------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Special Package on Visa and Job Hunting (Series 4) ........... 350 2. Special Package on Visa and Job Hunting (Series 5) ........... 300 3. Special Package on Visa and Job Hunting (Series 6) ........... 150 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Special Package on Visa and Job Hunting (Series 4) - - - - - - T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s - - - - - - No. Subjects # of Lines 1. Job Hunting Essentials (A Conversation on Job Hunting, Part III) . 170 2. PRCers Seek R&D Positions in American High Tech Companies (Part II) I. Tips for Getting A Job in Big Companies . . . . . . . . . . . 70 II. Some Personal Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 III. How to Deal With the Restriction on Hiring Aliens Due to US Government Export Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Job Hunting Essentials (A Conversation on Job Hunting, Part III) . 170 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: xiong@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Bo Xiong) Date: 22 Sep 90 20:26:33 GMT Source: soc.culture.china We now continue the conversation written based on the discussions with several graduated/graduating Chinese students. B: Shall we first talk about resume and cover/inquiry letter writing today? A: Sure, I just received a message from a close friend and frequent contributor of CND, he has made valueable comments on getting jobs and writing resumes, let's read his e-mail before we continue our discussion. ----------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 03:08:57 -0700 >From: kemnitz@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Greg Kemnitz) To: xiong@bsu-cs.bsu.edu Subject: Re: Conversation on Job Hunting ABC A few comments on getting jobs: (Note that these apply only to industry jobs and not necessarily to research or teaching jobs in academia.) Get some industry experience before you leave school if possible: If you are going to be in school for a couple more years, GET A SUMMER JOB OR INTERNSHIP IN YOUR FIELD IF AT ALL POSSIBLE!!! This can be the single most important thing you do - depending on the particulars of the job, it can be more important than any papers you write or any other academic activity other than the degree itself. Even though it may seem paradoxical, it is true that three or six months spent working in industry will be hugely important to potential employers. Equally as important, you can make professional contacts and get references from managers in companies. (Incidentally, managers often carry more weight with employers than professors.) You can also make connections with people who may know about openings that are not listed, or you can get a group you work for as a summer hire/intern to hire you full-time upon graduation. Basically the game works like this: if I am hiring a programmer, my concern is as follows: can the guy code? Does he design, implement, debug, and document well? Can this person handle being a team member on a truly Big Project? None of these questions can be answered, except in an unsatisfying and indirect way, by academic experience - but a few months working experience will give an employer a "track record" that he can look back on. Getting A's in programming classes is all well and good, but you don't write truly big programs or work in directed groups on multi-year projects in classes. There are academic research projects (like the one I am currently managing) where this is true, but they are rather rare. Remember that you are a babe in the woods: People from industry are generally unimpressed by "experience" in academia. Everyone has had to do class projects, thesis projects, etc so these should be regarded as important in showing the desired direction of your career, but should not be made too much of by themselves. An example of this is as follows: At one point I received a resume from a person who appeared to brag that they had written all of 2000 line of code for a project they were working on. Even though measuring lines of code is an extremely crude measure of the complexity of a problem in programming (I have taken a month to write 100 lines of code, and other times written several thousand lines in a week), such a claim is not generally going to impress many programmers or programming managers in industry. Worse, this showed how little the person knows about the world, where projects are often hundreds of thousands or even millions of lines long. It would be very interesting to describe what that program did as it would show what the person was interested in doing with their career, but the fact that it was 2000 lines long was irrelevent and most unimpressive by itself. Beware of wishy-washy or weak resumes: If you have multiple areas that you would be willing to work in, you should probably think about tailoring a resume for each of them. If your interest is either languages or operating systems (you will rarely work on both), you should have a "languages" resume and an "operating systems" resume. You can stress languages projects and coursework (and hopefully industry experience) on one, and OS experience on another. Avoid objectives that say "Give me a job, any job!", ie Seeking a career in which I can use my background in operating systems, languages, graphics, user interface, window systems, or object oriented programming. Resumes are not academic transcripts - rather they are marketing tools that should be used to answer the question "Why should I hire this guy"? You are a capitalist selling yourself on an open market to the highest bidder. Greg Kemnitz Postgres Chief Programmer 278 Cory Hall, University of California at Berkeley (415) 642-7520 kemnitz@postgres.berkeley.edu --------------------------------End of the Quote--- B: Greg's comments