Those of you graduating now will be the first cohort to start their post-graduate careers in the post COVID-19 paradigm. We don’t know what it is yet, but we know things will be different moving forward. When I graduated in 2009, I was graduating into the beginning of the rise of Big Tech after finance lost its luster. I didn’t know this, of course, I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. I knew who was hiring and who wasn’t, and I knew that there were fewer spots than before. I knew it was going to be competitive, but I didn’t know how I could compete.
I had studied philosophy, never taken a business school class and had a resume that was strong on lifeguarding but weak on everything else. The previous spring, I struggled to get an internship, only getting one after hundreds of cover letters and a brutal blow to my ego. I knew I couldn’t compete directly with all of the students coming out of the business school so I had to figure out where I could stand out, and where I had less competition.
To figure that out, I went to as many information sessions as I could. Not only am I a sucker for SWAG, but it allowed me to get a sense of what companies that recruited on campus looked for (you could see it with the people they choose to bring back to recruit). I noticed that every company brought a chorus line of analysts that had gone to the business school, but there was always, someone who had studied something else. Someone always asked the question “What majors do you take?” and I feel like they needed the token liberal arts major so the recruiters could say, “We take all majors, for example, Steve studied Biology”.
That was my angle, and I went for technology consulting jobs (they were less prestigious than strategy ones, and I assumed, less competitive) and I was going to out compete my fellow liberal arts students for the one non-business school slot. To do this, I networked as much as I can so people would remember me in the application process and I spent hours practicing cases and studying the types of technologies I would have to use. All I had to do was know more than the other liberal arts students.
Was it effective? I don’t know, I only got one on-site interview (of 40-50 applications) but one was all I needed. I was offered a job as a Business Technology Analyst at Deloitte. Now, with 13 years of hindsight and the experience of sitting on both sides of the table, I have the following recommendations for anyone in the position of graduating into the current business environment.
Take inventory of who you are and what you want
Be honest with yourself about what you can do. I knew I couldn’t get some of the jobs that I really wanted (I still applied, because why not). Similarly, you can focus less on the company and more on the location. Maybe you want to travel, maybe you want to stay home. There are lots of reasons to pursue different jobs and careers. Be honest about what you want and what you need and focus your search on them. You’ll never be successful at getting a job that you don’t actually want.
Get momentum by meeting with as many people as you can
In my sales organization we implemented a program called “be interested, not interesting” and the same applies here. Talk to as many people as you can, and learn about them and their story. Chances are, you’ll get some good advice, some job leads and practice telling your story. The key is to engage and learn about the individual, not start off with a pitch. Only once you understand the person, can you weave your pitch or ask into it. Don’t lead by selling yourself, lead by asking questions. The more you talk to people, the easier it becomes and it will give you the momentum for you to shine with confidence when you have the conversations that are actually important.
If you can’t find an internship or job, do a project
Last year I hired an analyst purely based on a personal project he had done. He was interested in learning python, so he created an app that used python to make decisions about sports that he used to make bets in draft kings. Once he built the app, he created a series of YouTube videos describing what he did. I knew that if he could do this for fun, he would be able to do a lot of great stuff for actual pay. Projects that you choose to do give you great “tell me about a time when…” material for interviews, they keep you busy and they help you learn more skills. They’ll help you keep your momentum, and they make you stand out (most people coming out of college talk about projects they did in class).
Please Think Responsibly 