KingZimbabwe's Getting a Job: Progress Log

[King]

The purpose of this thread is to create accountability for myself in my job search process. Hopefully this is relevant to the forum.

Things about me: Graduated May 2020 from a top university interdisciplinary degree in Information Technology. Tried to start and managed 4 different startups while in college using lean startup method (mainly ed-tech and blockchain). No experience apart from that. No network either.

Things I'm looking for: Pretty much any job that will hire me to get myself off the ground. My career options are pretty much wide open. I'm not a technical person, but can work extremely well with technical people and can manage tech teams like a beast.

I'm looking towards entry level Junior PM, entry level Project Coordinator roles, consulting as a last resort. But my options are open to pretty much anything except sales roles.

I also wanna build my network because despite utilizing it in college to get talented people on my team and secure meetings with angel/VC advisors I'm really bad at it. I struggle with anxiety so it can be super overwhelming.

Moving forward: I'm going to update this log daily until I get hired with everything that I'm currently doing to put myself in position.

While this is a log any tips, advice, guidance, etc. is appreciated! The grind begins now.

 

[King]

8/5

I'm following this breh, around my age, on tiktok who's a PM. He got there through a non-traditional route with no former experience. He recommended I look towards PM courses and SCRUM certification.

I copped the SCRUM manual and have been reading that.

I also brushed the dust off my linkedin and am in the process of revamping it. Currently looking towards junior PM roles.

Tomorrow I'm gonna rework my resume and linkedin profile to make it more relevant to junior PM/ consulting.

Later in the week gonna experiment with this process:

1. Find a job posting on LinkedIn

2. Instead of applying through the portal I'm gonna find talent coordinators for the company and hit em with this

Hi (X) ,


I am very interested in the (X) Role I saw posted and have relevant experience in (XYZ).


Would you mind if I sent you my resume?


Thank You.

3. See where it goes from there.

 

[King]

8/6

Redid my linkedin - it's looking clean, it's fly as hell (added in my pronouns too). Concerned a bit about my bio (its a jack of all trades thing). Still only got 21 views to date - but I figured out something to get more engagement. Now onto my resume, still an early draft of the new one but imma be a lil creative wit it, if you know what I mean. People do it all the time, I cant be goody too shoes especially as a breh, I gotta present myself above and beyond. Only thing that matters if the result.

Things to do tomorrow: Finish draft of resume (aim for 2 - one consulting, the other junior PM roles). Create new CV. Apply to one job, continue researching what career entry points there are.

Things to do by end of next week: Look into publishing article on linkedin in respective field I'm interested in (I post on thecoli all day, I might as well become a blogger), add myself to some black professional groups too. Try to find a networking event (preferably online and stunt on em with the new resume/CV).

Things to also look into: My old uni has some portal to connect with alumni gonna check that out as well.

 

[King]

8/7

Didn’t get much done as I wanted to. Gotta keep it up and stay consistent.

Things to do today: Finish draft of resume (aim for 2 - one consulting, the other junior PM roles). Create new CV. Apply to one job, continue researching what career entry points there are.

 

[Tr0yTV]

Good job. Keep going.

 

[King]

8/8 - 8/9

There’s a lot more work to do.

More details coming at the end of today 8/10.

 

[King]

8/10

I pretty much had to scrap everything I was working on.

I got some advice to lie on my resume/CV and saw some other stuff online that told me it was a horrible idea and could get me blacklisted.

Gonna have to take some shyt off my LinkedIn as well hopefully none of my connections actually give a shyt.

So I guess I’m starting from scratch - I guess the only way I’m gonna fill my one year gap is with some BS LinkedIn certs

I swear fukk this system if you ain’t get an internship in college no one wants to hire you

Back in the same situation I was in last year when I couldn’t find a job due to lack of traditional experience

 

[Obreh Winfrey]

You don't have to lie on your resume for results. There's ways of restructuring what you've written to talk yourself up more while maintaining the truth. I have it down that I was the lead software engineer on a platform. Was I? Not really, I was just the sole developer with all the domain knowledge. I didn't captain the boat, I was drifting at sea praying for dry land.

 

[King]

8/11 and 8/12

I don’t even like updating because there’s really nothing that has changed. Feel even less lost than when I started.

I’m kind of stuck now with my current resume and CV. Reworked them a bit. I now have a rotation. But I’m missing a portfolio for some roles like product design and project management I lost a lot of my old files from my startups. Only really have the pitch decks. The internal documents and figures were in my damn student g-suite which my uni locked me out of after I graduated

Tried to do some networking at a job fair two days ago but that didn’t go so well. Idk sometimes it’s like talking to brick walls. I’ll try to explain myself to these recruiters yet they’ll still continue to talk to me as if I have the required experience they’ve stated on the job postings.

