Job Hunting

I recently graduated from college with a degree in Agriculture and a minor in Biology.  I am having a hard time finding a job.  I have worked with show animals and nearly 500 head of cattle since I was old enough to walk.  I am looking for some advice and or employment.

Thanks

where are you located?
what excited you about biology?
i work in the biotech field and the field is always looking for entry level people with a brain.
you can get a job in pharmaceutical sales with some biology lab experience, and some sales experience, ie selling copiers so you can get the PROVEN sales experience as this is often used as a springboard to other sales jobs.

entry level pharma sales, ie with the above experience which would take you about 2-5 years start at about 60-80k in the bay area, plus commission.

one of my former employees from 3 years ago makes about 50k more than me.  so does his wife who did the same thing.  they just bought a house in SF, one of the highest taxed, highest priced areas in the nation.  their combined salary probably approaches $250,000.  they are around 29,30 in age.

find a good headhunter. AgriAssociates was always a good one for me.

(welcome)

Red

I really ended up with a Biology minor in my pursuit of a pre vet  major.  I ended up falling short in the physics area so I gave up on that and didn't want to continue with school.  I am currently located in Virginia.

look at Feedstuffs. They usually have some jobs listed in their classifieds.

Also check w/ someone like Bushy Park in MD. They might be looking for someone w/ experience.

Red

Here are some good websites for job hunting
www.craigslist.org
www.monster.com
www.careerbuilder.com

You can narrow it down to the field that you are looking for on the latter 2 links.

http://www.agriassociates.com/

http://www.agraplacements.com/

I have posted resumes and been in touch with alot of those agencies but nothing has really panned out for me.  Everyone wants more experience and or someone older.  Sometimes you wonder why you even go to college.  If it wasn't for a baseball scholarship I probably never would have went.

i wish high schools would STRESS that physics is one of the culling classes, with genetics and organic chemistry being another, at least in life sciences.  some students are not prepared for the difficulty of these classes.  memorization required on this scale is not taught in high school.  pre med is the same way.  it takes time to acquire these skills.


don't get discouraged.  every time i have looked for a job it has taken me a few months.

are you willing to relocate somewhat in the virgina area?

there must be some biotech there.  have you considered the military, now that you have a BS degree, you could be an officer in some field.

often underestimated is that most jobs require you to demonstrate skills for the job you want before you get it, including getting a raise, you pretty much have to be doing the job, and then get a raise.  try a startup company, perhaps even temp jobs, that way you can rotate and sample fields, instead of worrying about a job.  you will make contacts this way.  also, some employers just have problems, turnover, something, and when an opening pops up and you have accumulated some skills, they look at you and turn you permanent.  it takes about 4-6 months if you are a temp before it is financially feasible to "buy out" the temp contract.

too often, people worry about the "perfect" job getting out of school.

on the other hand, what job would you like to do if you didn't have your degree?  i can guarantee you, that your education will be a valuable asset to your way of thinking, and maturity level compared to other people in that field.

going through this process will help you later in life as job turnover and field turnover is being compressed.

fields i have had jobs in

newspaper route
fast food
herbicide screening
plant molecular biology
genomics and more genomics
automated pipeline in the genomics field
production in the genomics field
supervision skills
mistakes, lots of them.
you have some time, but don't think you need that perfect job first time out.  sample, just like you would if you went to graduate school.
take physics for discipline sake at a JC .

take some classes, keep busy, read,

clip jobs and keep a log of the fields you are interested in, but not necssarily qualified for and call them to see how to get a start.  some people will talk to you if you aren't "looking" for a job but just want advice.

I didn't have a problem with any of the other classes but the physics and it wasn't fun with such a hectic schedule it was hard to devote so much time to one particular class.

Now I am odds and ends jobs mainly farming through out day and splittin wood until dark until I get something else. 

Thanks for all the help.

how about a linemen job for the local power company?

out here they have a 9 month or so course for some money and the companies hire directly out of the class.

of course you'll have to fix downed power lines during storms.


one of my neighbors does this, he's a supervisor now, but makes over 100k

Doesn't your instructors at college have a job board?  No help with job placement?  About 3 months before I was done with college my instructor (department head) brought down two jobs that he said was perfect for me.  Got offered both.  That's one thing kids forget to check out when they start college....job placement and what help the college provides.

BattleVue said:

I recently graduated from college with a degree in Agriculture and a minor in Biology.  I am having a hard time finding a job.  I have worked with show animals and nearly 500 head of cattle since I was old enough to walk.  I am looking for some advice and or employment.

Thanks

Click to expand...

bv....i have found that god leaves us no choice but to earn "buy the sweat of our brow"...( and the pain of child birth for the ladies)....but he also gives us each a special gift/talent......dosnt matter which one you "find" first....hope you can find "employment" that you enjoy , and are able to couple it with your gifts....ta daaa ....  life...jbarl

knabe said:

how about a linemen job for the local power company?

out here they have a 9 month or so course for some money and the companies hire directly out of the class.

of course you'll have to fix downed power lines during storms.


one of my neighbors does this, he's a supervisor now, but makes over 100k

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AWWWW come on Knabe, don't insult the kid.  He needs to keep trying to do something he put all his hard work into.  Not that lineman is  bad, but come on, seriously

justme said:

knabe said:

how about a linemen job for the local power company?

out here they have a 9 month or so course for some money and the companies hire directly out of the class.

of course you'll have to fix downed power lines during storms.


one of my neighbors does this, he's a supervisor now, but makes over 100k

Click to expand...