are very informative, I think the comments are not only practical guidelines for those job hunters majored in Computer Science, but also very significat reminders to the students in other majors. A: His comments cover many respects in career preparation and resume writing, you may find details of reference materials in library and university career services, I don't have much to say besides following points: 1) Don't hesitate to include your work experiences in China in your resume or curriculum vitae - whatever the experiences are, as long as releted to your filed, such as teaching, research and engineering job, just be specific when you mention it in your resume. If you were involved in some joint-venture/technical-exchange project(s) in China with foreign nations, don't forget to put it into your resumes, yes, resumeS, various versions of your resume for different head hunters. 2) Don't omit PERSONAL column, which usually includes your hobbies, social activities and etc., especially if you are an undergrad or master student. Employers like people who are ease-going, socialable and energetic :-) 3) List name, title, organization, address and phone # of your references, even some of them are in China, especially you are a Ph.D. student. This is a very significant gesture to prospective employers :-) 4) You don't have to mention your visa status, of course you may add a column in your resume stating "Visa Status: US Permanent Resident Visa" to take some advantage if you are a PR. Anyway, recuiters will know where you come from because your name and experiences are indicating that. We'll get into a little bit detail about this later. B: How about cover letter or inquiry letter writing? A: You may see many sample letters on the materials from fifferent sources, or ask a sample letter from your fellow students. Many people prepare ONE/TWO statnard letters for almost all purpose. I still think it's a good idea to add a paragraph for a specific employer everytime you send it out. For instance, if you send a letter to an employer in iron & steel industry who needs a rolling process engineer, you may insert a segment to your cover letter telling them that you have three years experiences designing roughing mill (if you do have :-). This will make difference and they might pay additional attention to your resume after reading the inserted paragraph. Also, try to send your letters to those who are in charge of technical sectors in an organization, they will have final say in hiring people. Finally, you may send out hundred of cover/inquiry letters together with your resume, don't forget to make a list of when you send what to whom. Tell you a real story, a friend of mine received a phone call from a company in Ohio a month ago, she couldn't remember the name of the company and the position she applied for when she answered the phone, the worse thing is that she couldn't respond to the caller in a well-prepared manner and lost the chance. B: Some SCC readers think the average starting salary in the table (Series I & II) is overall low and want more info, what you have for them? A: As the disclaimer of the table suggested, the table is NOT made from reasonable sample space so it should not be used for analysis. However, a reader e-mailed me and told me there is a male Chinese, came to US one year ago on F-2 visa, 30 years old with his Ph.D. in Computer Science (I would guess he earned it in China), got a Job in a San Diego R&D company as staff scientist with starting salary $55K and switched to H-1 status. According to some major US newspapers, in 1990, the US nationwide average starting salary for those new undergrads in chemical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, business and computer science are ranged between $32K and 29K (with chemical engineering highest and CS lowest among above). Considering the fact that most alien graduates have Master/Ph.D.'s, the salary in the table seems lower. Anyway, as many many publications on immigration implied, it seems common case that an alien worker gets lower pay than average, that's why so many alien workers switch their jobs after a reasonable time of getting PR and serving their current employer. It's getting long ... B: So, let's talk next time about how employers screen candidates from application letters and how they look at/treat foreign students. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. PRCers Seek R&D Positions in American High Tech Companies (Part II) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I. Tips for Getting A Job in Big Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 >From: Kam-Cheong Tsoi #350 x7899 Date: Mon, 19 Nov 90 16:44:43 MST Please consider sharing the following information in your Job/Visa Series in CND: 1. I was called by IBM for a job interview November, 1989--even though I told the caller that I was working with a company at that time. The caller had set up an interview schedule for me and gave me a phone number to call for air tickets. Then, I told the caller that I was not a US citizen or resident. One hour later, a hiring manager called me back to apologize that they had to cancel the interview based on the fact that I was not an US citizen or resident. But I was able to "transfer" this opportunity to an American friend. From what I learned from this American friend who went for the interview, the position seemed to have nothing related to national security. 