good time to be a Civil Engineering student about to graduate.

[vash]

i have to fill 6 openings. SIX!

i had hoped to NOT be one of those older dudes that say things like, "kids these days..."

but kids these days.. one guy we interviewed on WebEX was in BED. he was in bed with his laptop in his lap. disheveled, and wearing a t-shirt i would strongly guess was the shirt he slept in. i kid you not, he actually did well, and i cant be sure but i think another office picked him up. nuts!! i passed.

six! i am domed. if any of you have kids, nephews, nieces, etc with a Civil Eng deg looking for work in California. send them my way. any established engineers looking for a scenery change..call me. haha.
domed.

[gacook]

Good luck, Vash.

Interview in bed, in a t-shirt?!! WTF...

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by gacook

Good luck, Vash.

Interview in bed, in a t-shirt?!! WTF...

His girlfriend probably in another room waiting for an encore.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

His girlfriend probably in another room waiting for an encore.

Perhaps you don't understand engineers.

[wilnj]

Originally Posted by Superman

Perhaps you don't understand engineers.

More likely his gaming buddies were waiting for him to return to the game that he’d been up all night playing.

[Superman]

Civil engineering is, apparently, not glamorous among engineers. But I happen to think it is very cool. I am dealing with a project right now which involved excavation of around 2 million tons of material. Previously I had dealt with a project involving import of 16 million cubic yards of fill. That is 850,000 truck loads. Our SR-520 bridge project involved 77 floating concrete pontoons measuring 360 feet long, 75 feet wide and 30 feet tall. Each.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by wilnj

More likely his gaming buddies were waiting for him to return to the game that he’d been up all night playing.

That is much more likely.

[wilnj]

Originally Posted by vash

i have to fill 6 openings. SIX!

i had hoped to NOT be one of those older dudes that say things like, "kids these days..."

but kids these days.. one guy we interviewed on WebEX was in BED. he was in bed with his laptop in his lap. disheveled, and wearing a t-shirt i would strongly guess was the shirt he slept in. i kid you not, he actually did well, and i cant be sure but i think another office picked him up. nuts!! i passed.

six! i am domed. if any of you have kids, nephews, nieces, etc with a Civil Eng deg looking for work in California. send them my way. any established engineers looking for a scenery change..call me. haha.
domed.

I interviewed 6 candidates for 1 spot last year for a field position. Also via Zoom

2 were over qualified
1 No relevant internships or experience spent most of the interview telling me about how she had planned to take a year off but Covid messed it up
1 No relevant internship, waited tables through college
1 also in a t-shirt and a poorly lit room. It was the afternoon so I’ll give him benefit of the doubt that he didn’t just wake up
1 former army infantry, wearing a suit jacket and a tie, had put himself through school on GI bill supplemented with working as a residential carpenter.

Guess which one we hired?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by vash

one guy we interviewed on WebEX was in BED. he was in bed with his laptop in his lap. disheveled, and wearing a t-shirt i would strongly guess was the shirt he slept in.

domed.

Wow. Reminds me of the old commercial.

Today we are talking to Bob of "Bob's Rug. Bob, why don't you advertise in the GTE yellow pages?"
"Well, I've only got the one rug. If I advertised in the GTE Yellow Pages, I'd probably sell that rug. Then I wouldn't be 'Bob's Rug' any more."

He probably enjoys sleeping in and not going to work (probably living in his parents' basement). If he gets a job, all that is going to stop.

Yeah, hard to fathom. Definitely wouldn't get hired by me. You should have lead with "This is a video chat. That means we can see you, where you are, and what you're wearing, right?"

The good news is that he was wearing a shirt, and wasn't on the john. You've got to look at the bright side. At this rate, you may end up finding yourself wishing you'd snatched up that gem.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by superman

perhaps you don't understand engineers. :d

lol

[masraum]

Originally Posted by wilnj

I interviewed 6 candidates for 1 spot last year for a field position. Also via Zoom

2 were over qualified
1 No relevant internships or experience spent most of the interview telling me about how she had planned to take a year off but Covid messed it up
1 No relevant internship, waited tables through college
1 also in a t-shirt and a poorly lit room. It was the afternoon so I’ll give him benefit of the doubt that he didn’t just wake up
1 former army infantry, wearing a suit jacket and a tie, had put himself through school on GI bill supplemented with working as a residential carpenter.

