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Safe and Secure! posted:Is there a standard way to politely ask for a reference? Do I just email my supervisor from my internship (ended eight months ago, he told me I could use him as a reference) and say "hey, I'm using you as a reference, just fyi!" or do I ask for permission first? Do I bother him with information about the place/role I'm applying for or just ask if I can use him as a reference? You don't need to ask for permission when it was already given. The heads-up would be nice, but it also isn't always necessary either.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:03
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Safe and Secure! posted:Is there a standard way to politely ask for a reference? Do I just email my supervisor from my internship (ended eight months ago, he told me I could use him as a reference) and say "hey, I'm using you as a reference, just fyi!" or do I ask for permission first? Do I bother him with information about the place/role I'm applying for or just ask if I can use him as a reference? I'd email him and ask what contact info he'd like the hiring manager/HR screener/whoever to call him at. That's a polite way of "asking" without really asking, and also allowing him to be contacted on his terms.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:04
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Safe and Secure! posted:Is there a standard way to politely ask for a reference? Do I just email my supervisor from my internship (ended eight months ago, he told me I could use him as a reference) and say "hey, I'm using you as a reference, just fyi!" or do I ask for permission first? Do I bother him with information about the place/role I'm applying for or just ask if I can use him as a reference? Why not ask him for a letter of recommendation? That's a great way to break the ice and pretty standard.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:43
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Letter seems like a lot of work. Still, and this is just my personal preference, I like to speak with someone I'm listing as a reference before giving their contact info to a third party.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:57
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Well, I just tried contacting him at his work address and my emails came back undelivered both times. Looks like his company email address doesn't work anymore and I don't have any other contact information for him. poo poo.
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Aug 27, 2013 20:02
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Safe and Secure! posted:Well, I just tried contacting him at his work address and my emails came back undelivered both times. Looks like his company email address doesn't work anymore and I don't have any other contact information for him. poo poo. Don't give up just yet - look him up on LinkedIn, add him, and get his updated contact info.
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Aug 27, 2013 20:09
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I talked to a recruiter today and now I have a couple questions: 1) Any suggestions on how to get around giving them your current salary? I don't know why they ask but I wasn't going to give it to them. I ended up just muttering out "umm I don't want to say" which felt awkward. 2) She said that she actually gets paid more the higher my first-year salary is? Whaaaaat? Why would there be a system like this? Don't employers want to pay recruiters to get them work as cheaply as possible?
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Aug 28, 2013 08:30
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HondaCivet posted:
Recruiters get paid a percentage commission on the first year of salary for every employee they get signed. Employers give recruiters the potential to be paid to get people who would fit into their team well into interviews with them, not to get the lowest possible bidder. If the choice for an employer is between paying salary out to the tune of 70k for a great employee versus 60k or 50k for one that's worse then hopefully they're smart enough to realize that the lowest cost option is probably not the best one -- employee salary is a small part of the cost of an employee to a company and offering more to get the good talent who will be satisfied with their job and contribute more value to a project than someone they can pay less but does a worse job is just a smart thing to do.
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Aug 28, 2013 09:07
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HondaCivet posted:I talked to a recruiter today and now I have a couple questions: I wrote some stuff about it a few pages back. Just believe that them asking you about your current salary is akin to talking about your sexual preference, medical history or your age: It's none of their goddamn business.
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Aug 28, 2013 09:34
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HondaCivet posted:1) Any suggestions on how to get around giving them your current salary? I don't know why they ask but I wasn't going to give it to them. I ended up just muttering out "umm I don't want to say" which felt awkward. Last time I asked about this, the best reference I got was http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ Half-way down, "The First Rule Is What Everyone Tells You It Is: Never Give A Number First".
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Aug 28, 2013 13:51
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Recruiters suck, don't use them. And yeah, like everyone else said, they get a commission based on your salary if they place you. But don't think this means that the recruiter really gives a poo poo and wants you to make more money, because really they just want to get paid.
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Aug 28, 2013 15:25
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HondaCivet posted:1) Any suggestions on how to get around giving them your current salary? I don't know why they ask but I wasn't going to give it to them. I ended up just muttering out "umm I don't want to say" which felt awkward.
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Aug 28, 2013 16:15
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Recruiting agency recruiters are the scum of the earth. In-house (and I mean physically in-house, not outside hires) recruiters aren't as bad and typically won't ask you the current salary question, but tell them to gently caress off in the kindest words possible if they do. If they pressure you for a desired salary, always say some variation that you're negotiable and it's mostly based on the market rate and details of the job which will be discussed later. If they absolutely-no-matter-what will not move forward without an amount, give a $10,000 range, starting at least $5-10k above what you would actually want, and again, say that you're negotiable based on benefits. Typically, though, if the company in question is prodding you with these sorts of questions in the first place, you probably don't want to work for them. Good companies know what the market rate is and what their employees should be paid. I find the best scenarios are ones where smaller companies have the owner/higher-up his or her self contact you directly (sometimes this is a senior developer), but YMMV.
