Well and it's not like people can exactly predict when they're going to get laid off and plan accordingly

9/14/2011 12:36:20 PM

Shouldn't have kids until you can afford it.

9/14/2011 1:43:27 PM

Quote :

"Shouldn't have kids until you can afford it."

9/14/2011 10:40:59 PM

Quote :

"Yeah see I think that's bs. Your credit score says nothing about your ability to be a good worker."

It might be understandable if you're dealing with sensitive material in an environment where bribery could be used to get secret/private information out of you. If you have money problems you're more likely to be influenced by the offer of money in exchange for information. This is why the federal government performs a credit check (guh, along with an everything else check) and asks you about your financial situation when you are getting a security clearance.

[Edited on September 14, 2011 at 10:45 PM. Reason : For most employers it should be irrelevant, though.]

9/14/2011 10:45:26 PM

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/YourCreditRating/how-bad-credit-can-cost-you-a-job.aspx

9/15/2011 12:09:33 AM

I don't buy that line in the article about employers using the credit check to confirm employment history. My credit report doesn't tell you squat about where I've worked, only about my debt or lack thereof.

9/15/2011 6:33:37 AM

For professionals I'd be mildly surprised if they check it. For lower wage jobs I wouldn't be.

9/15/2011 7:24:00 AM

the job i just got, they told me in like the 2nd interview that they would not check it. sort of like they were bragging about not doing it.

9/15/2011 7:29:18 AM

first week on the job, have to work Saturday for over-time. hahah, but its extra money plus it goes towards my PTO.

9/22/2011 6:47:58 PM

yay I get to post in this thread

9/23/2011 5:42:14 AM

^

9/23/2011 9:08:04 AM

You dont have to be handling money or sensitive things for credit check. I think if your credit is shitty and you have a reason, then you can explain...but if you reason is you just decided to go crazy with your credit cards etc it does look bad.

9/24/2011 12:51:14 AM

I am kinda bummed today, although not official yet, I think I did not get a promotion. I am on vacation all next week and I figure I will get the email at the beginning of the week. I will be over it in a few days, but seems I was really really close this time around compared to the other times.

9/25/2011 2:36:57 PM

not getting a promotion != unemployed

9/25/2011 4:16:21 PM

just let him post here, he has no friends in real life

9/25/2011 5:01:07 PM

just applied for my first job

hopefully will get something nailed down before my last day (about a month out) at my current place.

9/25/2011 11:49:37 PM

Why is it that applying for a $9/hr part-time job is soooo much harder than applying for a job that pays $50-$60k?

[Edited on September 27, 2011 at 9:47 AM. Reason : c]

9/27/2011 9:45:49 AM

^ lol yeah I love how places like Walmart and Home Depot make you do those insanely asinine personality tests as part of the interview process. I've always wondered if they did that because they can't trust the ability of their managers to weed out bad workers during an interview.

9/27/2011 10:51:59 AM

more people applying = more weeding out at the first stages

9/27/2011 10:52:55 AM

^bingo.

9/27/2011 10:57:43 AM

Quote :

"can't trust the ability of their managers to weed out bad workers during an interview"

science > intuition

9/27/2011 10:59:12 AM

Have you ever taken one of those things? You'd have to be really dumb to not pass one of them and I'd hope the average person could identify a complete moron

9/27/2011 11:04:27 AM

Personality tests frustrate the hell out of me

Nearly every question I want to answer "both" or "neither"

Maybe that's the point, though...

9/27/2011 11:07:06 AM

Proctor and Gamble does personality tests for their engineers...definitely a mass weed-out tool.

VI think PnG also does an IQ test

[Edited on September 27, 2011 at 11:30 AM. Reason : lkj]

9/27/2011 11:26:46 AM

Yeah, the last place I interviewed at did a personality test. IBM did an IQ test.

9/27/2011 11:29:47 AM

My company has 4 openings geared toward people with limited experience (ie recent grads). They are located in Charlotte, Vermont, and Greenville,SC:

Associate Design Engineer I - Electrical
HSE Engineer I
Associate Design Engineer I - Control Systems
Associate Project Controls Specialist I

fluor.com/careers

9/27/2011 11:33:14 AM

grrrr. have an offer for a position that isn't perfect, but that I could certainly do and that would help me grow. then right after I get off the phone I get a call from a recruiter about a position in the field I want to eventually get in that I put a ton of resumes into and never got any callbacks. grrrr. would have been nice to get this offer this week instead of last week.

