What do employers look at in recent graduates? (IT job, employees, credit score)

[stellastar2345]

I gradute college in May. I already accepted a job offer, but I still want to know/try to be the "ideal" recent graduate.

So far I have around a 3.4 GPA in computer science and economics (and a minor in math). The college I go to ranks the the top 25 of public schools.

I've interned at around 3 different places in software development, which is directly related to my major. I have also worked at an IT help desk for nearly a year now. It's not computer science, but I know so much about the mechanics behind computers. I probably should have looked for a student web design position. I've always worked in college, but mostly in a low level fast food job.

I've been involved in campus activities. I was treasurer of my pledge class (sorority), and the vice president of finance for 2 years( same sorority). I've taken on small leadership roles in my college's student union.

I believe I have great people skills. I've worked at low level customer service jobs for 5 years (since I was 16), so I've gotten a lot better at talking to people. The IT job mentioned above requires me to talk to "clients" on a daily basis.

I have a professional website and a decent presence on LinkedIn (75 connections, mostly professionals). I do what I can to network with professionals here at college (I attend most company info meetings, special "lunch and learns" with upper level managers, etc).


I'd rate myself on a 3/10 on the scale of would hire, would not hire. I personally wouldn't hire someone like me, I'm still surprised I got a job offer.

A lot of my friends had steady multi year internships at the big 4 or big 4 like companies and are already on the fast track programs to become mid level managers by the time they are 30. I just feel so incompetent when I compare myself to them, but I mean, you should hang around the people you want to become.

[StAcKhOuSe]

-10 years experience
-postgraduate degree
-4.0 GPA
-Willing to work for $10 an hour
-must be able to speak 10 languages
-credit score 800 and above
-no criminal background(parking tickets are a dealbreaker)
-15 professional recommendations/references

good luck

[MPowering1]

I look at major, GPA, experience. I'd glance at extracurricular activities out of curiosity. I wouldn't care about your website or Linkedin page or connections.

I'd also look at what you wrote in a cover letter, how you expressed yourself, noticed any typo's because they always jump out at me, etc.

[GuyInSD]

Well, having spent three years on the recent grads hiring committee for my workplace (4000 mostly engineers and computer scientists), I can tell you what we looked for:

- GPA, with special attention paid to grades in classes related to your major (i.e. look to see if the overall GPA is puffed up from fluff classes)

- Whether or not the classes you've taken are in an area we have a need for (e.g. we don't do IC design - if that's what your concentration of studies was in, then we have no use for you)

- Internships/relevant experience of some sort (something technical, related to your major; with bonus points if it's somehow related to one of our lines of work), with evidence of working well on a team

- Recommendations from one of our current employees

- Grammar/typos and quality of the writing in the resume and cover letter

- Feedback from one of our recruiters after conducting an in-person interview


What we did NOT look at was LinkedIn; likewise extracurricular activities were given a cursory glance and really had little bearing.

[rosie_hair]

Originally Posted by StAcKhOuSe

-10 years experience
-postgraduate degree
-4.0 GPA
-Willing to work for $10 an hour
-must be able to speak 10 languages
-credit score 800 and above
-no criminal background(parking tickets are a dealbreaker)
-15 professional recommendations/references

good luck

Thanks for the good laugh. I couldn't stop laughing for a couple minutes there.

It sure does feel that way nowadays doesn't it?

[Boosane]

Your appearance and social skills.

[ipkl07]

Experience

[sjdemak]

Well what do you want to do? Web design is geared toward running a business or UX/UI design for a company. Software engineering you have to apply for jr. positions, if you go the route of web development look for front end positions. You must have some kind of portfolio for all the jobs mentioned above, and a positive attitude. Id even suggest digital marketing positions, which is a mixture of web design and web based marketing. I currently do that at my job.

[yellowbelle]

With recent grads I look for a major somewhat related to the job, the GPA, and any internships. I do not care about fast food/retail job experience for my office-based role (maybe if I were a banker, or needed someone to interact with the public I would). If I see extracurricular sports, or volunteer work, I'm interested - both have transferable skills and give me insight into the human being behind the resume. A resume or cover letter with typos will be tossed. Sorority/fraternity talk on a resume will be tossed, especially if the person went to a party school.

