Job Hunting

Now that you've taken care of your end of things, you can ask the world for some money.

Determining your ideal position

This is ultimately one of the most important things to career satisfaction. Here are a few questions that could help.

  • What defines a meaningful career?
    • Does the work you do need to have a greater impact ?
  • What magnitude of compensation is required to keep you around ?
  • What sort of team are you looking for?
  • Is this a highly social environment or one where you're more left to your own devices?
  • What sort of time and mental commitment are you comfortable putting in?
  • How long do you plan on staying in a role ?
  • What sort of growth opportunities should this career provide, both laterally (same role different areas) and vertically (promotions and different roles) ?

Determining avenues to seek jobs

  • College Campus Events
  • Career Fairs
  • Online Job Boards
  • LinkedIn
  • Recruiter Connections
  • Friends and Acquaintances

Narrowing Down Target Roles

Once you've scoured the internet a little bit, or before a big career event. Make sure you make lists of the roles and companies you're interested in. Talking to every company in the room or applying to every application probably isn't worth the time.

A lot of times, career fairs especially don't give you a lot of time to work. Long lines, talking to people for long durations, spending hours on initial applications and unnecessary quizzes people send out is the norm. As such, only shoot for what you need, don't waste your time that could probably be better spent in other ways.

Talking to Recruiters

At a fair

Before you even talking to a recruiter, be prepared with a little bit of information about a company. This generally happens at company events or career fairs so I assume you know in advance who you'll be talking to. Do some research, figure out where you could potentially be of help, check out their roles online.

Once you're there, you're gonna have to pull out the social guns. All smiles from here. Feel confident, have a resume ready to hand, and a hand ready to shake. Generally at this point, depending on how you're feeling, you start off with the 1 minute speech, and if you have a chance, slowly start to elaborate on some of the 3-5 minute options. This is to paint a good picture of who you are, and the recruiter will be given a moment to get a head start on reading your resume.

After that point it's a normal conversation, take it how it goes, have some fun, the recruiters a person after all, and they probably won't bite. I landed an interview once because the recruiter just wanted to complain about the company and I was there to empathize. It's an interesting world out there, so don't forget, you're talking to fellow humans.

At an interview

At this point you've already passed the initial scanning. So now you're conversation will start a bit differently.

This time the interviewer will more or less guide you through the conversation. They'll first start with "tell me a little bit about yourself", and because you're more relaxed for time during these sessions, you can break into the 3 minute intro.

After this point, the recruiter for the most part will probably ask you some behavioral questions. Eventually I'll link to a document of questions here. For now all you need to note, is that these questions are meant to discover who you are, and allow you to tell your story. Your goal is to craft a narrative throughout this conversation that accurately portrays you.

Remember, answer every question with an experience. Tie in your wisdom. And don't speak in hypotheticals.

Here's a great little structure to keep in mind for these kinds of answers.

  1. Context and background

(My team at company X five years ago working on X project)

  1. The tie in to the question

(We struggled a lot with Y)

  1. Looking back how you felt about the experience

(It was rewarding to learn about Z)

  1. What you would've done differently or how you're changing things or making them better in the present

(I could've asked for help sooner, and I have been trying to do with that with project W)

Obviously 4 may only apply to some questions. But make it fun, make it interesting, and have a good time with it.