Ivy League son is graduating next month with a rubbish GPA and no FT job offer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from a mediocre state school with a rubbish GPA and no internships and I did fine.

If he's interested in living in DC have him apply to trade associations. The pay sucks at first but they'll take anyone with a degree and definitely don't care about GPA. Work-life balance is great and if you're halfway intelligent it's easy to get promoted.

From there he can transition into government, consulting, other nonprofits, pretty much anything that doesn't require professional licensing. Or if he sticks with it higher up people in associations can make perfectly decent money - Directors and VPs are usually in the mid to high $100s and Presidents/C-suite can make $200-$500K depending on how big the association is.

Wow, what a life path—the stuff dreams are made of right here, folks.

Yeah, nothing more depressing than a stable job with easy work, reasonable hours, and a salary higher than 90% of America. Because if you're not railing lines so you can work 120 hours a week to make partner why are you even living, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from a mediocre state school with a rubbish GPA and no internships and I did fine.

If he's interested in living in DC have him apply to trade associations. The pay sucks at first but they'll take anyone with a degree and definitely don't care about GPA. Work-life balance is great and if you're halfway intelligent it's easy to get promoted.

From there he can transition into government, consulting, other nonprofits, pretty much anything that doesn't require professional licensing. Or if he sticks with it higher up people in associations can make perfectly decent money - Directors and VPs are usually in the mid to high $100s and Presidents/C-suite can make $200-$500K depending on how big the association is.

Wow, what a life path—the stuff dreams are made of right here, folks.

I don't think that poster really understands how the good association jobs work. Being halfway intelligent alone won't cut it. Associations are very bottom-heavy on staff and in order to climb up past a certain level you need connections and political savvy. The well-paying association jobs all rely on senior leadership to either contribute to lobbying efforts in some way or to bring in relationships with the corporations that are members.

[Anonymous]

Trade associations and other non-profits are a good place to start here in the DC area when you don't know what you want to do. Many entry level association jobs require basic communications and technology skills and can expose you to careers in advocacy (if he likes government affairs or is considering law school), events, marketing, publishing (magazines, newsletters, websites), fundraising, etc.

Tell him to look at ASAE's online career center for entry level association jobs (look for coordinator or manager titles). Trade associations will generally pay better than nonprofits/charities, especially if they have advocacy initiatives.

[Anonymous]

Get a real estate license or sell insurance if he doesn’t want to go to law school. The LA degrees aren’t worth very much anymore. Alternatively he can go back to school or try a tech/computing boot camp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:look into pathways internship program at usajobs

That isn't for lazy IVY league grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has he done anything substantive to show interest in his field while in college? Did he do research for a professor? Did he join any professional societies? Intern during the semester anywhere? Work a campus job? A summer job?

It's been 1.5 years since COVID were rolled back. If he has done nothing to sell about himself, he's just lazy.

I'm his mother and I'm not going to disagree with your appraisal. Now that we have that out of the way, how does he get a good job with a practically vacant resume and one month from earning an Ivy League bachelor's degree?

He can live at home for a year and do Americorps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12 pages and OP still hasn’t mentioned the son’s major.

And funny that these threads always say "Ivy" and never HYP.

[Anonymous]

Aldi’s is hiring.

And in reports from the trenches. I was in Aldis yesterday and there was a line of ~20 young white men gathered together in the bagging area, taking up space, leaning against the counters, and completely oblivious of course, to the shoppers needing to access the area.

I digress, at any rate, possibly a canary in the coal mine, an early sign of a weakening job market.

When perfectly good white guys are cuing 20 deep, to stock shelves and scan groceries for those on a budget, we might just be headed into the kind of territory where a perfectly good ivy league grad has to settle for any old job he can get.

[Anonymous]

He should do an unpaid internship and use that to get in the door somewhere else. It’s a hustle after college to get in the door with no work experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from a mediocre state school with a rubbish GPA and no internships and I did fine.

If he's interested in living in DC have him apply to trade associations. The pay sucks at first but they'll take anyone with a degree and definitely don't care about GPA. Work-life balance is great and if you're halfway intelligent it's easy to get promoted.

From there he can transition into government, consulting, other nonprofits, pretty much anything that doesn't require professional licensing. Or if he sticks with it higher up people in associations can make perfectly decent money - Directors and VPs are usually in the mid to high $100s and Presidents/C-suite can make $200-$500K depending on how big the association is.

Wow, what a life path—the stuff dreams are made of right here, folks.

I don't think that poster really understands how the good association jobs work. Being halfway intelligent alone won't cut it. Associations are very bottom-heavy on staff and in order to climb up past a certain level you need connections and political savvy. The well-paying association jobs all rely on senior leadership to either contribute to lobbying efforts in some way or to bring in relationships with the corporations that are members.

"That poster" is a director at an association. Being halfway intelligent can get you to at least Director level. You may need connections and political savvy to rise to VP/C-Suite, but if you're halfway intelligent and in a Director level position, it's not hard to gain those connections at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:look into pathways internship program at usajobs

That isn't for lazy IVY league grads.

Why not? I don’t understand

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12 pages and OP still hasn’t mentioned the son’s major.

And funny that these threads always say "Ivy" and never HYP.

Haha Dartmouth or bust!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I graduated from an Ivy with an engineering degree back in 1991, I only knew one person who got a job by May. We all managed to become productive citizens since. He’ll be fine.

Engineering and you didn't have any internships? No employer offered you and your friends jobs at the end of your rising senior summer internships?

I don't know how abnormal this is. My husband is an engineer and he didn't go to an Ivy, but he did go to a top engineering school (Carnegie Mellon). No internships and took him until the fall after graduation to get a job offer. And yes, he is also a productive citizen now just like the PP who graduated in 1991.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I graduated from an Ivy with an engineering degree back in 1991, I only knew one person who got a job by May. We all managed to become productive citizens since. He’ll be fine.

Engineering and you didn't have any internships? No employer offered you and your friends jobs at the end of your rising senior summer internships?

I don't know how abnormal this is. My husband is an engineer and he didn't go to an Ivy, but he did go to a top engineering school (Carnegie Mellon). No internships and took him until the fall after graduation to get a job offer. And yes, he is also a productive citizen now just like the PP who graduated in 1991.

It’s not 1991 and an Ivy or CMU degree isn’t a golden ticket to anything anymore.

[Anonymous]

I work for a DC government contractor. We are making $100K starting salary offers — to young graduates who studied things like — STEM, cyber, data analytics, date engineering, robotics, AI, ML, etc. With out 20% annual turnover rate, we will hire 5,000 of these over the next 12 months. If they pursued gender studies or communications or history — then good luck to them.