2. I know a friend who is not an US citizen or resident but "indirectly" works in IBM. My friend is hired as a contractor under another company which assigns him to work in IBM. 3. I also was hired by a contracting company which assigned me to work in a major telephone company. Since then I have been working very hard to make the telephone company eventually hire me as a permanent employee and petition a labor certificate for me. I suppose the same tactics can be used for those hard working foreign students who look for big companies to work with. You can find a contracting company who has contracting relationships with big companies. With hard work and good attitude, you may be able to convince your assigned companies to hire you eventually. Contracting companies usually don't care about your status in the US, and the big companies contracted with the contracting companies don't need and care to know your alien status. Make sure the document you sign with your contracting company will not prohibit you to switch and work with the assigned companies as a regular employee. If the document has this restriction, ask the contracting company to cross it out. 4. Don't forget to ask your professors for referrals. Social "networking" is MUCH more important than you think. I know a foreign student referred to a big company by his professor. The director of the company was a student of the professor many years ago. Many companies can but won't hire foreign students just to avoid the paper work. But through social networking, the decison makers of the companies may think additional work is still worthwhile. By suggesting this, I am not saying social networking is a substitute of hard working, good academic performance, and decent attitude. Your professors will not recommend you just because you are "social" to them. 5. Don't forget to dress, think, and talk like "one of them," especially you are looking for big companies. These companies want to hire someone that can represent them in public. I am not asking you to give up our great Chinese heritage; I am saying that we should behave or appear in ways compatible to them. Please seriously consider to buy books related to "how to dress success," "etiqutte," etc. These books will tell you the standards in this country--though these standards are by no means universal. 6. Don't forget to attend conferences related to your specialization. A lot of hiring advertisements posted only in these conferences but not in journals and newspapers. You can also know more people who may tell you where you can find jobs. In fact, one of the major reasons why a lot of professionals going to conferences is to develop connections with other companies--to hire people or to get hired. 7. I am no expert of job-hunting; I am still striving for survival. Although I did not and do not practice each of the suggestions above, I know these suggestions are working for a lot of people. Finally, recession is coming and a lot of companies are laying off their employees. The competition will be keener than ever. Don't waste your time in worrying whether a job can find you. Do something now. You will certainly be frustrated by the low or no response from prospective employers. But what will make you successful-- perhaps marginally-- is your persistence and the details that other people overlook. Living in a foreign country, we are disadvantaged but not disqualified. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. Some Personal Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 >From: tx4404@mars.njit.edu Thu Nov 22 11:51:22 1990 Date: Thu, 22 Nov 90 Thanks for mentioning my case in CND Job/Visa Series 3. I am the 'student' whom Jerry referred to. But, please don't be misleaded by him. i.e. I am not an employee of AT&T. I am a consultant in AT&T, in other words, I am an employee in a NJ based consulting company which contracts me to AT&T for working on a project in one of its site. In my job hunting experiences, not only big companies, such as AT&T, but also some small size companies don't want foriegners, not because of security reason. They just don't want to spend time and money to sponsor you. But consulting companies are big exceptions. They just can't recruit enough Americans or Americans with strong technical background to work for them. For more inforamtion about consulting companies in New Jersey, please call me at 201-672-5121 or email me at tx4404@mars.njit.edu. I am willing to answer all your questions regarding to job hunting or consulting work. Right now, my company is looking for 20 people with at least 2 years experiences in UNIX/C. Informix-SQL, ESQL, 4GL, Sybase, X-Window are big plus. If you don't have 2 year working experiences, you must have strong knowledge in one of above areas in order to pass the technical interview. P.S. Above message is regarding "CND-US Job/Visa Series 3, 11/17/90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. How to Deal With the Restriction on Hiring Aliens Due to US Government Export Regulation (Continued from Series 3) . . 30 >From: schen@paul.rutgers.edu (Shin Chen) Date: 21 Nov 90 15:13:41 GMT Source: soc.culture.china I just relay this info from Jeff. Thanks Jeff. Jerry p.s. Jeff is a nice and knowledge guy; interested party may want to contact him directly for more info. ------------------------------------------- >From: "Z. Jeff Li" Since hiring people from PRC or other countries is a kind of export according to the Export Adminstration Act of 1979, one may follow the steps of international trading in order to succeed. After finding a partner (a company) and a commodity (a job), you may find US government's attitude to the deal from the following sources. All these sources are with the Bureau of Export Adminstration, US Department of Commerce. (1) You may get assistant from your local District Office of the International Trade Adminstration. Its telephone number and address can be found from Federal Information Center, whose telephone number can be found from 1-800-555-1212 or the blue pages in your local telephone directory. (2) You can call the Export Assistance Staff on (202)377-4811. (3) You can write to Exporter Services Staff, Office of Export Adminstration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washinghton, D.C. 20230. (4) All the basic information you need is in a US goverment publication "Export Adminstration Regulation" (a big volumn). The questions are (1) whether an Application for Export License (Form BXA-622P) need to be filed (2) what is the prospects for license approval. