You could easily get a job in low level supervisory positions, particularly in manufacturing. They love former military, and often the only requirement is a four year degree. Good luck.
You’re at UCSB, right?
Here you go: http://career.sa.ucsb.edu/
That’s nonsense. I have worked with psych, english, history, music and any just about any major you can name in corporate America, and most of those folks were hired by corporate America right out of school. Most corporations don’t give much of a damn if your undergraduate degree is in business or social work.
Davis. UCSB didn’t give me any money.
Journalist? Embedded journalist, if you like the military lifestyle.
That’s something I’ve never thought of either. I’m definitely one of those “try hard even if I don’t want to do it” people. I don’t really care for my major but I’m determined to get as best grades as possible. Never even crossed my mind to sell that part of myself.
WALLAH! https://iccweb.ucdavis.edu/
That’s enough to impress me!
And , more seriously: all the things you listed are good items to bring up in a personal interview.
An articulate person who can make presentations and handle stress,who knows how to work in a team, feels confident wearing either a suit or camos–That’s a well-rounded person.
The problem will be getting noticed on paper, so that you advance to the interview stage.
Good luck!
Have you thought about working in insurance as a claim representative. Not a glorious job but pays the bills. I know a lot of History, English, Art, etc. majors in the insurance biz. I started in Ins many moons ago as an underwriter and now I am a systems analyst for an insurance co. Not a bad gig. Ins Cos are very stable during rough econ times. The last thing people stop paying is their insurance. Not glamours or cutting edge but pay is good and is stable. Look at www.indeed.com and put in insurance. Lots of openings in Sacramento. If you don’t like sales stay away from the agents side of things.
Try looking under the couch cushions. They are always there.
Are you shitting me!? Just yesterday morning I submitted a resume for a claims job. Crazy coincidence.
Since you’re in the business, in general, how is the ability for upper mobility? What exactly do you mean by the pay is decent?
I think I could like claims.
Upward mobility in insurance is actually very good. In the claim side of things upward mobility is usually pretty good. But, like all things that depends on you and the company. Larger companies tend to have more availability. Also depends on what line of the business. Auto claims has much more than say on the property side (home owners).
Starting pay for a claim rep again depends on co. but, quick check and State Farm in Ca. is upper 30s and tops out in the 80s. Thats just being a claim rep.
I know a lot of claim reps and most really like their jobs, especially the field reps that have to go out of the office and visit the site, or car etc..
It’s been a few months so I thought I’d update and ask some questions.
I’m officially a graduate now and am in full-swing of sending out applications. I’ve had two interviews so far. One was for a tech-writer position. The interview went well but there was an assessment test after, which I bombed. I knew I bombed it while I was taking it. Way, way more difficult than the GRE. They emailed me to tell me they’re no longer interested. I was not surprised.
A couple of weeks ago I interviewed with an insurance company for a claims adjuster position. I had a good interview. One of the people I interviewed with, as she was walking me out, said I did a great job. Right now we’re in the background check stage, as they verify all my employment and such. Issues are cropping up because the school doesn’t show that I’ve graduated. My degree won’t be posted until the end of May. I’ve petitioned for the school to fax over a “verification of completion of degree requirements,” which will tell the company that all my requirements for the degree are completed. That should go out from the school, hopefully, in less than a week. I’m just hoping that the company liked me enough that they’re willing to wait.
I took the advice that I needed to find what I wanted to do to heart and I have decided that I really, REALLY want to work in claims. Everything I’ve read about the positions seem right up my alley and I think I would do well in that career. Now I’m just struggling to get my foot in the door.
Question time: I know on the resume you only put pertinent information on there. What about when you fill out the actual application? In college, years ago, I had a short job as security at a bar. Do I need to put that down? I wasn’t fired, it doesn’t really apply to any career I’m trying to get nor will its absence leave me with a strange gap in employment (I was a full-time student at that time as well).
