Your Chance to Rip into Me

[Al B. Sure!]

One of the big aspects of my system is that people have to travel to other clubs. Furthermore, you then have to figure in court fees. That's not to mention racquets, strings and stringing, apparel, etc. Trust me, I know first hand it's a very expensive sport. Also, all you need is a basketball to go play basketball. Yes, you can play on public courts, but a racquet is going to run you over 100$. Then there's the cost of strings and stringing, and if you don't know how to string your own racquets and buy your string wholesale you are looking at 30-40$ a pop. Then of course there's tennis balls as well as driving and court fees. It all adds up really fast. Then lets not get started on if you're going to take any lessons. Competitive players tend to like to get better, and my system appeals to competitive players.

To put things in perspective for you, I used to saw through my strings in the span of about an hour to two hours. That's using 16 guage string mind you and cheap **** at that. The expensive stuff goes even faster. I sawed through some babolat razor spin string in under 20min. Granted, most people don't hit the kind of top spin I do, but you get the point. Luckily I started stringing racquets at a very early age and I bought all my string wholesale. As it was though, it was still running me 5$ a racquet by the time I was 14. Think about that, every day it was costing 5$ for strings alone. If you don't know anything about tennis you should just shut the **** up. My dad wasted so much money on it and I won't even go into all the negative effects that happened as a result.

So you really like tennis, eh?

[DaShi]

Yeah, that's going to raise a lot of eyebrows at interviews.

Also, online degrees really aren't worth anything in this job market. With so many people out of work, a lot of them are returning to school to keep themselves competitive. It's not really a bad idea as it gives them something meaningful to do between jobs. However, a lot of these schools are basically scams taking people's money and giving them a mediocre education. So all online degrees get a poor reputation.

Having many interests isn't a bad thing. You just need to focus them, as others have said. Your education seems to be in IT and marketing. So look for marketing jobs/internships at IT companies. Your small business, as is written, is hurting you. As others have stated, it is unclear what happened with it, what it does, and how it relates to your career goals. However, since you apparently ran it while an undergrad, you can easily minimize it on your resume and treat it more as a hobby or side project. This will keep your resume focused. So what you need to do is shorten that considerably, state clearly what it is, and describing what you got out of it.

For the tennis instructor position, do what I told Alpert. Put down what you accomplished doing it, especially as it relates to positions you are applying for. This might be difficult, but demonstrated leadership and people skills are valuable in nearly all jobs. Still, this is something that you did while in school as well. So unless you have some amazing accomplishment from it. Keep it short. It will be omitted later when you get some real experience.

Remember, you are a recent graduate in a tough job market. This means that you are not expected to have the track record of experienced job-hunters. Thus, there isn't the pressure show it. So keep your work experience short and to the point. However, because you don't have that experience you are competing with both people who do have it along with your peers ('09 and '10 grads) in a popular field.

If you really want to work in IT, is there a local computer repair store or even a Best Buy computer department you can work for? I'm not saying this is the best you can do. This is just something that will give you some experience without deviating heavily from you intended career goals. So don't give up looking.

[SlowwHand]

Tailor your cover letter. Research the hell out of the company and tell them why you want to work for them, and what you have to offer.
DaShi made one very good point. What did you learn from your experience? What were your successes?

[DaShi]

EC Council: Certified Ethical Hacker

What? Really?

See my sig.

[DriXnaK]

Also, online degrees really aren't worth anything in this job market. With so many people out of work, a lot of them are returning to school to keep themselves competitive. It's not really a bad idea as it gives them something meaningful to do between jobs. However, a lot of these schools are basically scams taking people's money and giving them a mediocre education. So all online degrees get a poor reputation.

It's true, schools like ITT tech and stuff get no respect in the job market. The reason I decided to go with this school is it's actually the only online school accredited by the government. I actually found out about it from reading some of the different IT forums. It was the only online school that they recommended. As I said before too, their masters program meets NSA standards so it's definitely not trash. Plus, there's a ton of IT companies like Google and Microsoft that back this school. Their curriculum is based on industry certifications which is why I will have a bunch of certifications when I'm done.

Having many interests isn't a bad thing. You just need to focus them, as others have said. Your education seems to be in IT and marketing. So look for marketing jobs/internships at IT companies. Your small business, as is written, is hurting you. As others have stated, it is unclear what happened with it, what it does, and how it relates to your career goals. However, since you apparently ran it while an undergrad, you can easily minimize it on your resume and treat it more as a hobby or side project. This will keep your resume focused. So what you need to do is shorten that considerably, state clearly what it is, and describing what you got out of it.

I will definitely do this. That's the best advice I have heard by far.

If you really want to work in IT, is there a local computer repair store or even a Best Buy computer department you can work for? I'm not saying this is the best you can do. This is just something that will give you some experience without deviating heavily from you intended career goals. So don't give up looking.

Unfortunately there's really nothing around. I already tried the Best Buys and stuff. In fact, they just laid off 500 people at one of the only tech companies in my area. I'm in Florida, we were never known for tech or even that many large companies. On top of it the unemployment rate is something like 4th worst in the country. There's really no opportunity there. I decided to get the degree because I don't feel like I can escape Florida with just a marketing degree. Marketing degrees are a dime a dozen, but I feel like the combination of business and IT might be less common. Plus, this degree will make me more likely to be able to land a job working for the military which is a huge goal of mine. The name of the game for me is to get the hell out of Florida because there's no opportunity here and it's not going to get better.

DaShi

EC Council: Certified Ethical Hacker

What? Really?

See my sig.

Not sure I understand this part. https://www.isc2.org/dodmandate/default.aspx If you scroll down to that chart down there it will list the certifications that fulfill the DoD 8570.1M directive. CEH stands for the Certified Ethical Hacker certification and it's one of the main certifications on there for network defense.

Thanks again for the advice, I will re-write this thing.

[Jon Miller]

Look for HR staff/executives/etc who like Tennis.

JM