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Special Package on Visa and Job Hunting (Series 5) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - - T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s - - - - - - No. Subjects # of Lines 1. How Did I Get A Job in the US High-tech Company -- A CND Reader Tells His Own Experiences (Part I) . . . . . . . . . 80 2. Some Skills That May Make One More Employable . . . . . . . . . . . .40 3. Free Resume Forwarding Services Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 4. PR and Job Opportunity: Do You Need A PR to Apply for A Job in the US? . . . . . . . . . . . 50 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. How Did I Get A Job in the US High-tech Company -- A CND Reader Tells His Own Experiences (Part I) . . . . . . . . . 80 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: cxie@fab1.intel.com Date: Thu, 3 Jan 91 16:38:31 PST (INTEL, QRE DEPT., CHENG XIE, TELE.: 408-765-2102, PAGER: 408-239-9636) Dear CND readers and fellow Chinese friends: >From reading CND newsletters, I noticed the many concerns that some of our Chinese friends raised towards job hunting. I truly appreciate the valuable assistance that CND is offerring to the communication of such not-so-readily available information. One of the things that I learned from my own experience is that such information is really tough to obtain and things that are suggested by campus placement personnel are rarely applicable to us foreign students from the so-called Controlled countries. What I shall share with you is what I learned from my own experience and can by no means be taken as universal. Besides, it mainly applies to people who wish to work for industries. Let me start with a little bit about myself, which can serve as the background of all my tellings. I received an MS in Physics and an MS in Electrical Engineering from US and started to work for a major electronics company last July. An MS in Physics and an MSEE may sound to you a pretty good combination for industrial jobs. The truth of the matter is that my B.S. from China was in Nuclear Engineering, my physics MS was earned through non-major coursework only and my thesis for the MSEE deals with nonlinear optical phenomena. And I don't have any US industrial experience. But the four job offers I received are all from semiconductor companies and the positions are all VLSI design engineers. These offers on the surface have almost nothing to do with my educational background. The point I am trying to make here is that even if you start out from a seemingly very disadvantageous position, you can still come out as a winner if things are done right. I shall proceed in a Q&A fashion. Q: What do you think are the most important factors to succeed in job hunting? A: Resume and initial interview performance. Resume: Be honest and creative! Your objective(s) need to be well-defined, preferrably oriented to the general requirements of the position you are seeking. All the things that follow should only be those that support the objectives. Don't mention anything that might cause confusion. (Apparantly I did not want to stress to the semicondutor employers that my experience was mainly in optics. Also, Engineering Physics would certainly sound much more relevent to a semiconductor employer than Nuclear Engineering. Notice that I did not lie and you never want to lie or you will get back-fired.) Projects, including any task that you completed or were involved in doing your thesis or in taking a class, need to be described in fair amount of details. (I categorized the homeworks from one class and came up with the descriptions of three projects from them, which definitely looked better than a single class title. The contents are not changed but the ways of presenting them are totally diferent.) Try to use industrial terminology for your project TITLES. Don't sacrifice anything that you think might help just for fitting everything into a single page. Serious employers won't mind reading more than one page, as long as they're related to what they are looking for. Interview: Be confident and active! Never give up! Initial interview can take the forms of campus interview, telephone screening, conversation at a job fair and etc. and it can happen more than once. In combination with your resume, the result of the initial interview determines whether you will be invited to an on-site interview, or plant trip. One thing that I consider really vital was finding about your interviewer's background first, i.e. whether they are technical or administrative and whether they are low level or high level managers. What you need to emphasize upon during the coonversation can be very different depending on the interviewers' backgrounds. Consequently, the effect will be very different too. You can figure it out from their title, position or the department they are with or you can just ask. Don't wait for questions. Try to have some control over the interview by directing the conversation to the subjects you want to or are well prepared to talk about. It would be ideal if you know in advance about the company and the requirements as well as the natures of the opennings. If you don't, it's OK to ask and do it as early in the conversation as possible such that his attention will be where you want it to be. When confronted with technical questions that you don't have an immediate anwser to, keep trying and never give up. You can even ask for help or