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a quick question for young professionals/ aspiring professionals

Palladio

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Originally Posted by fossil8412
Curious, for those of you who are young and have established yourself pretty well, how did you get your first job? Application? Referral? Connection-- i.e. friend in the company, daddy dollar's business, etc.? Did that lead you down your career path, or did you leverage something from it? Thanks.
First job: Sent out tons of resumes and posted on a bulletin board dedicated to hiring for my industry (architecture). My first employer saw my post and called me to interview; my college is pretty well regarded in my field, so that helped. My second job was due to having a mutual friend with one of the owners, who vouched for me and helped me land an interview.
 

Not Ed Harris

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First job as a paralegal I speculatively sent my CV to about 150 law firms, got 2 replies, 1 interview and 1 job. Might well have got 2 interviews but the second reply didn't come till I had the first job. Second was a better firm, but only a short term contract. Was there for 6 months then off to law school. I got in touch with them after graduating and they asked if I could come back and they trained me as a solicitor.

That said, don't balk at calling in personal contact. Things are so competive these days that you need anything that'll give you an edge.

And for those of you thinking about lying. Definitely do not do this if you're going for a career in law. Word gets around and you can find yourself effectively blacklisted. And that's even before the SRA finds out.
 

Matt

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Originally Posted by GQgeek
I think a lot of people are probably too timid in interviews.
this I agree with. When I moved over to Melbourne for my first PR role, I was deliberately trying to sell myself as a tech-PR kid, as this was dotcom days when that was where the business was. There's another story in there that I'll share later, but basically, in order to sell myself like that, I went right over the company that I was applying for's website, and critiqued it section by section, and came right out and raised it in the interview. My balls and confidence were noted and appreciated (and I was hired)...
Originally Posted by v.freeman
There's a lot of luck involved.
This I do not agree with at all. I don't put a lot of stock in this theory at all. Most of the people I know who shrug things off as 'right place right time I guess' are actually the people who spent the most time working out where to go and when to arrive.
 

v.freeman

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One of the most common human fallacies is the perception of luck as skill.
 

Matt

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lol. OK...well that will make it really easy to blame all of your deficiencies on bad luck then. Hope it works out well for you
smile.gif
 

v.freeman

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You honestly think just because I don't believe success is merely determined by "skill and preparation" means I blame everything on bad luck? Sorry, but for non-fluff competitive positions there will always be more demand than spots available.

Tell your view to Wharton graduates of 2008 and 2009. I'm sure they didn't get that post-MBA associate position at KKR because they were unprepared.
 

Matt

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I graduated into an economy just as bad as they did (mid nineties Australian "recession we had to have") and guess what...I just had to hustle...suck up the sense of entitlement ("well you do realise I am a Wharton grad") and accept that someone's gonna have to sweep the floors...or in my case, sit there with scissors and cut out news clippings...so, go sweep them, and stop lamenting your "luck".
 

P. Bateman

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Originally Posted by Blackhood
All the jobs I've ever had have been as a result of tenuous familial connections paired with a CV/ Interview Manner that makes employers mess their pants.

Yup pretty much.
 

otc

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Originally Posted by fossil8412
Curious, for those of you who are young and have established yourself pretty well, how did you get your first job? Application? Referral? Connection-- i.e. friend in the company, daddy dollar's business, etc.? Did that lead you down your career path, or did you leverage something from it? Thanks.

Application, Interview, Job (although it is a small, not publicly visible industry so it probably helped that my roommate interned and works for a competitor and thus I understood more about the job than any other candidate). Of course the first week I repeatedly got questions like "so who do you know" and it became pretty apparent that a large amount of our hiring is through connections and not recruiting.

Originally Posted by intent
Everyone's called a "professional" nowadays.

Yeah...wtf.

Originally Posted by oman
it's not lying you idiots, it's asymmetrical information dispersion, and everyone does it

so stop calling everyone liars


I am pretty sure the new guy in my office dispersed some asymmetric information during his hiring process. Right at the start he was getting assigned stuff that I would rather be doing...and then asking me how to do it (and clearly had never actually used SAS for more than 10 minutes before). I think they sort of figured it out though as now he is doing bitchwork and minor training.

Moral of the story...if you are going to lie about **** you know in the interview, you had better scramble your ass to learn it as soon as you get an offer (assuming this is an out of school, several months between offer and job thing)
 

v.freeman

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And how is that exactly entitlement? You think that when there are 200 candidates for 1 position, it's all about your preparation?

Newsflash: there are several hundreds of people that worked out where they wanted to go all through out high school, undergraduate, post-grad work experience and MBA only to arrive at the wrong time.

Seems like the definition of luck to me.

Also, your own personal anecdote of "preparation" seems pretty weak to me. Going over a company's website? That's the minimum anyone should be doing nowadays.
 

Matt

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enjoy that mentality, I'm sure it will work out well for you and pay dividends long into your future
smile.gif
 

Davidko19

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god you sound like a douche.
 

Matt

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Originally Posted by v.freeman
Also, your own personal anecdote of "preparation" seems pretty weak to me. Going over a company's website? That's the minimum anyone should be doing nowadays.
nowadays yup. But it was pretty ahead of its time 13 yrs ago tho....and it wasnt an anecdote of preparedness anyhow, it was an anecdote about people erring on the side of caution in interviews. Taking on the managing director, board chairman and general manager in your interview, when you are some fresh grad with no experience...that takes more balls than most people have. I guess I was just lucky. lol.
 

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