Will my resume be reviewed at all?

[MooseJawian]

I am currently finishing my 3rd year of study towards my engineering degree, (B.E in civil engineering). I saw some internship postions opening with suncor, syncrude etc in the O & G industry in alberta,so I filed online job applications for 16 months internship.



I've heard for those big firms, in terms of student employment, they have certain universities they would give priority to(U of A, U of C, Queens, U of T etc), which they would have massive on campus interviews. I checked my university student employment centre, none of firms are coming here to have a recruitment event. so i am basically just some random guy droping off my resume through their website.

I haven't heard anything yet for two weeks. I am just curious,will those online job applications actually be reviewed and taken into consideration or just gonna be some sort of back-up options if they couldn't fill the position with their on campus recruitment event? and how long it usually takes them to get back to u for the first time ?I think my background would at least deserve an interview or a phone call, prior to attending university, already has an engineering diploma, 5 yrs of working experience with consulting and all references are P.Eng in management position,GPA of 3.3(not great, but considering full course load and engineering concentration)

does anyone have some insight on how the HR usually works on those on-line applications?

[tch7]

Originally posted by MooseJawian
I think my background would at least deserve an interview or a phone call, prior to attending university, already has an engineering diploma, 5 yrs of working experience with consulting and all references are P.Eng in management position...
Why are you trying to get an internship?
Unless it's a degree requirement, the only reason to get an internship is if you have no experience. Financially it's better to go straight into 4th year and get your degree. I don't see what you'd really gain doing an internship when you already have relevant experience and references.


As for your questions, those campus recruitment events are typically just some people that just tell you to go apply on their website, so you're not really at any major disadvantage. I've personally never had much luck with online applications and rarely hear back, despite a better than average resume. HR people look for different things than what an engineer/manager does, so if you haven't spent the past 15 years babysitting homeless blind refugee orphans that escaped the Mexican drug trade, you may get filtered out before your resume gets forwarded to the people that matter.

Connections through people I know have always been much more fruitful in getting interviews lined up.

What will be a slight challenge for you is that preference for O&G jobs will be going toward Mechanical, Chemical, and O&G engineering students. Civils are somewhat less in demand in that industry, as a lot of the civil engineering work gets contracted out to consulting firms.

[M.alex]

Originally posted by MooseJawian

does anyone have some insight on how the HR usually works on those on-line applications?


they get 800 applications.

they "process" (i.e., through out) 790 of them, sometimes randomly.

Done :)

[dirtsniffer]

OP it sounds like your qualified to skip doing an internship. Online applications work, especially if they are hiring from outside. If you're competing agaisnt candidates that already work for the company you need to get some face time for sure. But for the most part all interns will be new employees so your resume will defintely be considered.

[MooseJawian]

Originally posted by tch7

Why are you trying to get an internship?
Unless it's a degree requirement, the only reason to get an internship is if you have no experience. Financially it's better to go straight into 4th year and get your degree. I don't see what you'd really gain doing an internship when you already have relevant experience and references.



What will be a slight challenge for you is that preference for O&G jobs will be going toward Mechanical, Chemical, and O&G engineering students. Civils are somewhat less in demand in that industry, as a lot of the civil engineering work gets contracted out to consulting firms.
tch7, thanks for your reply
as to why i plan to do an internship, mostly becuz of the financial strain for spending last couple yrs at school, and i am applying as professional internship, so the 16 month would be integrated into the E.I.T. in the future.

The positions that I applied are either project/construction management related or field engineer type of job in the facility construction side of the O&G,most of which indicate civil discipline is desired

I left the consulting firm for university mostly becuz I found it is faster to move up with a degree in most cases, the firm I used to work for does a lot of consulting work for the O&G industry, it seems to me that most times they pick their junior engineering staff from the ppl that did internship/co-op for them before instead of new faces. So I'd like to get an intern now as my first step to get into sth that I really wanna build up my career on.

But you are right, HR does look things differently, what i am afraid is they have some sort of standard in the filtering process for intern positions, instead of considering the whole resume, they r just gonna go for the keywords,for example, gpa range, check, work experiene, check, volunteer experience, no? k, goes straight to the garbage can.

[Feruk]

With your background, my only fear would be that you're overqualified for an internship position. Don't worry about being in Sask or that there are no useless career fairs out there. Nothing happens at those anyway. I'm also not seeing why you'd do the internship. Financial strain is understandable, but I'd still just pound through your 4th year. Internship pay will look like crap considering your previous paycheques in the industry. You knew you'd have to change your lifestyle being in school. Just suck it up for a year and pound through it.