EDIT: 12-8-06: For no particular reason I failed to mention in my original post that the event I wrote about below was the Career Services Advisory Board meeting at the Allegheny Campus of Community College of Allegheny College in Pittsburgh. I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting and want to thank the CCAC career services directors for having me on this board. It is a great service to the business community and now through this blog a resource to the rest of the world.

Below you will find a summery of complaints, wishes, and observations from about 10 employers at a career services advisory board meeting I attended today. I thought I would share some of the major points we discussed.

If you are actively searching for a job this would be a good list of items to take note of.

Be prepared for your job interview. Too many students and candidates in general come to the interview completely unprepared. Do your research on the company, know their mission statement, know what they do and why they exist, or at least know what job you are interviewing for.

Dress appropriately for an interview. There really aren’t that many times where you do not need to dress up when going to a job interview. Unless the employer tells you it is ok to wear casual clothing to the interview I would dress in business formal. Men wear blue or black suits and ladies were blue or black pant suits or skirts. End of story.

Telling candidates to apply online is NOT a push off. Companies truly want candidates to apply online. First, they have to do it this way because of company policy, and second it is a good indication if the person can follow directions and follow through with a complicated process. Some of the recruiters at this meeting said many job seekers are simply to “lazy” to apply online for a job. The consensus among the employers was, if they are too lazy to apply online then they are not a good fit for their company.

Not every candidate is a fit within every company. Every company has a corporate culture and every company is looking for people who fit well within their corporate culture. Many of them have tests or processes to determine this.

Have an answer to the question; “Why are you applying for this job.” Many of the companies said that when they ask this question many of the candidates do not have an answer. Do you?

The final major point all of the companies made was the sense of entitlement among recent graduates. Many of the graduates feel like someone owes them something now that they have a bachelors or master degree. That could not be further from the truth. One company went as far to say that your new degree will get you nothing more than a ticket to apply for jobs. It doesn’t necessarily make you qualified for those jobs; it only gives you the opportunity to be considered. Another company said your degree is only the first step in proving why you will be a good employee to that company.

- A few other topics we talked about were the importance of communication skills, inter-office social skills, multi-generational workplaces issues, and the lack of work ethic among college grads.

I was very pleased to be engaged in this discussion, but in some ways it was quite frustrating and sad. These negative comments about job seekers and especially entry-level grads were coming from all of the companies in attendance. That tells me that many companies are dealing with the same issues and not just one or two. It seems to be cross-industry, and nationwide.

If you are a job seekers make sure you take note of some of these comments listed above. The more prepared you are for your job search the better off you are going to be; and ultimately the more successful.