hints. Most of the time, they are more interested in how well you can think. My time just ran out. I'll write more ASAP about where to look for job openings, how to get in touch w/ employers and how to address Visa Issues. If you have any question, e-mail to "cxie@aries.intel.com". -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Some Skills That May Make One More Employable . . . . . . . . . . . .40 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: Zhiyong Shen Date: 6 Jan 91 16:40:58 GMT Those of us who have found employment have moral obligations at least to give some tips without warranty to the brothers and sisters who are or will be struggling to do the same. The following is just a summary of my chatting with friends, so some ideas really belong to my friends. Personal "networks" are important. According to (ref. forgotten) statistics, >75% job openings are never advertised. Companies rely heavily on employee recommendations. Unlike "connections" in China, networking here is a way to get best-qualified employees quickly and not a way to get unqualified nephews and cousins. Otherwise foreign students would have absolutely no jobs. Those who are good at math may find learning actuarial science a viable alternative, as actuarians are in high demand. Registered Nurses (RN) can apply for H1A visas and then obtain permanent residency without going through the long process of getting the labor certificate. Therefore, spouses who are not in school might consider studying it and trying to pass the exams. Another thing one can do is to learn some Japanese. I am saying this not out of my own love of the Japanese culture, but because there is a great need for people with bilingual Japanese-English skills. The ideal candidates would not be Chinese, of course. But the salary in Japan is too high for skilled Japanese to be attracted to the US, and few Americans learn Japanese, with the demand so high (due to the intimate relations between the two economic superpowers) that many companies have to use Chinese, Taiwanese, and Koreans to fill the gap. For example, in my company, the majority of Japanese-language positions are filled by other East Asians. While writing skills are adequate for certain positions, speaking is required if you seek positions in joint ventures or trading companies. Because my work involves processing scientific information in Japanese language, I was often asked to recommend people who can speak and/or write Japanese. Another advantage for Chinese is that they don't have to spend a lot of time learning Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese) and there are common words for Chinese and Japanese. I am not recommending switching to the Japanese major, but if extra time and energy are available, you may want to spend them on learning Japanese. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Free Resume Forwarding Services Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: schen@paul.rutgers.edu (Shin Chen) Date: 16 Jan 91 16:38:14 GMT 1) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - As suggeested by many netters looking for computer professional positions, "Jerry Network" will start providing "Resume Forwarding Service" to futher the help to anxious netters. Any interested netters or their friends may mail their resumes thru US postal mail (sorry no email to this account) to the following address: Jerry Network c/o Resume Forwarding Service 1404 Raspberry Ct #11 Edison, New Jersey 08817 Upon receiving a resume, Jerry Network will search thru its "Openings Database" and find the most matched position and forward the resume to the company. The applicants may send in more than one copy of their resumes; in that case, the resumes will be forward to the companies with most matched positions. The cover letter is not required since upon discover of a match, a recommendation with the credit of Jerry Network's professional judgement will be sent along with the resumes. In the case that the resume is not well written or does not reveal enough skills to the advantage of the applicant; Jerry Network will call and discuss with the applicant to revise the resume. Should the applicant wish to have the professional comments on their resume in any case, s/he is urged to send in one more copy of the resume along with the postage stamped self address envelope. This service is complimentary to all netters with no charge. -- Jerry 2) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: schen@paul.rutgers.edu (Shin Chen) Date: 24 Jan 91 21:00:34 GMT To netters who may concern: I recently talked to the companies participated in Jerry Network and found out that the reply have been enormously. They have been receiving over 1000 phone calls from our netters; more than 300 resumes have been received. However, only fewer than 20 has been hired. In addition to various reasons, (or excuses) that they gave, such as no PR, English is not good, no experience ...etc., I believe the most important thing is that the way "Jerry Nework" has been functioning in an Ad Hoc manner that did not open our netters to many other potential employers. Not long ago, we decided to launch a resume forwarding service; together with our complimentary phone consulting and resume reviewing, we have seen some encouraging result. Till now, we have access to over 100 companies'job requirements and specifications that we could be very effectively forward the resume that we received and save both the applicants and employers much recuiting cost. A typical case is as the following: Mr. Wong sent in resume on 1/23/91, we found a match and fax a copy of his resume to 7 best matched companies right on the same day; today, 1/24/91, we got a phone call telling us that Mr. Wong has been called and a phone interview will be conducted soon. In this particular case, we know in advance that this might lead to a hire. I urge netters who have sent resumes to nodes of "Jerry Network" be patient and not dispointed with the result. If any of you would like to take advantage of our new "Resume Forwarding Service", please send as many copies of your resume as you want us to forward: Jerry Network c/o Resume Forwarding Service 1404 Raspberry Ct #11 Edison, NJ 08817 -- Jerry p.s. If you would like a review of your resume, please enclose a stamped self address envelope together with one more copy of your resume. