Interviewing Season's Early This Term

Interviewing season is upon us. Let the madness begin.

At my school, we students start applying for jobs in mid-late January this term. Usually, employers screen us for interviews by early-mid February, although some have held records for being the latest one screening through students. But I digress.

This term, I have already started to hear back from employers. That is good. What's not as good is that my first interview is this Thursday. That is unnaturally early. I am not mentally prepared! (Oh dammit, I have to get my suit dry-cleaned, and my "cram-sheet" on the employers* prepped.)

Not surprisingly, the economic downturn is reflected quite clearly in the number of jobs available for students. Couple that with the fact that students from oher universities usually have co-op terms in the summer, well - competition will be especially fierce this term.

It is thus rather strange that I am applying for very few jobs this term. Usually, I try to make sure I get a job by applying to over 40 positions. This time around, there aren't even 40 positions I am eligible for (e.g. some jobs require driver's licenses), much less 40 jobs I feel vaguely interested in. In fact, this time I am only applying to jobs I think are cool** - analytical chemistry, for the most part. One polymer science. A couple related to pharmaceuticals (more to the point, the pharmaceutical company's chromatographs and spectrophotometers). Some random stuff. Of these few, there are a couple of places I am really hoping for, but those places are also the ones notorious for screening students late. Sigh. I hope I get a job, anyway.

(Ok, back to work: continue last night's marking, start on combinatorics assignment, and possibly finish a lab report.)

*Current interview count: 2. One analytical (I applied to this place before but they cancelled the position), and one polymer chemistry. Unfortunately, both will require skipping parts of classes.
**There are exceptions to this statement that, in retrospect, seems to be due to the fact that I applied for all the jobs at about 7 a.m. when I was not fully awake. Oops. (E.g. analyzing milk samples for fat content every day for four months? Um...)