9/27/2011 2:30:33 PM

Take the offer and pursue the other position.

I can understand why some people would frown upon that. But at the end of the day, you don't owe either of these companies anything and in the long run, you will be a very small blip in the history of the first company should you leave. It is OK (and right imo) to put your personal, long-term goals (and happiness) above what would come from staying with a job just because you feel like you owe them because they hired you. They're getting something out of hiring you, it was in no way a selfless act or a favor.

Take the offer, pursue the other position (which is nothing more than talk from a recruiter at the moment it seems), if you're offered the second position you say.. "I was just given this offer from a job I pursued before you gave me an offer. The position is something I'm very excited about and want to pursue. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I feel I would regret not pursuing this path. Thank you for your time and the opportunity."

Be polite and professional and you leave. If you're professional about it,it's just business mixed with you pursuing your personal goals. I've yet to meet someone in a work environment who doesn't understood and appreciate that sort of thing.

[Edited on September 27, 2011 at 6:52 PM. Reason : .]

9/27/2011 6:49:51 PM

would anyone else do that? seems like a shitty thing to do, if you ask me... what says the rest of TWW?

9/27/2011 11:49:26 PM

^^agree 100%

being loyal to a company is not necessary, given the wrong situation they would drop you without a second thought.

i wouldn't make a habit of short stints with multiple companies, but you can easily explain doing it once. who knows nothing may come of the opportunity and you will have passed on an acceptable position for no reason.

9/28/2011 12:20:55 AM

LIke ^ said, you don't want to do it often. But we're talking about taking an offer to secure a job in a very tough time and the second job being something you say you really want to get into.

This isn't jumping from one shit job to another for a few thousand extra a year. This is about personal security (assuming you're unemployed right now) and pursing your goals.... two things that I would hope are high priority for everyone.

I'm not trying to argue or convince you necessarily, I just want to give you the perspective from a few steps back.

The way I figure it, there are about 5 possible scenarios here. And there is only 1 out of those 5 in which you do not walk away from Company A at some point. -- That's the scenario in which you take the job and stay there the rest of your life for some reason. Statistics show that that scenario is very unlikely. So most likely, you're walking eventually.

What do they lose if you take the job and walk shortly thereafter? It costs money to interview and hire people. That's a fact. Depending on the recruiting, interview, and training involved, they could have potentially spent thousands of dollars.

You could (potentially) cost them thousands of dollars. OK, that sucks, I don't want to be that guy. But remember, you're probably gonna walk at some point. Whether you walk after a week, a year, 5 or 10 years, it's still going to cost them money to find a replacement. Really... walking immediately could be the lesser of evils because their number 2 choice may still be available which means no additional costs for interviewing.

On the other hand, what do you sacrifice if you take the job and settle for something "that isn't perfect" and not go after the position you want to be in? In five years you'll either be in the job that "isn't perfect" but you're sticking with it because they came along just one week earlier, or you'll know you took a shot at what you want.

Lock down job A, and go after B. Go through the process, learn more about the job and company, salary, benefits, etc. before you limit your own options. You can always say No if the offer comes, but at least find out if it's really what you imagine and make sure it's not even better than you imagined before you nix it.

[Edited on September 28, 2011 at 1:31 AM. Reason : .]

9/28/2011 1:13:36 AM

They would dump you in a heartbeat if the situation were reversed.

9/28/2011 10:19:12 AM

Woohoo! Got the job at HTC today!

Now gone from crappily employed to happily employed!

9/29/2011 9:14:32 PM

Dunno if there are any structural engineers out there with some experience but based on a recruiter that was hounding me I figured out that Crown Castle is hiring: http://tbe.taleo.net/NA4/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=CROWNCASTLE&cws=1&rid=1639

9/30/2011 5:04:00 PM

I'll be manning the Fluor booth again on Tuesday at the NC State career fair. Not sure exactly what all we are looking for at the moment though because I haven't spoken with the HR rep recently.

