Where to look for entry level/junior/graduate jobs?

LMellows

For all the negative talk of the economy and the job market it seems to me that as long as you're on the career ladder there are plenty jobs in most sectors. As long as you're on the career ladder... grass is always greener perhaps.

Finding people that will take you without 5+ years experience is rather hard. Even harder when you specifically choose "0 experience" in your website search and the results plainly ask you for 3, 5, even 9 years experience sometimes.

Are there any websites that actually work in this respect? Or any advice anybody can give?

And yes, I am looking at unpaid internships =/

danthefan

The obvious one is www.gradireland.com.

Loads and loads of companies do graduate programs where they take on people straight out of college.

LMellows

I registered with them and they just spammed me with tons of rubbish

Ann Landers

LMellows wrote: »

For all the negative talk of the economy and the job market it seems to me that as long as you're on the career ladder there are plenty jobs in most sectors. As long as you're on the career ladder... grass is always greener perhaps.

Finding people that will take you without 5+ years experience is rather hard. Even harder when you specifically choose "0 experience" in your website search and the results plainly ask you for 3, 5, even 9 years experience sometimes.

Are there any websites that actually work in this respect? Or any advice anybody can give?

And yes, I am looking at unpaid internships =/

Use the search terms "entry level", "graduate", "trainee" or "junior". indeed.ie is a good site. I find Irishjobs very good compared to the other well-known job sites. Look at company websites too, not everything will be listed on job sites, and even if they are you might miss them. You need to be utterly dogged and persistent to score your first job or any job in this country right now.

LMellows

Every "junior" job asks for 2+ years experience in the same role. If I had 2+ years experience at XYZ I'd like to think I wouldn't be applying for a junior role. It seems the term has lost it's meaning.

Not exactly an original complaint of the job seeker but whatever!

Mrs OBumble

Apply anyway, it's just a way of filtering out the eejits who take them literally.

LMellows

Taking an instruction in a formal business context literally makes you an eejit?

Moonbeam

Go straight to the companies that you are interested in working for and talk to them.

Mrs OBumble

LMellows wrote: »

Taking an instruction in a formal business context literally makes you an eejit?

In many contexts, no.

But in job-ads, there's an unwritten layer of meaning that applies to lots of terms.

Unless it's applied to a specific technical skill (eg Java programming) then "two year expereince" often means "not a school leaver who's never worked". If you look hard, you can often fimd some relevance between any two jobs, even if on the surface they look quite different.

LMellows

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

In many contexts, no.

But in job-ads, there's an unwritten layer of meaning that applies to lots of terms.

Unless it's applied to a specific technical skill (eg Java programming) then "two year expereince" often means "not a school leaver who's never worked". If you look hard, you can often fimd some relevance between any two jobs, even if on the surface they look quite different.

I see your point. What about non professional experience though? You mention Java programming, it's quite possible to have done that in your final year of college then continued to learn/use it to hone your skills while job seeking. Same goes for a lot of computer skills come to think of it. If someone has designed websites in their personal time would that count as web design experience?

Ann Landers

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

In many contexts, no.

But in job-ads, there's an unwritten layer of meaning that applies to lots of terms.

Unless it's applied to a specific technical skill (eg Java programming) then "two year expereince" often means "not a school leaver who's never worked". If you look hard, you can often fimd some relevance between any two jobs, even if on the surface they look quite different.

Many jobs are much more specific than that though eg. two years accounts payable experience. And it's my experience that if you apply for ones that state specific experience, you don't get very far.

LMellows

Ann Landers wrote: »

Many jobs are much more specific than that though eg. two years accounts payable experience. And it's my experience that if you apply for ones that state specific experience, you don't get very far.

This is what I thought. It's easy enough to say "aye you should be applying for everything, sure what else are you at?" but job seeking is largely a soul draining waste of time as it is, without applying for jobs that will ignore your application almost immediately.

Mrs OBumble

LMellows wrote: »

I see your point. What about non professional experience though? You mention Java programming, it's quite possible to have done that in your final year of college then continued to learn/use it to hone your skills while job seeking. Same goes for a lot of computer skills come to think of it. If someone has designed websites in their personal time would that count as web design experience?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Now I'm not saying apply for off the wall stuff, eg if they've advertisted for a 3rd level qualification in a numerate discipline, but all you have is a diploma from Bible College (yup, I saw an app like that once!), then don't waste you're time.

But if you have experience that's somewhat related, give it a go. You never know exactly who else is, or isn't, applying.

Sillyquestions

I agree with what you say Mrs OBumble but how do you figure out what is being said when you see an ad for 'student/graduate engineer' followed by 'must have two-three years experiance?

Mrs OBumble

That probably means "two-three year's experience doing something", especially if it has the word "student" in it.

How do you figure it out? Educated guesswork is the best approach. Or trial and error.

danthefan

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

That probably means "two-three year's experience doing something", especially if it has the word "student" in it.

How do you figure it out? Educated guesswork is the best approach. Or trial and error.

Absolutely. Even if you've worked in a totally different field (anything at all) you're going to have learned things about dealing with people, problem solving, etc.