Ask the Expert: Job Searches

Live chat April 23 at 1 p.m.; now taking questions

Graduating seniors with questions about one of the bleakest job markets in decades will have an opportunity to find some answers today, April 23, when Scott Timmins, the assistant dean of the Feld Career Center at the School of Management, hosts a live chat at 1 p.m. Timmins invites everyone, not just graduating seniors, to submit questions in our comments section below, or tweet with hashtag #bujobchat. To hear the answers, check back this afternoon.

Amy Laskowski can be reached at amlaskow@bu.edu; follow her on Twitter at @amlaskow. Kimberly Cornuelle can be reached at kcornuel@bu.edu; follow her on Twitter at @kcornuel.

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Ask the Expert: Job Searches

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  • Amy Laskowski

    Senior Writer Twitter Profile

    Photo of Amy Laskowski. A white woman with long brown hair pulled into a half up, half down style and wearing a burgundy top, smiles and poses in front of a dark grey backdrop.

    Amy Laskowski is a senior writer at Boston University. She is always hunting for interesting, quirky stories around BU and helps manage and edit the work of BU Today’s interns. She did her undergrad at Syracuse University and earned a master’s in journalism at the College of Communication in 2015. Profile

  • Kimberly Cornuelle

    Kimberly Cornuelle Profile

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Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 14 comments on Ask the Expert: Job Searches

  1. With the economy the way it is, I know a lot of people who graduated last year who are still having trouble finding a job, which makes me feel like I’m in the back of a very long line. what can I do? Or should I just start working at mcdonald’s?

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  2. You never see “tips” anywhere for the pre-interview “phone interview” that’s popular these days. Is there anything you can you do to prepare for it so that you don’t get screened out?

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  3. Does going abroad (Western Europe) to find work relieve the level of competition for employment? Or is the job market going to be tough regardless of where you look? Also, if you could name any international job-searching resources. Thanks

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  5. I know what the typical cover letter is supposed to look like and say. But with the economy being so bad, I am applying for jobs because I am qualified for them and just need a job. I clearly don’t want to say this in my cover letter, but I don’t want to lie either. What should I put in a cover letter for a job I am applying for just because I need a job and the economy is bad?

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  6. The economy is bad. And I don’t want to blame my lack of job options after graduation on BU’s career services alone. I know many extremely qualified people who are out of work. But it must be recognized that :
    Oh wow a live chat how helpful thanks BU! Seriously our career center is HORRIBLE at helping students. Their advice is extremely general, and the recruiting events/schedule are pretty bad too. The only way anyone would know if we actually had a career center would be if they glanced at one of the few emails sent out intermittently throughout the year in our clogged inboxes. BU doesn’t care about its students. We come in, throw 200,000$+ at them, and they reward us with a diploma and a 85$ cap and gown SERIOUSLY? Hey BU, when send me alumni donation slips in the future I’m going to wipe them on my dog’s rear. Cheers!

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  7. Many of us who don’t have jobs yet are considering moving home to save money and give us more time for the job search. Personally, I don’t see myself living anywhere near home in the long-term and I’m wondering if you think it is a good idea to go wherever we’d like to settle down and be confident that we could find a job there or if we should just ‘suck it up’ and go home for a while. I’m just afraid of being one of those people who says they’ll move out after a year and then one day I wake up thirty years old and living in my mother’s basement.

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  8. If you “almost have the job” but told “there are bureaucratic delays…” any recommendations? How often and “how” do you keep this alive and moving forward?

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  9. Next week, I’m being flown out to California for the final interview for a job I’m really interested in. This is a job that I could see turning into a career and I love the staff I’d be working with, but there are two catches–it’s only 8 months out of the year, and it pays just $22,000 a year. Granted, the living expenses are extremely low in the town I’d be living in (a 2 bedroom house rents for $250 a month). Still, am I crazy to be considering this? Getting paid $22k and moving to the middle of nowhere? There are other jobs I’ve applied for that would pay me up to 40,000…but I don’t see them as career-starters. What do you think about the salary? Or how about the 3 months out of the year that I’ll be unemployed? Is there some way I could take advantage of that time off each year?

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  10. I’m a GOLD (Graduate of the last Decade), didn’t graduate from BU but actually left my job to go back to school at BU and get a masters. Just some things to beware of:

    -3rd Party Headhunters, especially in the major cities. While there are legitimate ones out there, many are unethical or in many cases scams. You need to be wary of what their interests are; for instance they may try to convince a highly qualified individual that they are worth a below market salary and then try to market you as extremely low cost labor or contract you out without health benefits. Others may be trying to sell you something (like certifications) or rope you into a pyramid scheme like Amway.

    -Employers that want you relocate to the middle of nowhere. A lot of companies are doing this these days (they are chasing low cost regions, just as the sprawling housing boom did). In many cases this is where the jobs are today. To this day you may see statistics that X number of high tech jobs (for instance) went unfilled, I believe part of this is due to the remote location of the jobs. But the moral of this, is make sure you make a decision that balances your personal goals with those of your profession.

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  11. How can you tell your boss you are ready to move on, and ask him for help, without sounding disrespectful and/or ungrateful? I think my boss knows that I don’t expect to stay in my current position for an extended period of time, but there may be a difference of opinion as to when he thinks it’s time for me to move on, and when I’d like to move on. How do I approach this?

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  12. I want to know what you think is the most important thing that international students should highlight in their resumes, cover letters, networking and interviews that will give them an advantage over local applicants? Also are there any job boards or any specific online resources that mainly caters to international student job seekers? Thanks

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  13. I have a double major in Anthropology and Spanish, but haven’t seen too many want ads for either profession. And I’m not ready for graduate school yet. What would you recommend I do to launch my job search?

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  14. Do you believe that calling a company or visiting them to check about my submitted resume/CV is a good idea if I don’t hear back from them after sending numerous emails? What are other creative ways to tackle this problem of companies not responding?

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