Everyday I remind myself that I want to start a blog about tips for entry level jobs for college students, tips that monstertrak or any large career sites don't tell you about. And it will be tailored to the trend in America too. At least I'll start pinpointing some topics now?

Major jobs that are constantly recruiting, possible scams include:
-Financial advisory/planning/consultancy
-Business Analyst/ Quality Assurance
-Insurance sales

What to be aware of when applying to jobs:
-Do they make you pay up front and promise to pay you back after?
-Do they emphasize a lot on how much money you can make in a year, or two, etc?
-Do they make you attend seminars that are mostly basic crap that you already knew from high school/college?
-Are you able to find information about that company online?
-And most importantly, do you know EXACTLY what the position does and what it involves?

You get the picture.
DO NOT follow through the application/interview process if you cannot answer these questions, no matter how much $$$ they promise to pay you, it is a trap.

Most of the time it is the companies that don't pay much that are the real, practical jobs.
But obviously do not be stupid enough to be exploited for slave/ low pay labor, unless it is an unpaid internship that you deem important and that may benefit your career (for example if you can learn how to use softwares, skills to do specific stuff like customer service, accounting, etc)

Next up I will start building a list of questionable companies so when you search for them and they pop up here, you have an idea that there's probably something fishy with these guys!!!

24 unit minimum for this CPUC job app:
Each course listed are 4 unit semester courses unless otherwise noted.

BUS 401 UG Strategic Management
BUS 323 UG Federal Taxation I (2)
BUS 422 UG Federal Taxation II (2)
BUS 330 UG Investment Analysis
BUS 321 UG Intermediate Accounting II
BUS 429 UG Contemporary Acct Topics
BUS 333 UG Financial Statement Analysis
BUS 430 UG International Fin Mgmt
BUS 472 UG Database Mgmt in Business (2)
CS 151 UG Spreadsheet Computing I (2)

1. Strategic Management: Marketing
2. Federal Taxation I: Personal Income Tax
3. Federal Taxation II: Corporate Income Tax
4. Investment Analysis: Finance Modeling
5. Intermediate Accounting II: CPA topic (last part)
6. Contemporary Acct Topics: Accounting thesis; International Accounting
7. Financial Statement Analysis: Interpreting financial statements and analyzing ratios
8. International Fin Mgmt: Deratives, swaps, borrowing, FX
9. Database Mgmt in Business: SQL, Access, relational database concepts
10. Spreadsheet Computing I: Advanced Excel (macros, pivot charts, statistics analysis toolpak, etc)

Blah, I messed up my Advent Software interview. They quizzed me with ibanking logic games (of which I got 2 out of 3 correctly) and a bunch of IT questions for the second round. I can never figure out how well I do in on site interviews I mean, what the hell do they judge on really? Now that I've been turned down, I think back, and I guess I've made a number of mistakes like,
1. my major accomplishment is not major enough
2. overtalking
3. overthinking/ nervous
4. did not ask for business cards to follow up/ unable to express desire for position
5. not well prepared enough for the tech quiz (especially the VPN, MySQL and Network drive parts, all of which I am least familiar with)
6. not overhearing a phone conversation from the employees to see what it's like to work there
7. they called my previous employer and he gave me a bad reference.

Union Bank of California totally pissed me off. And I single handedly threw Wells Fargo away long before that.
This is terrible.
It's not like I'm stupid, but why all the bad luck?
Because with all the overqualified peeps being laid off by good firms, they are filling up the lower ranks and killing prospects for me. I have no edge because I have no experience.
Great.

P.S. for my major accomplishment I think I have to bring my language skills next time. Something like, with a very unique and unparalled education/ growth environment I was in, I was able to handle multiple international languages as I grow up, which is a very hard to achieve goal/level for other people.

I'm scared

I seem to have a fear of following up with employers after interviews and am constantly confused about what to do all the time. The economy is dismal and I am sitting in my school's career center--my second time in a year, and it already feels like it's been centuries. It's extremely embarrassing to still be stuck here. The only way to comfort myself is to know that many of my friends are worse off than me or are still looking for work.

To avoid procrastinating, I'd like to draft here.
Actually forget it, this company uses an outsourced HR system, which means I don't even know how to reach anybody.
God damn it!

Cliché No. 1: "Strong communication, customer service and organizational skills."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Possess strong communication, customer service and organizational skills, which increased customer satisfaction from 85% to 98% and realized 100% on-time delivery of assigned projects.*

Cliché No. 2: "Introduced new products."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Developed, introduced and launched successful new products, which increased market share 3% and contributed $3 million to bottom-line profitability.*

Cliché No. 3: "Track record of success."
- Let Stetson rephrase that: Consistently surpassed sales goal by 10% or more each year.*

Cliché No. 4: "Possess leadership, communication, motivational and inspirational skills."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Highly effective leadership, communication, motivational and inspirational skills, which led to 98% employee retention ratio and four out of six employees promoted into management positions.*

Cliché No. 5: "Exceeded all productivity goals for the department."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Exceeded established department productivity goals 16% through development / implementation of best practices to increase employee output, communication of corporate objectives and introduction of compensation plans to reward high-performing individuals.

Cliché No. 6: "Go-to person."
- Let Stetson rephrase that: Selected by CEO for special customer service assignment that improved customer retention by 14%.*

Cliché No. 7: "Team player."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Possess strong commitment to team environment dynamics with the ability to contribute expertise and follow leadership directives at appropriate times.

Cliché No. 8: "Served as company spokesperson."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Served as highly successful company spokesperson, which generated positive media relations, resulted in identification as an industry expert, and garnered coverage in business / industry publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily and PC World.**

Cliché No. 9: "Partner with others."
- Let Stetson rephrase that: Collaborated with key members of the finance and information technology departments to develop and implement a new sales tracking tool.

Cliché No. 10: "Spoke with existing customers on a daily basis."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Successfully interacted with clients to generate repeat and referral business, which resulted in $1.5 million in new product orders.*

Cliché No. 11: "Expert presenter, negotiator and businessperson."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Expert presenter, negotiator and businessperson able to forge solid relationships with customers, which improved sales 33% and increased customer base from 10 to 50 new clients.*

Cliché No. 12: "Managed cross-functional teams."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Led diverse, cross-functional teams in the fulfillment of corporate productivity, quality and bottom-line objectives.

Cliché No. 13: "Resolved customer difficulties quickly and tactfully."
- Let Sweeney rephrase that: Honored with the "Customers Come First" award for consistently resolving customer difficulties in an expedient and tactful manner. **