Guess which one we hired?

one more question, then I'll guess. Was the girl that wanted to take a year off hot? Was she in a t-shirt in bed with her laptop on her lap?
Not really relevant to the answer, but we need to know.

[matthewb0051]

Just a bit different type of person but...

I have seen people on Zoom for court: in bed, smoking, shirtless, in Pakistan, driving around

Times have changed. Who'd have ever thought someone would go on a plane flight in their PJ's???

A couple of my buddies used to do field interviews at law schools for the JAG Corps. Some serious crazy stories. One stood outside of the room the entire interview time talking to someone else and never came in the room. One was horribly overweight. Nose rings. Interviewing just for practice and no desire to join up.

Kids these days...

[wilnj]

Originally Posted by Superman

Civil engineering is, apparently, not glamorous among engineers. But I happen to think it is very cool. I am dealing with a project right now which involved excavation of around 2 million tons of material. Previously I had dealt with a project involving import of 16 million cubic yards of fill. That is 850,000 truck loads. Our SR-520 bridge project involved 77 floating concrete pontoons measuring 360 feet long, 75 feet wide and 30 feet tall. Each.

I’ve never been on a dirt job that big. Biggest was a 100,000 yard export job. Material was residential clean, sugar sand. People were fighting for it.

One of the projects that took most of it was desperate to get as much as possible. At peak, we had a Cat 375, PC400 and WA500 loading their trucks. We were running in excess of 200 loads per day until the neighbors shut us down.

[gacook]

Originally Posted by matthewb0051

Just a bit different type of person but...

I have seen people on Zoom for court: in bed, smoking, shirtless, in Pakistan, driving around

Times have changed. Who'd have ever thought someone would go on a plane flight in their PJ's???

A couple of my buddies used to do field interviews at law schools for the JAG Corps. Some serious crazy stories. One stood outside of the room the entire interview time talking to someone else and never came in the room. One was horribly overweight. Nose rings. Interviewing just for practice and no desire to join up.

Kids these days...

Yes; however, an interview is your opportunity to "sell" yourself. If you can't be bothered to "conform" for that 1 hour to gain employment, I have no interest in you. I pound that into my kids' heads, too. Some things should not change, no matter how much the times do.

[unclebilly]

Originally Posted by gacook

Good luck, Vash.

Interview in bed, in a t-shirt?!! WTF...

I did this for my current job, Director of Engineering. I did at least put on a dress shirt and comb my hair. I was also recovering from knee surgery then too, hence being in bed.

[gacook]

I got feedback from MY last Zoom interview (internal position with my current organization). My Deputy Director complimented me for making "eye contact" with the interviewers. I'm thinking, where the hell else would I be looking, other than at my damn camera!?! Crazy to think that there's an issue with people staring off into space during an interview that he felt the need to complement me on actually looking at the camera...

[matthewb0051]

Originally Posted by gacook

Yes; however, an interview is your opportunity to "sell" yourself. If you can't be bothered to "conform" for that 1 hour to gain employment, I have no interest in you. I pound that into my kids' heads, too. Some things should not change, no matter how much the times do.

Exactly. As someone famous once said, "you are never wrong to do the right thing".

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by vash

i have to fill 6 openings. SIX!

i had hoped to NOT be one of those older dudes that say things like, "kids these days..."

but kids these days.. enery change..call me. haha.
domed.

Have you recruited East? We have very good luck with NCSU and VT.

[vash]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Have you recruited East? We have very good luck with NCSU and VT.

furthest east. i reached out to my old school: UTEP. haha. no takers that i know of.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by gacook

Yes; however, an interview is your opportunity to "sell" yourself. If you can't be bothered to "conform" for that 1 hour to gain employment, I have no interest in you. I pound that into my kids' heads, too. Some things should not change, no matter how much the times do.

Along the same lines, resumes with typos, mispellings, and other issues are about the same to me.

Resume and interview are your chance to be your best. If your best is not very good...