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Aug 28, 2013 17:20
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I'm currently working on a Post-Bac Software Engineering program and I'm a little less than halfway through. I have a completely unrelated undergraduate degree in History and Secondary Education and I'm wondering when would be a time to start looking for an entry level development job. I had a to take a handful of prereq classes so I'm comfortable with different control and data structures. I've taken my Software Engineering Design classes so I'm comfortable with Agile and n-tier concepts and I did well in Java and Advanced Java. I've had some experience with JDBC, Hibernate and Spring and I've got a good grasp of SQL. I'm currently taking Enterprise Java and Advanced EJ this semester and C#/Enterprise C# in the Spring before I have to take a couple of non-coding classes and my capstone next Fall. I feel like I'm in a weird spot right now experience wise and I'm not sure it would be worth trying to get in somewhere and do some QA or something to get some experience or keep my head down and keep plowing through school.
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Aug 28, 2013 17:57
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CPFinnit posted:I'm currently working on a Post-Bac Software Engineering program and I'm a little less than halfway through. I have a completely unrelated undergraduate degree in History and Secondary Education and I'm wondering when would be a time to start looking for an entry level development job. You should start looking for internships yesterday.
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Aug 28, 2013 18:03
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You should always be looking for internships. Even Microsoft and the like hire Freshmen sometimes so your level of experience should never limit the kinds of opportunities you seek. Get out there, interview as much as possible and try to find something for the summer. I assume your school has some sort of fall career fair? Even if not, companies are going to start ramping up recruiting for summer internships very soon and you should get on that. DO NOT GRADUATE WITHOUT WORK EXPERIENCE.
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Aug 28, 2013 19:02
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bonds0097 posted:You should always be looking for internships. Even Microsoft and the like hire Freshmen sometimes so your level of experience should never limit the kinds of opportunities you seek. Get out there, interview as much as possible and try to find something for the summer. I assume your school has some sort of fall career fair? Even if not, companies are going to start ramping up recruiting for summer internships very soon and you should get on that. Microsoft has an internship program specifically for underclassmen. Only requirements are calculus and some type of intro to CS course: http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-explore-microsoft.aspx I assume similar companies have similar programs.
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Aug 28, 2013 19:12
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CPFinnit posted:I'm currently working on a Post-Bac Software Engineering program and I'm a little less than halfway through. I have a completely unrelated undergraduate degree in History and Secondary Education and I'm wondering when would be a time to start looking for an entry level development job. Like the other guys said, every single day go scour Craigslist, Monster, Dice, Indeed, careers.stackoverflow for internships. Talk to your college's career services department. They got me both my first & second internship, which turned into a job. A highly underpaid one, but that's better than no job at all.
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Aug 28, 2013 19:31
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I know a girl who's on her third internship (first two were at Amazon, current one is at Facebook). Yeah, she's pretty much set.
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Aug 28, 2013 19:33
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HondaCivet posted:
it feels awkward because they're putting you in an awkward spot, but it's a standard thing for them to ask. You did the right thing.
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Aug 28, 2013 19:40
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JawnV6 posted:Still, and this is just my personal preference, I like to speak with someone I'm listing as a reference before giving their contact info to a third party. Agreed. It's just common courtesy to give someone a headsup that random strangers might be calling them.
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Aug 28, 2013 19:42
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bonds0097 posted:You should always be looking for internships. Even Microsoft and the like hire Freshmen sometimes so your level of experience should never limit the kinds of opportunities you seek. Get out there, interview as much as possible and try to find something for the summer. I assume your school has some sort of fall career fair? Even if not, companies are going to start ramping up recruiting for summer internships very soon and you should get on that. Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into the intern programs we have in Phoenix. I'm currently working in an unrelated IT field and taking an unpaid internship would be difficult, but maybe I can find something.
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Aug 28, 2013 20:36
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Even without experience, you shouldn't have to take an unpaid internship. If your skills are decent enough and you're not a dumbass, it's possible to find entry level work in a major city.
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Aug 28, 2013 20:39
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You may be able to intern at my company over at 6th and Mill in Tempe, Arizona. I'll send you a message.
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Aug 28, 2013 20:55
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Thanks guys! I don't normally go the recruiter route but one from a fairly legit agency found me and was representing a company that sounded interesting so I thought I'd check it out at least. And now I have a little more experience with talking to recruiters too. So she said the company in question is full of senior people and they're mostly looking for junior people right now . . . Isn't that kind of weird? Does that mean that they've probably had a hard time retaining younger people?
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Aug 28, 2013 21:18
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HondaCivet posted:So she said the company in question is full of senior people and they're mostly looking for junior people right now . . . Isn't that kind of weird? Does that mean that they've probably had a hard time retaining younger people? Possibly! Observant of you to notice, but it's up to you to press them further on why that's going on (and you really should ask those kinds of questions). May or may not be a red flag, but definitely ask about it.