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. PR and Job Opportunity: Do You Need A PR to Apply for A Job in the US? . . . . . . . . . . . 50 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: mtan@UAHCS2.CS.UAH.EDU Date: 29 Jan 91 02:53:06 GMT (Maribel Tan, Computer Science Dept., Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville) **************************************************************** The question is : do you need a PR to apply for a job in the US? There were some changes on immigration law in 1988 or so that require the employer to verify new employee's status. **************************************************************** Employers in the United States are required to verify the proof of employment eligibility from its prospective employees before hiring them. The Chinese students who were already in the U.S. before April 11, 1990 can apply for an off-campus employment authorization in the nearest INS office. In some cases it helps, for example, my friend finishes her courses last fall. She got an offer, she shows her employment permit as a proof of employment eligibility, she worked for the company for 4 months (Sept-Dec) as a vacation job (she had been enrolled for the past 3 quarters and did not take her summer off), so she took fall off as a vacation and work full-time. After three months, she proved her skill to her employer and they agreed to get her a H-1 status, since it generally takes 3 weeks to get the H-1, so she simply take the winter off on practical training. In another case, the employment authorization does not make a big difference, my friend is from India, he came to the U.S. for 2 quarters only and is pursuing his master degree in computer science, he had half a decade of working experience in India. So when he tried his luck applying for a job, even without his master degree yet, an employer became very much impressed by his history of work experience, they waited 3 weeks to get him a H-1 before he started to work for them officially. Take note that the application for H-1 is a case-to-case basis depending on your educational background and work experience/history. Proof of work experience by former employers are generally required for those without a master degree. In short, it is illegal for the employer to hire someone without lawful work permit, but it is not illegal for someone without employment status to apply or look for a job, as long as you got the proper paper work done before you officially start working. For more information, subscribe to Chinese News Digest at listserv@kentvm.bitnet by dropping a line containing "sub china-nn firstname lastname" to the above address. If I said something wrong, correct me netters, I stand corrected. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special Package on Visa and Job Hunting (Series 6) - - - - - - T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s - - - - - - No. Subjects # of Lines 1. Information Resources for Job Hunting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 2. Tips for Resume Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 3. More Info about the Free Resume Forwarding Services . . . . . . . . .15 4. Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Positions Available . . . . . . . 50 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Information Resources for Job Hunting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: Zhiyong Shen statcon3@ccs.carleton.ca Tue Feb 12 21:23:36 1991 Former US President Ronald Reagan concluded his meeting with his friend Mikhail Gorbachov by saying: "Trust, but verify." This applies to us when we get some seemingly valuable information. There are very few who deliberately mislead others, but often things get distorted after being passed through a few mouths. E-mail is just an advanced version of word-of-mouth. Luckily, US Governments every year publish tons of information about every and each profession to help all of us find better jobs. Such information is available to the public at no or nominal cost. For instance, many people asked, "How do you know nurses are in short supply? Do you know other professions that are in short supply?" "U.S. Occupational Handbook", published by the U.S. government each year, answers these and other related questions scientifically. The book is available in public or university libraries. There are many other similar books or periodicals available in libraries. Even if the library nearest you doesn't have it, the staff may get it for you from interlibrary loan. Now many of us may think libraries are places only for borrowing books or videotapes. This is far from truth. In fact, almost everything one needs to know can be obtained from libraries. We know how to look for good universities by consulting "Peterson's Guides" for graduate schools or undergraduate institutions. But libraries also have reliable information sources in employment, immigration, finance, market, and much more. What if you only have a fuzzy idea about what you are looking for? Then it is time to talk to a reference librarian, who is trained to help you find the information you need. Even if the reference librarian could not find the information you need, he or she would still be able to tell you who to contact to get the