These companies want at least 2-4 years experience for entry level roles. Or direct internship experience. There’s really nothing out there that I’m qualified for on paper.

I feel kinda lost forreal. Like I know I’m not dumb and I can pretty much do anything asked of me but idk there’s just no entry points.

Maybe I’ll just have to go back to school or just say fukk it and do a coding boot camp or something. Feel like my degree is wasted

But I know people who graduated with me already making 6 figures so I know it’s a cop out and all I really gotta do is network harder sohh imma keep at it

 

[King]

8/13

Put in some more apps from the job fair earlier this week.

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

You need to talk to your university about a couple of things.

1) Why are you locked out of your student account. Once you graduate you become an alumnus and your school gives you a permanent Alumni code. You shouldn’t be locked out like this.

2) Your school should have many corporate connections that provides a block of Jobs for its recently graduated class. They will normally put this under the career section or they will have a LinkedIn group of alumni or a Handshake group of alumni and they will set you up with a partner corporation.

3) Is your university aligned with a Division 1 conference or something similar? If that’s the case your school may have a consortium you can use.

4) Why isn’t your university doing your resume for you? That’s what the department of career services is there for. Tell them cacs that you paid good money to attend their institution so they better get to working.

 

[Obreh Winfrey]

1) Why are you locked out of your student account. Once you graduate you become an alumnus and your school gives you a permanent Alumni code. You shouldn’t be locked out like this.

If it's anything like mine, he had a limited window of time to keep the student account. Mine was like 6 months and I foolishly let it get deactivated.

 

[greatone]

I swear fukk this system if you ain’t get an internship in college no one wants to hire you

Keep grinding and keep your head up. I experience the same thing when I graduate school 12+ years ago. I bit the bullet and went back to school for a 2nd degree just so I can try to get a internship. I end of working at the university I.T. department as a student worker. I end up doing a lot of desktop support and a little custom programming for them. While working there I also applied for a some internships and at the same time was applying for a job in field. End up working there for 2 semester when I finally got a job offer in my field. On my resume I put down the coding projects and the desktop support duties I worked on at the student job. When I left the student job they tried to hire me on full-time but the other job offered me too much money.

 

[King]

You need to talk to your university about a couple of things.

1) Why are you locked out of your student account. Once you graduate you become an alumnus and your school gives you a permanent Alumni code. You shouldn’t be locked out like this.

2) Your school should have many corporate connections that provides a block of Jobs for its recently graduated class. They will normally put this under the career section or they will have a LinkedIn group of alumni or a Handshake group of alumni and they will set you up with a partner corporation.

3) Is your university aligned with a Division 1 conference or something similar? If that’s the case your school may have a consortium you can use.

4) Why isn’t your university doing your resume for you? That’s what the department of career services is there for. Tell them cacs that you paid good money to attend their institution so they better get to working.

1) The school automatically deleted everything, mainly my canvas account which had all of my course materials, assignments, files, etc. Along with my g suite.

They gave me a new limited g-suite with no access to any of my old files or materials.

2)They don’t. I went to a large top 10 school. The job fairs are useless as well because they mainly recruit CS or engineering since it’s in the Bay Area.

Handshake is completely useless I gave up applying on there a couple months after I graduated.

I’m also in alumni LinkedIn groups and they never get updated apart from dumb shyt.

Seems like everyone is already connected or in the know (lot of rich or kids from tech families went to my school)

I’ve also used the career office a few times after graduating and they were completely useless.

3) It’s division 1, as for a consortium I couldn’t find one. Not sure what you mean by that? They have an MBA program I could apply to but my GPA is no where near what they’re looking for since it’s also a top 10, maybe 5.

4) yeah they don’t offer that service I believe, at least not when I brought it up. They can go over it with me, but writing it was up to me. They don’t have resume writers.

 

[King]

Keep grinding and keep your head up. I experience the same thing when I graduate school 12+ years ago. I bit the bullet and went back to school for a 2nd degree just so I can try to get a internship. I end of working at the university I.T. department as a student worker. I end up doing a lot of desktop support and a little custom programming for them. While working there I also applied for a some internships and at the same time was applying for a job in field. End up working there for 2 semester when I finally got a job offer in my field. On my resume I put down the coding projects and the desktop support duties I worked on at the student job. When I left the student job they tried to hire me on full-time but the other job offered me too much money.

Yeah I hear you.

But I’m in a unique position where I got lucky and ended up with no student debt after 4 years.

Going back to school would fukk me over permanently and leave me in horrible student loan debt since I’m exhausted on FAFSA (they only cover 4 years)

And scholarships are a wash if you already have a degree. I gotta make this work.

I’m even thinking of just applying to internships under false pretenses and if I get the interview just telling them that I’ll work for free just for the experience.