Like a Fish out of Water

So I mentioned I am at a critical position and I need to make a lot of decisions. I thought about getting a job as a safety net, a booster and possibly buy time to think and decide some more.
Hmm.... the job market! It feels as confusing as searching through the PubMed data base for articles on "spectrometric methods in elucidating amyloid fibril structure" (trust me: been there, done that!). I mean where to you start, what to look for, when, why, how long and how much?? Its almost a black hole with lots of uncertainty.

I formed a strategy on tackling this problem based on a friendly advise from the career counselor. I decided to go the route of recruiting agencies, which was a good resolve for my control issues. Random online application processes sounded long, uncertain, too large of a pool and simply ermm.....random. The route of a recruiting agency sounded quite straight forward: you meet and discuss with someone who's sole objective is to present you with opportunities, then you pray hard and take all necessary steps. Right?

Well, I went over to visit with my recruiter a couple days ago. Actually, I did not learn about the waiting time till then but that was the only bad news. It was actually interesting to learn all the "secret tips" to getting a job. First: the one page rule for you resume....psshh! Apparently no hiring officer really minds. If you have much information and experience to exceed a page (and not just white space), then go ahead and impress them. I also learned that employers have a way of performing quick searches on online applications. This simply search for a key word like "PCR" or "research" experience and naturally look at the resumes with the largest hits first. This says you should try and put as much information in there as is relevant. No fronting allowed. Do not leave out the "meat" as room for questions on the interview (what good is that if you never get to the interviewing stage?). I was also excited when I found out I could give myself a tailored title like "Research Associate" to cover some important lab projects I may have done as a class (I mean who doesn't like important titles right?) Most importantly, I learned: GPAs DO NOT MATTER! You do not even have to add those 3digits on your resume... unless asked. After four hard and long years of college labor????

Here we go again with the college troubles..... why is college so stressed if GPAs are not the top determinants in getting a job, and increasingly you cannot even get a decent job without higher degrees (Masters and PhD). Well, I discovered how this works like a chain reaction of some sorts. So employers are looking for those really important experiences but you only get experiences like summer research by competitive application which obviously depend on you GPA. Therefore, in a round about way, the experiences account for you GPA. However, GPAs are highly important in Grad school applications. there has to be a compromise and it depends on what you goals in life are. The rewards are less if you are simply a book worm. Experiences go a long way (also who you know) but if you can get those experiences alongside your book-wormness, perfecto!

oh College!