It may be hard to imagine, but dividend yields were not always this low [1]. Investopedia has it usually something healthy over 4% up until 1990s it seems. Over that 1926- time frame, dividends are said to have contributed 32% of the total return of S&P 500 [2].
Another tip I would give: try to be timely. Especially for college grads/early career, for some companies even when companies are hiring, they might not be hiring all year long (for college grads). The prime college hiring season (summer and fall) is coming up. Waiting until or starting in the winter and spring tends to be tougher.
This pipeline is the most competitive IMO. It's primarily megacorps, banks and consulting firms (BCG, [edit: not Mckinsey!,] Palantir) that want to hire college grads seasonally. To fit into their criteria you've graduated with a degree in CS, math or physics (or otherwise proved exceptional technical skill) at a top 40 public/private school and you've been doing official internships at large companies every summer during college.
Anyone who doesn't fit that mold fairly closely isn't going to get anywhere with the kind of companies that have a seasonal pipeline for new grads. (My point corroborated by a sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31508438).
There may always be exceptions of course. And there's no harm in trying.
But if you have an unconventional education your best bet IMO is small local companies who are in general desperate for anyone with any skill, some dedication and intelligence.
Not true for McKinsey. Not only are we hiring entry-level engineers, we are (1) also recruiting from several coding bootcamps and (2) very proud of the engineering path we've created to help early-career developers rapidly build a world-class engineering toolkit and level-up to tech lead and architecture roles.
> 2+ years of experience developing full-stack applications by writing code that is readable, testable, maintainable, and scalable
When I see these I look and say “that’s not a entry level role”. Or at the very least. It’s not one that I think a new grad would like at and feel qualified for. If this is meant to attract people who just graduated or came fresh off boot camps, I don’t see how they qualify.
Honestly the summer is the worst time to hire seniors and mid level, so it's only "prime" in the sense that recruiters can't get in touch with anyone except fresh grads. That may change with all the layoffs this year.
Does your college offer career fairs or college-specific job boards? Chin up. Breaking in is definitely challenging, but there are resources out there. Hopefully as the pandemic effects subside, there will be more in-person networking events. Some companies also like to recruit from hackathons and other contests. There are also some medium size companies that tend to keep significant entry level hiring pipelines.
One gotcha I would mention, though, is don’t go in with the expectation that submitting resumes down some company corporate HR website is sufficient. It is definitely worth it to get in front of companies in person when possible.
One more resource that may be helpful, there are a whole bunch of tech interview meetups in various cities. Those meetups are a tremendous resource in terms of sharpening interview skills and finding supportive peers and people further along in their careers. They are also a resource for getting an idea of who is hiring for what.
Disclosure: I founded one of these meetups in one city a long while ago.
Yeah, it is unfortunate but being at a target school sometimes does give an unfair advantage. But the bright side is different companies have may a different set of target schools.
This (more yield with longer duration) is true most of the time, but sometimes the yield curve inverts. Especially in recent months, the yield curve has flattened quite a bit.
Sorry to be a bit pedantic, but you got me curious, looks like from TreasuryDirect that one doesn’t have to be a citizen to buy and hold, just a resident with a SSN is fine [1]. Everything else right on!