9/30/2011 5:52:29 PM

i fucking hate Flour Daniels. Avoid them like the fucking plague

9/30/2011 6:52:36 PM

Pretty sure I'll be getting offers from two places yesterday. I've been out of work since August 9th. It's amazing what being able to write a decent cover letter will do for you.

9/30/2011 7:16:07 PM

you will be getting offers yesterday?

9/30/2011 7:18:46 PM

I'm not unemployed, but I've never had a big boy job (meaning something other than retail, freelancing, or playing music). Am I as screwed in this environment as I think I am?

I look forward to your honest answers and put-downs.

9/30/2011 8:07:48 PM

Id say it depends on where you're trying to go, but at the very least trying to get non-committal experience via internships or non-profit volunteer positions

9/30/2011 9:29:37 PM

i'd say it also depends on why you've been in those positions as well. is it just cause you've been in school? if so, they won't care. is it cause you didn't want a big boy job? well, that might look bad. it also will depend on what your degree is and what you are trying to get into. for instance, if you are a computer programmer, then Wal-Mart might want to hire you as a entry level programmer because you have experience using the types of applications you might be designing

9/30/2011 9:35:30 PM

Just something that's been running through my head. I haven't had a "real" job because I have few expenses and had no real need for one; with that in mind, the freedom of freelancing and PT jobs matches very well with my lifestyle.

My cousin works for the New York Times now, but did not get his first "real" job until he was 28 (which I'm turning next week). He and I have similar personalities, and lately he's told me he wishes he'd gotten on with being an adult earlier than he did. I'm not convinced, but I am curious about what I'd be up against outside of the competition in the job market itself. Example: I've never had a job interview. Even when I was managing a retail store, I got the job through a friend and moved up.

Mostly thinking out loud here, but was curious if anyone had made the successful transition from middle class boho nobody to functioning adult.

9/30/2011 10:14:36 PM

Quote :

"you will be getting offers yesterday?"

LOL, I meant Monday. My brain is fried today.

9/30/2011 10:45:30 PM

Quote :

" i fucking hate Flour Daniels. Avoid them like the fucking plague"

I guess it depends on how you dealt with Fluor. I absolutely love working for them and have been here over 4.5 years

10/1/2011 12:14:34 AM

Big corporate works out differently for different people.

I'm much happier working at a "medium" sized ~1200 employee corporation in a ~30-large structural engineering group (combined nationwide employment, specifically structural engineers not counting support staff). It has many of the frustrations of corporate work but all the job security and benefits I could ever want.

Quote :

"Mostly thinking out loud here, but was curious if anyone had made the successful transition from middle class boho nobody to functioning adult."

I'm halfway there. I've got a salaried job with benefits, a good bit of trust from the company (they're paying a big chunk of money to send me and the most senior engineer to georgia for 9 days to train with weld inspecting), and currently have $0 in debt. Plans are in the works for me to buy the house I'm living in.

10/2/2011 3:01:57 AM

Yea I definitely understand that about working for large corporations. I guess it helps that my group within Fluor is small too. I definitely planned on working for a smaller company initially but I got to Fluor and just really liked it and haven't even thought about leaving. Now, at the same time, there are definitely plenty of areas within Fluor that I would never want to work in.

10/2/2011 8:49:49 AM

i could be 0$ in debt. would have to sell my jeep and my corvette. Really don't want to do that.

10/2/2011 9:33:21 AM

My company is hiring! PM me for more info if you're interested and I can answer questions about it.

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/sci/2625794512.html

10/3/2011 10:10:16 AM

Anyone know of an online tutorial for Excel? A job I'm applying for through a staffing company wants the person to have experience in Excel and while I technically have experience, I haven't used it much (if any) in the past 5-6 yrs. I used to be really good at it but my last couple of jobs have had me out in the field away from the computer so I'm fairly rusty with it. I don't think it'll take me long to get back in the swing of things with it, so don't need some really indepth program that takes multiple, multiple hours to get through

10/3/2011 2:42:11 PM

Honestly I think if you just open it up and dick around with it you don't even need a tutorial, especially if you're lucky and the company has a newer version of Excel.

I hadn't used Excel really since college but I use it a lot in my current job. I basically spent an hour re-familiarizing myself with the controls and basic formula codes. Every once in awhile I run into something I've forgotten how to do but it usually only takes me a minute or two on Google to figure it out.

10/3/2011 2:47:33 PM