Need job help in the Twin Cities

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve talked to a couple of you about this already, but I’m sending out a call for help to everyone in the Minneapolis area now. **KeithT **and I are moving to the Twin Cities area this spring/early summer. He’s got a job starting in July, andnNow I need a job. I’ve already contacted all of the big companies out there so I’m looking for info on smaller companies. (I’ve gotten the same list including Target, 3M, Best Buy, Guidant, etc. many many times from a variety of people.)

Some background: I’ve got a B.S. and M.Eng. in Industrial and Management Engineering, which includes courses in Operations Research, Statistics, Cost Accounting, Database Management/MIS, Project Management and Economics. I’ve been working as a Research Analyst for a commercial real estate firm (and yes, they do have an office out there, but no, I don’t want to work for them any more). So I have extensive database experience and good analytical skills.

I’m really a number cruncher. I want to find a job where I look at larger amounts of data - or I go and collect data in some way, manage the data, analyze it to come up with some sort of conclusion, and then write a report and/or give a presentation on said conclusions. I’ve been searching mainly for financial analyst, database management, or other analyst-type jobs.

I’ve been searching CareerBuilder, Monster, JobsInMinnesota, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, MN-jobs.com, the Star Tribune, and a bunch of others that I can’t remember. I’ve sent out about 50 resumes, and I’ve gotten plenty of calls from head hunters, but only 2 calls from actual end-user companies. I am working with the head hunters and I’ll see what that turns up, but so far I haven’t gotten any solid leads.

Can anyone recommend any companies to try? Can anyone refer me somewhere? Any other advice? Thanks!

2

I’m not sure if they were already on your list or not, but you could try Medtronic. A friend of mine works in research there.

3

Yup. Sent them a resume already. Thanks though!

4

I’m not from that neck of the woods, but these guys http://www.carlsonmarketing.com/cmgcom/CMG.portal are privately held, big in my industry and will have a couple of different groups that use number crunchers.

5

I applied with Carlson Companies, which looks like the parent company. I think I’ll send Carlson Marketing a resume directly too. Thanks.

6

I’ve been with Medtronic for the past 3 months and I think it’s a great place to work. Great pay and benefits.
They do however like to hire through staffing agencies and get people on contracts so they can test them out before hiring permanently.

I got hooked up with them through Dacon Technical Staffing.
I was signed on as a one year contract but they are intent on hiring me as a full time Medtronic employee by May 1st.

Guidant is being sold to Boston Scientific which is Indinapolis based but has lots of locations here.

7

For what it’s worth, I used to work for Carlson Marketing (up until last year), and it’s doing very poorly, so they are probably not doing much hiring right now. Even jobs that are posted externally are getting filled intternally as much as they can.

Take spin through the job postings here and let me know if you spot anything that interests you.

8

United Health Care does lots of data analysis (I wouldn’t plan on working there long term, but its a job). Seagate has offices in the Twin Cities. Lawson Software, Travelers Insurance, Wells Fargo,

9

Thanks for the warning on Carlson Marketing.

I did look at the HealthPartners website. Their Market Research Analyst position sounds good. Is that something you can refer me for or should I just apply online? Thanks!

I’m taking a look at Dacon Technical and at the places Dangerosa mentioned too. Thanks everyone!