It really comes down to the interview. I ask questions that get at whether the person knows what the company does and knows what the job is. I notice if the person is on time, brings a few copies of his/her resume, dresses appropriately, has a career goal, asks questions other than generic questions you'd find with a Google search. I ask the receptionist how she was treated by the candidate. And no thank you note = no offer; no exceptions.

[eastcoastguyz]

Originally Posted by stellastar2345

I gradute college in May. I already accepted a job offer, but I still want to know/try to be the "ideal" recent graduate.

So far I have around a 3.4 GPA in computer science and economics (and a minor in math). The college I go to ranks the the top 25 of public schools.

I've interned at around 3 different places in software development, which is directly related to my major. I have also worked at an IT help desk for nearly a year now. It's not computer science, but I know so much about the mechanics behind computers. I probably should have looked for a student web design position. I've always worked in college, but mostly in a low level fast food job.

I've been involved in campus activities. I was treasurer of my pledge class (sorority), and the vice president of finance for 2 years( same sorority). I've taken on small leadership roles in my college's student union.

I believe I have great people skills. I've worked at low level customer service jobs for 5 years (since I was 16), so I've gotten a lot better at talking to people. The IT job mentioned above requires me to talk to "clients" on a daily basis.

I have a professional website and a decent presence on LinkedIn (75 connections, mostly professionals). I do what I can to network with professionals here at college (I attend most company info meetings, special "lunch and learns" with upper level managers, etc).


I'd rate myself on a 3/10 on the scale of would hire, would not hire. I personally wouldn't hire someone like me, I'm still surprised I got a job offer.

A lot of my friends had steady multi year internships at the big 4 or big 4 like companies and are already on the fast track programs to become mid level managers by the time they are 30. I just feel so incompetent when I compare myself to them, but I mean, you should hang around the people you want to become.

I'm an IT professional. College, your major and a GPA, well, everyone has those things. If you want to stand-out, you should have involvement in projects and activities that are directly associated with your profession. There are User Groups for Linux, PHP, Joomla, etc. There are Open Source projects you could be involved in doing coding, documentation, testing, etc. Someone who is active in those things shows me they have a real interest in their profession and will be much more resourceful than the others from my experience. Also, if you have some free-lance projects you did for a small business and non-profit, that shows you can work with others and more importantly clients. Even if you work in a large company and don't see the end-user or customer, you have many internal "clients" to deal with. So it's important to show you function professional in this kind of environment. The other very important thing about User Groups is they are an excellent place to network to find a very good job, because often people within the User Groups will ask around or to the mailing list, "Anyone know someone with X experience looking for..." before they even announce the job to the public. This is because people would rather work with someone they comes with a referral from someone they know or an activity they respect.

I have gone over many resumes of recent graduates for IT positions over the years. It's done in a team sometimes and we discuss and we narrow it down to a few. From my experience, it would be better to leave certain things off. Anything related to a frat or sorority, just leave off your resume. Because the discussion in the group I've seen paints those people as party people and not serious about work and more interested in socializing. You might have done great work there, but in a corporate environment frats and sorority is often ridiculed, so it's best to leave it off and don't mention it during the interview process.

As for your friends and mid-level managers by 30, ah...I wouldn't believe that so much. It greatly depends if you are joining a company or department that is going to be experiencing tremendous growth over the next 5-10 years or so. The thing they don't tell you in college, is that not all companies and departments are going to grow to support you being promoted. For example, you start your job at 22 years old. Your boss is 40 years old. The rest of your people in your group have 10 years more experience than you. Your boss might not leave his/her job until they are in their 60s. I have seen this in large companies where management has the same job for 20 years or more, and they aren't adding new management so there is no room for you to become a mid-level manager sometimes ever. Yes, you are told if you do such a great job...listen, no one is going to fire your 40 year old boss after you are there for 5 years and give you their job, no matter how great you are doing. So you have to be in a situation where there is going to be tremendous growth to be promoted if that's your real concern. Or you have to take a job with the plan to leave the company after 3 years to find one that has growth, like in a start-up.

I don't make the rules. This is how it is and how I have observed and experienced it for many years working in IT. I wish you success!