I know a few people with bachelors degrees in history. One of them is a phone service tech for Dell computers, one is a salesperson for an automotive parts supplier, one does research for a state legislator, one went to law school and became an attorney, and two of them are teaching history at the high school level.
Did you actually get a W2 and include the income in your taxes, or were you paid cash at the end of each night? If it was all cash, I would just forget about it completely. For a documented job, list it if the instructions specifically ask for every job; otherwise, there shouldn’t be any problem with leaving it off.
Good luck with the claims position!
Honestly, no one gives a shit about that stuff other than HR and they only use it as part of their background checks. Not for the selection process. So you want to be honest, but you don’t need to go further back than 5 years or so. If you don’t have the information just indicate you don’t know or say “approximately”. Like I don’t know my start dates for every job I had.
Most companies where I worked as a hiring manager, this is the process for your level:
- A department determines they have a need of additional resources and submits a req to recruiting.
- Recruiting puts an ad on the corporate job board, contacts headhunters, submits ads on major job boards.
- Resumes start filtering in to Recruiting.
- They select the most likely candidates phone screen them
- Phone screened candidates then go to the hiring manager.
- The hiring manager selects which candidates he wants to bring in for an interview.
- A typical interview will be with 3 people, but it can be as little as 1 or many many more.
-They will typically make a decision by the end of the day, probably before you get home and send a thank you email.
-They may wait until they have interviewed all candidates, or they might just interview candidates until they find one they like.
-If yes, Recruiting puts together an offer and that’s that.
This process can take anywhere from a few days to several months. It can also be extremely process driven in large companies to just one guy doing ad-hoc recruiting in smaller companies. Ideally, you want to circumvent the initial Recruiting stages by either contacting a hiring manager directly or getting someone to refer you. This is because Recruiting is typically staffed by idiots and they deal with hundreds of resumes, most of which are garbage.
As an anecdote, I was trying to hire an office admin/office manager for a software startup where I was working. I put an ad on Monster and had 150 resumes in 48 hours. Most were garbage. Me and one of the Marketing gals phone screened 20 candidates. Of those we brought in about 5-10 for interviews and hired one person who, in spite of her excellent references, attitude and work ethic, simply didn’t work out because she couldn’t get along with the head of the NY office who was a pompous, arrogant, little man-bitch.
I’ve done a fair amount of work in insurance as well. Insurance companies are generally great places to have steady long-term careers with the opportunity to move up every few years. Ok, not so much for the one I was working at, but that was 2008 so not a great time to be in financial services. But six figure salaries for managers is not uncommon and more senior directors and VPs can earn $200k - $300k or more, depending on what they do.
My wife’s brother is a claims adjustor and after a few years, they are sending him to management training.
Honestly, insurance isn’t that sexy, but I had much better hours and there was a lot less of a “jerk factor” than when I worked at a Silicon Valley tech startup or as a management consultant for Toilette & Douche.
I work for Sutter Health. Experience in ‘the health care field’ is always a big plus for pretty much every job in healthcare. Check here and see if anything looks promising; this affiliate deals with back-office (claims,billing, etc) rather than direct patient-care, so your experience might be directly relevant.
If they hire you, let me know…we get referral commissions 
I’ll give that place a look. And should I get a job I’ll definitely say someone from Straight Dope referred me.
Thank you! I’ll keep this thread posted.
Damn, I didn’t send a thank you email. How important is that? For future reference, what should those say and how soon after should they be sent?
Yeah, I had an interview Wednesday afternoon and was notified Friday morning that they’ve started the background check process, so I’m taking that as a sign that they want me. Hopefully all these issues aren’t going to be a hindrance. I have an incredibly clean background.
Thanks for all the advice, well-wishes, information, everything! Very helpful.
In my experience, if they’ve gone to the trouble of running a background check, that pretty much means you’re the candidate of choice. Those things aren’t free, and no company is going to spend money on someone they don’t intend to hire.