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Aug 28, 2013 21:24
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CPFinnit posted:Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into the intern programs we have in Phoenix. I'm currently working in an unrelated IT field and taking an unpaid internship would be difficult, but maybe I can find something. Internships aren't unpaid. You should make at minimum 20 bucks an hour and as much as 40+ (at places like MS, Facebook, etc.). Don't ever accept an unpaid internship as a dev.
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Aug 28, 2013 21:35
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bonds0097 posted:Internships aren't unpaid. You should make at minimum 20 bucks an hour and as much as 40+ (at places like MS, Facebook, etc.). Don't ever accept an unpaid internship as a dev. Unpaid internships are basically illegal in the US unless they fit a very specific set of criteria.
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Aug 28, 2013 21:38
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Expanding on Ithaqua's post: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/six-federal-legal-requirements-unpaid-intern-15820.html The problem is when a company says it's unpaid, and you say "Well that's illegal" and then you "mysteriosly" don't get the internship  Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I found my share of unpaid internships while searching and told them no. Both of my internships were paid, despite being small local businesses. $10/hr as a generic DBA-intern/help desk, $15/hr as a software dev intern
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Aug 28, 2013 21:57
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bonds0097 posted:Internships aren't unpaid. You should make at minimum 20 bucks an hour and as much as 40+ (at places like MS, Facebook, etc.). Don't ever accept an unpaid internship as a dev. Yeah, iirc my company pays interns $25/hr and I'm in a really low cost of living area. Our goal is to take interns and turn them into employees, and one of the ways we do that is we treat them really well so they want to come back.
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Aug 29, 2013 00:02
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air- posted:Possibly! Observant of you to notice, but it's up to you to press them further on why that's going on (and you really should ask those kinds of questions). May or may not be a red flag, but definitely ask about it. As a flipside to not being able to retain talent, I was once contacted by a recruiter explaining that a company was looking for entry-level developers because they had promoted their entire digital team as part of a reorg. So it's not always all bad (though looking back on it I kind of wonder what the corporate politics are like that resulted in promoting an entire department).
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Aug 29, 2013 01:04
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gucci void main posted:Typically, though, if the company in question is prodding you with these sorts of questions in the first place, you probably don't want to work for them. Good companies know what the market rate is and what their employees should be paid. I find the best scenarios are ones where smaller companies have the owner/higher-up his or her self contact you directly (sometimes this is a senior developer), but YMMV. I wish this were true, but I recently interviewed with both Amazon and Google, and they both asked for my salary history right before the in-person interview step. I left it blank both times and the recruiters asked me again over the phone, where it was a lot more uncomfortable to decline. With Amazon I just gave it to them because I was caught off-guard. With Google I did a variant of what the previous poster said - a really awkward sort of "oh uh I'm not comfortable discussing that".
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Aug 29, 2013 01:06
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Ithaqua posted:Unpaid internships are basically illegal in the US unless they fit a very specific set of criteria. An unpaid software internship is more of a myth as far as I know.
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Aug 29, 2013 01:13
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Chasiubao posted:An unpaid software internship is more of a myth as far as I know. I got offered two of them. Although, I do live in Vancouver, where Hootsuite got in trouble for not paying interns.
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Aug 29, 2013 03:07
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KNITS MY FEEDS posted:I got offered two of them. Although, I do live in Vancouver, where Hootsuite got in trouble for not paying interns. With EA, UFG, Capcom Vancouver, plus all the little studios and startups? 
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Aug 29, 2013 03:30
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HondaCivet posted:
no, it (probably) means that for whatever reason they've got a case of too many chiefs, not enough indians. happens all the time and is not a cause for any concern.
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Aug 29, 2013 03:39
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also: lol @ unpaid software internships holy crap
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Aug 29, 2013 03:42
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NovemberMike posted:Yeah, iirc my company pays interns $25/hr and I'm in a really low cost of living area. Our goal is to take interns and turn them into employees, and one of the ways we do that is we treat them really well so they want to come back. Got any openings?  That's more than I make full time where I am, heh.
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Aug 29, 2013 03:47
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e wrong thread
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Aug 29, 2013 03:59
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Edly posted:I wish this were true, but I recently interviewed with both Amazon and Google, and they both asked for my salary history right before the in-person interview step. I left it blank both times and the recruiters asked me again over the phone, where it was a lot more uncomfortable to decline. With Amazon I just gave it to them because I was caught off-guard. With Google I did a variant of what the previous poster said - a really awkward sort of "oh uh I'm not comfortable discussing that". It is awkward. I had a similar experience interviewing with Google and Microsoft. I had another offer on the table at the time of the interviews and both asked me what the salary was like. I think I said something like "I can't go into specifics, but it's very generous" (both true statements) and that seemed to placate them.
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Aug 29, 2013 04:09
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