information. Another important source is the placement offices in universities. Even if they don't match you with a position in time, they can teach you many essential techniques that will help you find a satisfactory job. Better yet, if you could afford time, it would be very helpful if you take a business communications or similar course before you graduate. Such a course will tell you everything all your friends are trying to tell you and much more. For lack of time, I won't go into details, but it suffices to say that it helped me tremendously. Something you learn could sound quite trivial, but could make a huge difference if you did not notice it. When I was told that the stationaries I used to print my cover letter and resume must adhere to the business standards or I would never get the attention, I didn't really believe it. Well, later I actually met some personnel department people who told me that they often pay very little attention to mails printed on low quality paper. The logic is that the guy who send them must not be that serious about applying for the job if he does not even use the proper stationaries. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Tips for Resume Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc Date: 11 Feb 91 21:18:02 GMT I recently posted a job opening in misc.jobs.offered, and I have a couple of observations to make based on the dozens of resumes I have received. The first of these is that there is a rather common misunderstanding of what is meant when a employer requests, "two years experience". From the nature of many of the resumes, it appears that a great many recent graduates think that "experience" includes course work in school. It doesn't. While your course work can be very valuable, it is very, very rare for computer science classes to assign realistic programming problems, principally because there aren't enough hours in a semester for a student to do the development required. (One recent graduate I spoke to told me about a class where several students together worked on an assignment that was a realistic programming problem -- but what that means is that each student received part of the experience of having worked on a realistic project for that semester). As a general rule, employers say, "two years experience" to mean "two years paid, full-time experience" -- not "two years of classes", or "one year of classes, one year of full-time paid experience". The other subject I would like to bring up is English skills. I recognize that for many people, English is not their primary language. However, if English is not a language in which you are completely comfortable, I would strongly encourage you to have a native speaker look over your resume before you send it out. Some competence in English is required to be a software engineer in this country; realistically, not everyone is competent in English (including a fair number of Americans who were born here, and raised in English-speaking home). But if an employer receives a resume where the English is extremely poor, it suggests that either: 1. the sender's English is poor enough that they don't realize the resume requires review; or 2. they aren't very careful. Either will be a hindrance to getting yourself an interview. Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. More Info about the Free Resume Forwarding Services . . . . . . . . .15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: schen@paul.rutgers.edu (Shin Chen) Date: 5 Feb 91 21:04:22 GMT We have received tons of mail and resumes, and here are something that we would like to make clear: 1. For netters who needs the complimentary "Resume Reviewing Service", please put 29 cent stamp in your self address envelope since postage has gone up. 2. Some netters sent us as many as 30 copies, and we do not think we will be able to use all of them. We only forward your resume to the companies with the matched positions. We suggest that from now on, just send us no more than 5 copies. Jerry -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Positions Available . . . . . . . 50 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: Zhiyong Shen statcon3@ccs.carleton.ca Tue Feb 12 21:23:04 1991 Full-time, career opportunities allow scientists to make an important contribution to science by analyzing, abstracting, and indexing the world's chemical journal and patent literature. Positions are available in the following areas for technically qualified individuals with good English language skills and, where indicated, foreign language reading comprehension. GENERAL BIOCHEMISTRY ORGANIC CHEMISTRY Japanese or Russian or Slavic POLYMER CHEMISTRY German or Polish or Czech APPLIED CHEMISTRY Japanese GEOCHEMISTRY Russian or Slavic METALLURGY or CERAMICS Japanese or Russian ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY Russian or Slavic WATER CHEMISTRY Russian or Slavic PHOTOCHEMISTRY Japanese STRUCTURE ANALYSTS No experience is required for these positions involving the extraction and analysis of information about chemical substances and their structures. A bachelor's or master's degree in Chemistry, Biochemistry, or Organic Chemistry is required. Please contact: Chemical Abstracts Service Employment & Staff Development Department P. O. Box 3012 Columbus, OH 43210 ------------------------- end of message --------------------------- --zhiyong P.S. my boss asked me to recommend friends to our company. CND readers are likely to be my friends or potential friends. however, it is recommended that inquiries be directly send to the company address above. of course if there is something i could be of help or could clarify, please feel free to send me a message. i don't read e-mail too often so please excuse my delayed replies. --------------------------------------------------------------------------