Hi everyone! Hope you guys are having a good week. This week, we're writing about how to find the right job. I hope this resonates with those of you who are either coming right out of college or those who are looking for a new career move.
Create a Job Matrix
I was reading this article which discussed how to go about making decisions about your next job. To summarize you should have different buckets (i.e. Company Size/Culture, Location, Money, Skillset) and write down in each of those areas the different options you're looking for in order of what's important to what's least important to you. For example in the Location Bucket, you may have something like Atlanta, GA, Washington D.C., and NYC. For the money buckets you don't want to necessarily focus on the $ value but what you can actually be able to do with that money i.e. renting a 1 bedroom apartment, going on x number of vacations, etc. After that, for each of your buckets you want to order them in order of what's important to you to what's least important to you. So if your most important consideration is location, then your location bucket should be the first bucket in the row.
Now that you have it all defined, when reading different job descriptions you can really zeroing on jobs that are most appealing to you based on what you've outlined. I find that this could be very helpful because it truly allows you to think about what you're actually looking to do and what you're actually looking for in terms of your opportunities.
Network
Interning at companies allows you to get a good sense of what a company will be like if you were to be there full time. However, you can't possible intern or have worked at EVERY single company that you would be interested in and that's where your network comes into play. Reaching out to people who have worked at the companies that you're interested in and asking what they like and don't like about the company can give you a good sense of what you're looking for.
Interview your interviewer
As a company is interviewing you make sure you're asking questions about they company! Some good questions to ask are:
What's your typical day to day
What's the most challenging problem you solved
What is your approach on mentorship
What is expected of your employee after 7/30/90/1 year?
This helps you get a better peak into what the company is like. If you're satisfied with those answers then you can add those things to your pros and cons list when it comes time to make a decision.
Focus on what's in front of you, not what things could be.
Trust your gut. Although the grass may be greener on the other side, if you're not on that side, you can't hope for it. Make sure you have a clear understanding about the work that is happening right now and not the work that could be happening in the future.
Be prepared for rejection
You may find a company that you think is sooo perfect and end up not getting an offer, and that's okay. It has no implication on your skill level it's just that companies are looking for certain things just as you are also looking for certain things. For example, I had a recruiter tell me that although the company liked me and they thought I would be a good fit, they thought I would be a better fit once they were trying to scale and not immediately. It's discouraging sometimes but it only just means the right thing is coming soon.
Finding the right job can feel like a daunting task. Stay motivated and stay focused and the right opportunity will come along!
- The Engineer
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