I would be interested in your feedback to this post: http://redmondsearch.com/blog/job-searching-get-out-from-behind-the-computer/ It’s some of the best advice I have in this market. Good luck to you.

We are both recent civil engineering graduates from an ABET accredited university. However not in the traditional sense. We worked full time while attending university part time for five years, but we were starting to get really burned out after all the 80 hour work weeks and decided to move and attend university full time to complete the degree. He graduated Summa cum Laude with a GPA of 4.0, passed the EIT, has twenty years of construction and survey experience and he isn’t getting any job offers. I graduated Magna cum Laude with a GPA of 3.74, passed the EIT and have sixteen years of experience. Of that – four years in heavy civil construction, ten years in surveying and two years of office management experience. I have been applying for entry-level positions in civil engineering predominantly in my top two preferences, construction management and transportation design. However I have also sent out resumes for a variety of other disciplines including traffic, water/wastewater and hydrology. After submitting online resumes to more than 90 positions nationwide over the last six months and an additional 25 to Canadian firms, as I am able to work in both countries, I have only had two local interviews. One was with a water/wastewater engineering firm and one for an entry-level municipal position with a nearby city. I was not selected for either.

Without any feedback from these companies, as many require submitting your resume through their online application, we are unsure what the problem is. When I began pursuing this degree I believed, erroneously, that my previous experience would be an asset. As well we intended to return to the firms we were with most recently, however due to the economic downturn they have had to lay people off over the past year and a half. So even if I had stayed working for them and continued pursuing this education part time I would have been without work in Jan. 09.

I would appreciate any advice you might h ave as to why I am not finding work. However I can assure you it is not because I am aimless.

Good point Josie about trying to motivate an underacheiving student. Although missing a class or two, or dropping out of a class happens to us all, it is what we do about the obstacles that build character.