companies. Also, if you have a social network, leverage it as much as possible. Or, speak with recruiters in your field.
I have decade+ experience in my field and only got ~5% response rate over a year. In fact, my now boss bypassed their HR to hire me because they couldn’t manage thousands of applications.
The job market fucking sucks right now.
If your uni has career fairs, attend them. Look for the booths without long lines that might be hiring for your major. They tend to ask about projects, but you can use class assignments or projects as examples. They’re looking for your understanding of the project and how well you can communicate that. Another trick is to use your “major GPA” (ommitting general education courses) on your resume if it makes the number higher.
I recommend trying to get as many internships as you can while in school, all at different places. It gets your foot in the door at more companies and gives you a better idea of what you like in a working environment.
I don’t know if it’ll help, but there was this reddit post [sorry for the hellsite link] last year that listed a bunch of smaller, more specific/niche job search boards.
I’ve had people cold DM me on LinkedIn for an internship. For all of them, it was pretty useless since it was obvious that I had nothing to do with the department they wanted an internship in.
That said, if someone was interested in an internship in my department, I probably would have chatted with them and set up an interview.
Focus your spamming on jobs that you have a reasonable shot of getting should they read the resume. Even 10 minutes of research on a company can often figure out something you can put on a resume and cover letter that would greatly help your chances.
Have you thought about civil service jobs?
I work for a big city government. Nice pension, great union, reasonable benefits.
Much less BS than private sector.