AWWWW come on Knabe, don't insult the kid.  He needs to keep trying to do something he put all his hard work into.  Not that lineman is  bad, but come on, seriously

Click to expand...

110 k's no insult....equates to about 65k in ohio......about 50k for none supervisor....but virtually impossible to procure in that part of the country compared to california it sounds...virgina's the same way....your choice to educate yourself dosnt make you inelegable to use your youth/ work ethics/ and intellegence for a labor profession either....  jbarl...

justme said:

AWWWW come on Knabe, don't insult the kid.  He needs to keep trying to do something he put all his hard work into.  Not that lineman is  bad, but come on, seriously

Click to expand...

this should not be an insult.  i guess i could have said i have an agronomy degree (and don't use it), and that the percentage of people who work in their major is not that high.

the average job today lasts about 5 years, compared to 30 and beyond years ago.

someone once told me that college is learning how to learn
grad school is learning something, so much that you are the only person in the world who has your specific knowledge
then you learn you didn't learn anything (relatively speaking)

then reality sits in and you have to comprimise. 

for comparison sake.  i hire BS life science majors with NO experience at about 40K.  industry probably pays a little lower.


i have hired people who basically BEGGED to be a dna sequencing gel pouring supervisor.  applied biosystems then came out with capillary sequencers and suddenly those people were out of a job.  we then hired dna sequencer fluid maintenance personnel, they got laid off when the machines improved again in about 1.5 years and basically needed no maintenance.  now, there's sequencers that do thousands of samples in a single shot, so "conventional" sequencing is dying.  sometimes, the skills being taught in college are gone by the time you enter industry.  by the way, for comparison sakes

history of dna sequencing personnel needs versus number of basepairs just to get a machine ready to load 24 samples on 20 machines

1995
24 samples at a time
5 people to pour gels, break them down, clean them
5 people to load samples
1997
48 samples at a time
same
2000
96 samples at a time
same

switch to capillary machine
2001 or so
2

switch to advanced capillary machine
0.25


some of those replaced worked in real estate (and are jobless now) some are in pharma sales, some are in biotech still

the numbers are even worse than i am portraying, as there are other functions in the pipelline, it's just that one of the shortest highpaying job in biotech was gel pouring supervisor.  two plates were needed for a gel, the plates cost $250 each, they crack, get scratched, catch on fire, you name it, it wasn't a simple job.  basically celera was able to get a head start on sequencing the human genome by eliminating this labor portion as they had an exclusive contract with abi for first rights to use the machine.

other industries i know are not this dramatic.  one that is coming, is robotics in agriculture, in fact it's already here as some of the larger farmers can attest.

i'm just saying be careful what industry you get in, it might be gone tomorrow.

get in one that requires constant upgrading of your skills and the industry pays for it as it's in their need as well as yours.

being a kid today and tomorrow is going to be rough.

I guess the hardest thing for me to deal with is that a college education doesn't mean a thing in the agriculture field.  I love being around cattle and the farming environment.  If I would want to be a part of a large farm other than a general laborer (which I wouldn't complain about if I could pay my bills) I would have to wait a few years.  I wouldn't be happy with a desk job but anymore the farmer is a dying breed and can't afford to pay extra help.  It's ashame that in America the men and women who work the hardest and provide the most essential things (FOOD) to the economy can barely get by.  Where I live in 10 years there will be very few farms to be seen and any farmer in the area has no choice but to sell out for an outrageous price.  Someday people will realize how important farming is and was and it will be to late to tear down housing developments to make a pasture field or a dairy parlor. 

My nephew graduated with a degree in International Ag Business and is working for a plumbing contractor.  You are correct, in the ag field your degree isn't going to go far, what it does do is give you something to fall back on if you ever want a job outside of the ag field, most companies anymore will not hire someone who doesn't have a degree and it doesn't really matter what it is in.  You have to support yourself the rest of your life, I suggest you figure out what you enjoy and look for a job in that field, you will be much happier in life if you enjoy your work.

here's an interesting site you can puruse before you go to college about free speech protection is here.

http://www.thefire.org/index.php/video/8907

my school, cal poly had a pretty long drawn out disagreement where the student ended up winning, had the bad stuff on his record expunged and was awarded 40,000 dollars

they made a film about it that used to be on the web.

http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/5143.html

BattleVue said:

I recently graduated from college with a degree in Agriculture and a minor in Biology.  I am having a hard time finding a job.  I have worked with show animals and nearly 500 head of cattle since I was old enough to walk.  I am looking for some advice and or employment.

Thanks

Click to expand...

I don't know where you are from but if your not from NE and wouldn't mind relocating check into MARC in Clay Center NE. They would have all types of ag related jobs from fixing fence to conducting studies. My younger brother works with the cow herd and my sister in law works in the swine department and both of them seem to enjoy working there.