Effie的留學(xué)故事：Job Search (2/3)

Effie，生于北京，高中畢業(yè)后留學(xué)美國(guó)。

現(xiàn)居美國(guó)，任職于強(qiáng)生公司。

Effie很樂(lè)意和大家分享她的留學(xué)生活點(diǎn)滴。

effie. huang. email@gmail. com

I first have to apologize for the delaying of the second article of my Job Search series. In the first article I introduced the student visa limitation and other facts that foreign students are facing in their job search journey. In this second article I will talk about the things you need to do during the job searching process， including your resume writing and interviews. I am not an expert to tell you how to write a good resume or conduct a good interview， but I can tell you where you can look for help.

In your senior year of college or the last year of graduate school， all of sudden you will realize how fast time has passed and some of your classmates already got their jobs lined up! And you also realize that you have missed the deadlines of all sorts of application opportunities and career fairs during your last year in school. In fact that was what happened to me when I graduated in 2005. If you missed the deadlines or couldn’t get a job before leaving school， you will have three options: 1) going back to China; 2) using your one year OPT (Optional Practical Training) period to find a job and get H1b work visa within that year， hopefully the company will help you with that; and 3) applying to graduate school for Masters or PhDs. I chose to do number 3， because I was not confident that I could find a job that time.

Most of you may think the best option is number 2， to get some working experience before you go back to China， or just simply make money or staying in the US. Because the high paying， fun jobs are what everyone wants to get， such as joining the marketing team at Pepsi， to find a dream job right after you graduate is Very Difficult. The chance of getting your dream job depends on these factors I concluded: 1) the school you attended， 2) your own effort of looking: resume and interview， 3) the big environment: job market and your major around the time you graduating. Below I will discuss all three factors with emphasize on number 2， since you can make the most change of it.

The school you are attending will make a big difference on the chance of you getting a good job. It depends on the name of the school， which also means overall ranking; you can find it at http://colleges. usnews. rankingsandreviews. com/best-colleges. It also depends on your school’s best major. Some schools’ overall ranking is not high， but Engineering major is ranked in top20. If you want to be an engineer， you should consider them. The better school you go to， the higher quality of education you will have， with the higher qualified professors and smarter classmates， better facilities like computers and libraries， and eventually more high paying employers will visit there looking for new graduates each year. Large banks (like Bank of America， Wells Fargo) and large consulting firms (such as BCG， McKinsey) will only go to top universities for On Campus Recruiting (OCR). It means the company will post opening positions on your school’s career website， and spend a day visiting campus to interview pre- selected (about 20 out of 200) students graduated from that college， who applied to the position. Usually they will have a second interview (about 5 out of 20) at their companies’ locations. So be ready for the long and harsh selection process. OCR almost exclusively happens in top schools and schools with strong majors. OCR has both good and bad aspects. It is good because you are competing with a much smaller pool， means less competitors. It is bad because you are competing for only a few positions with your peers whom just as competitive as you are. I attended University of Pennsylvania， which is one of the top schools in the US. Here is our career service website and OCR information you can borrow， http://www. vpul. upenn. edu/careerservices/recruiting/， and make sure you check your own schools’ career site see if they have OCR. Most of schools have similar deadlines for applicants; here is the copy of UPenn OCR important dates:

“Recruiting for the Fall Term begins Thursday， September 27， 2012 and ends Friday， December 7， 2012. Spring Term recruiting begins Monday， January 14， 2013 and ends Tuesday， April 23， 2013. Interviewing for summer internships begins Thursday， January 31， 2013 and ends Tuesday， April 23， 2013， with designated recruiting dates between January 31st and February 14th (except for February 5th， 8th and 15th) being reserved exclusively for summer internship interviews. ”

You can find very useful information from your own schools’ career service office， and make sure you do it early.

The second thing career service office can help you with is your resume and cover letter， which leads to number 2， the very important part of your own effort. You should have your resume and cover letter ready before OCR deadlines. The fact is that， no matter how many times you rewrite or correct your resume and cover letter， it will never be “perfect” to all hiring managers. So at one point I stopped worrying about them， and I use the same copy for all jobs I applied to (you don’t have to follow my lead). You will get plenty advice on how to phrase your experience and the format you should use. I have briefly concluded three things you need to pay attention to:

1) A clean standard format (easy to read) and no typo error. Please double check your grammar and spelling—if you can’t do this right， you are not serious to find a job. I know it is very tedious to look at your own writing over and over again (this is what I am doing now )， but it is very important that you find the mistake before hiring manager finds it.

2) Emphasize on what you have accomplished rather than what you have done (Ex: “ I saved company’s cost 10% last year” rather than “I was a financial assistance at the company”)—you can find help from career service office in terms of how to phrase it， they are good writers. But you need to tell them what you want to say， because they are not familiar with your major or industry. If you do this part right， your resume will be more “powerful” than just stating your duties and positions.

3) Make it short， two pages maximum. Hiring managers don’t have time to read every word you wrote there. Thus you should do what they do， scan it for 15 seconds and check if you can see what you want them to see. For example， I had a friend read my resume for 15 seconds and they said they saw: “MS in Bioengineering”， “MS in Technology Management”， ” “Stem cell research”， “Johnson Johnson”， “Merck”， “fluent in Mandarin”， from my two pages resume. That’s exactly what I want them to see. Also keep in mind that the resume is about the time line. If you see a resume has one year gap between the two jobs， that person is very likely got fired at previous position， and that’s another reason you should not quite one job before finding another one.

Cover letter is to conduct your passion and your goal. It’s more about writing skills， so I can’t advise more than letting you know that， SOME hiring mangers look more carefully at cover letters than others. And I know a few people got their jobs because they had a great cover letter.

The next topic is interview. There are so many free advices you can find online for interview skills， and the career service office can offer you help as well. Do a mock interview if they offer it. I have been through quite a few interviews here in the US， and I have got these suggestions for you:

1) Be confident but not arrogant.

2) Be prepared but also present yourself as who you are. Be prepared means you know the company and you know why you want to work there. Present yourself the way you are is how I try not to be nervous during the interview. I always try to give thoughtful and honest answers to interviewers. That way I feel more like talking about myself rather than trying to get the job. And it is also a fine line where you can position yourself in the middle.

3) It is about whether you fit the position rather than you as a person. What matters are your skills， personalities， and your competitors. I spend a long period of time applying to whatever slightly related positions I can find online， but no luck. Instead， you should keep your focus on looking for those which very closely related to your experience and education， or those job that you really passionate about. You will have a lot more chance to get and win the interview that way. You will also be able to focus your resume and cover letter on the jobs you will be applying to.

The last thing I want to mention is the big environment， the job market and your major. I always feel I am one of the applicants who had bad luck in this one. When pharmaceutical industry was splendid between 2005 and 2009， I was in graduate school or did not have a green card. When I graduated and get my green card in 2010， the industry went downhill rapidly， cutting jobs and laying off people. Although people tell you that “you can change your own fate”， or “you can get what you want if you work on it”， etc. ， I believe it will be A LOT harder if you go against the big wave rather than go along with it. But it doesn’t mean you should choose to study whatever is Hot， because you want to be good at what you are doing. That also makes you less stressful when you start to work at your new job.

Next article I will talk about “What might help you” with your job searching and application process. There are some tools such as LinkedIn and networks you can utilize， thanks to this technology advanced world with fast internet.

July 14， 2012

Effie