AcidKid is right that confidence helps, a lot. In the interview for the first job I landed after graduating I had the interviewer literally tripping over himself at the end, because I had thoroughly researched exactly what you were supposed to do and how you were supposed to act at a job interview, and I applied what I learned.
Networking gets you in the door, no doubt, but to actually land the job, you’ve got to believe in yourself.
I’m really having a great time reading all these stories. Thank you all. I think it will be a great help to my son to see that it’s not that easy to get your first real job. He was getting discouraged too early in the game, I can see.
mm…let me see. First job was working for parents (delivery driver)…so no interview! (technically anyway…if I was Sh*thouse…guess they wouldn’t have given it to me!) Second was a summer job at a service/gas station. took the job on when my brother resigned…interview consisted of just two questions…
- “do you want the job?”
-“Able to start Thursday?”
and my current job (Student Paramedic) consisted of 2 interviews, aptitude, reasoning and personality testing…as well as fitness testing…that got me in as a casual Ambo (EMT…non-aussies) and then one more interview and I am where I am now…
not bad for being 20 Y.O!
as for the OP…um…if he keeps his chin up…and is honest and humble at interviews. Positive, but not trying to sell yourself TOO much.
I think you can overstep the mark there…put the potential boss off if you go over the top! ON top of that…if you brag too much…they’ll expect a lot more than you are capable of!! 
I wasn’t a college graduate when I got my first “real” job (still ain’t) so I don’t know whether my experiences would help your son. His sights are probably considerably higher than mine. (I was looking for a paycheck – any paycheck.)
My first real job was right out of high school and I got it on the recommendation of my high school Business Administration teacher.
Next real job came after I had been volunteering at a neighborhood community center. I really wasn’t looking for a paid position, but when one came open, I applied and was hired.
I lucked into my current job ten years ago (the job I will probably retire from in a few years) when I hired on as a temp. I did more than expected and they liked me, and they actually fired a lifer (long-time non-productive employee with a bad attitude) to make a spot for me.
Your son might be like most of us – it’s likely he’ll do a few things that he didn’t anticipate before just the right position comes along. That’s okay – he’ll still be learning and meeting people and making connections. (And endorsing a paycheck.)
Hrm… I’ve been working in semi-‘real’ jobs for a few years while I got my undergrad degree. General stuff, like a Treatment Attendant at a transitional psychiatric facility, crisis intervenor, stuff like that.
I’ve been working in at least 2 jobs for 4 years now. One of them I got through networking, the others I picked up because I’ve got a couple dozen workshops done (first aid, suicide intervention, how to deal with manipulators, yada yada) and a few thousand volunteer hours, on top of what education I had.
I’ve done a lot of contract work, and people have tended to re-hire me after the contract expires. Employers have commented that they liked seeing that - if your son gets contract work, tell him to try and do a couple of terms if possible.
Now I’ve got another new job and I’m applying as a Behavior Management Specialist next week. If I get that one, it’ll be because of connections I made while volunteering and doing workshops and whatnot.
Volunteer work has been very key for me. Oh, and tell him not to sweat interviews… be polite and don’t be expansive; just answer the question. YMMV.
FD.
The first half of my story won’t help your son, but the second half might, so here goes:
I majored in Info Systems in northern CA. While looking for summer work–ANY work–after my sophomore year, an old friend already working in the field called and asked if I’d be open to a summer job working as a LAN tech & applications developer for the State of Washington. It worked out so well that that summer job was held for me the next summer. And then it was waiting for me when I graduated. But the position turned out to be one temporary position after another, so ten months after graduation I decided to test the private sector.
I still didn’t have enough of a resume built up to compete for jobs found in the classifieds and temp agencies didn’t want to waste their time with me until I had more experience. I got my paws on a catalogue listing every high-tech company in the county (maybe the state), profiling the systems they used, the products or services they produced, and even listed company officers. I just started cold-canvassing, sending out open applications, hundreds of them, primarily looking for programming work. Maybe three dozen companies called, and about a dozen of them offered interviews. Almost every one of them ignored what I assumed they wanted and concentrated instead on my LAN experience. But what grabbed each and every one of them was that I could write a coherent cover letter.
Maybe if your son can somehow narrow down his search a bit (via professional journals? advice from faculty?), it won’t matter if he targets a specific job. If a company or organization likes what they see in his short resume, they’ll put him where they can best use him. But he probably shouldn’t narrow down the search too tightly at first. Shotgun the market and get as many responses as he can.
Networking, networking, networking.
My two permanent jobs since college were obtained because I had an “in” in both cases:
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first job working for an ancient coin company was obtained because my then roommate was spending the summer working for said company, returned to school to pursue his masters in the fall, and mentioned that his roommate just graduated and was looking for work
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second job was obtained because I went to free Westlaw (a legal database) classes, and asked if anyone there knew of any openings. One of the class instructors was also the Westlaw representative for several law firms, and she knew of a law firm that was looking for a paralegal and had not yet started advertising in the classifieds (which cut down on my potential competition tremendously).
It may not be solely who you know, but who you know can really, really help. Which is why I urge people to give back, give references and letters of recommendation, and network every chance they get. What goes around, comes around.
After teaching myself digital logic in high school and investigating the fabrication of silicon microcircuitry, I walked into an interview to assemble chemical vapor deposition plasma reactors for one of the industry upstarts (at the time).
When they found out that I knew the difference between a centigram and a wavelength, pow! into the research lab I went. And the rest (as they say), is history.
The only reson that I am in high technology is that I was curious as Hades about chip manufacturing. As so many before me have said here, do something you love. If you don’t know what that is, you are SOL.
You need to focus on skills and the desire to accomplish. Feel free to email me if some resume help is needed. I can provide references from this message board as to the efficacy of my work.