Scamp

.....it's a strong "no thanks" from me to that situation.

Regarding the offspring, if he wants any help with CV stuff or ideas, I'm happy to offer any assistance, given I'm the world's greatest, and most modest, construction / engineering flesh trader.

Lion in Winter

Thank you, that's a kind offer. Thing is he doesn't have very much to put on there yet, other than his uni coursework. His work experience consists of spooning out gelato before Covid hit which isn't as relevant to engineering as you might at first think. He's applied for a load of graduate job openings (including the one he can't tell me about). Let me see if I can extract his most updated one from him.

Expatrick

Don't worry, they often do that anyway, just to rattle you. Had it done to me!

Scamp

I'd not worry too much, people don't expect to see much on a grad CV, just that they can put something coherent together. Long, boring details about being a team player and organised in a shop job should be kept limited, in my opinion.

More relevant would be any internships / work experience in the relevant field if he has it.

Grad jobs are probably the most competitive jobs going when it comes to the big firms, but also, he must, must, must, must remember that the battle to attract good Grads is unreal. The offer to acceptance ratio of good school grads for top firms is outrageously low, because they'd have a few options to pick from. Be a bugger and go for as many as humanly possible - if in civil engineering use the list of companies that I'm sure will be on the ICE website (I imagine). I could pull a list but hopefully he already knows and has been to enough grad fairs to know who's worth targeting.

Be selfish with them as well, as objective as possible with the offers (money should be irrelevant basically) and pick something that offers growth quickly and the most rounded, structured and respected grad scheme....the one that gives the warm fuzzy feeling in the gut. Crusty old dinosaurs dominate the industry so a Grad scheme run by a younger generation would be really beneficial as the industry is moving and changing (slowly).

Happy to look at a CV but don't actually hire grads myself, it's done by another team so can try to help if needed.

Jolly Good

I still can't believe he is ready to graduate !! we are all proud of him.
No more Little Lion. We need to rename him

BristolUK

What if they'd accepted him?

Scamp

They'd have known more about him than he did.

Lion in Winter

Thanks for the tips. One of the obstacles has been that the jobs fairs at his uni have been cancelled time and again due to covid, and now everything has gone online. The recruiting companies used to put up stands in the Engineering buildings for casual conversations, and he did talk to a couple of companies that way (one of whom was the interview he can't tell me about, and they said that most people don't go through on the first round but that's it's absolutely worthwhile retrying on the second round a little later this spring). He is onto ICE, so that's covered.

macliam

It's OK for you to laugh! Somewhere, in a dusty room, is a dusty file with my name on it........

I can only presume that nobody learned to read........

Lion in Winter

I think he's stuck being the Little Lion for ever really. I will be there in July to see him do the cap and gown thing, though. His uni uses purple, as did mine over here, so we will have similar coloured tassels

macliam

My faculty used pale blue and yellow...... so these days it might be accused of being "on trend"!!

Lion in Winter

I'm struggling with the vestiges of medieval practice being on trend at all

macliam

Ummmm.... what are the colours of the Ukrainian flag?

Lion in Winter

I did get it.

I'm slow, but not that slow....

BristolUK