BY: CHRISTOPHER COLE How to Get a Job

What do I know about getting jobs? Hindsight is 20/20  I got lucky and did things right.  I can look back and see what I’ve done right or wrong. Northrup Grumman, IBM, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, USAA, Ernst & Young, ExxonMobil, Epic Systems, NSA  However, I interviewed with twice as many.

My Advantages High GPA Master’s degree Work experience Is a masters degree for you?  You do IT because it’s fun. You learn something and you have to go find out about it at home.  Not for everybody – that’s okay.

Advantages you can still have Play the numbers game  Other companies interview 10 or more people for 1 job – why can’t you do the same? Timing is everything  If at first you don’t succeed…  It seems like most college grads are hired Sept – Nov and Feb – Mar  Google timing Not totally interested in the job? Interview anyway  Galileo Processing – find a better job while interviewing for the first one.  Interview experience

Interview Experience You’ve only got 1 hour or less for them to decide if you are a career choice. Your first interview will likely not go well.  Most interviews are not very technical. They are behavioral.  Your first interview you will have to “umm” a lot while you think of situations  For your last interview, you’ll already have a set of situations you can talk about. “Tell me a situation when…”  You had somebody difficult to work with.  You were stressed out about a task and how did you handle it.  You disagreed with your boss. My situations – they show how cool I am  Capstone situation (tell about group work and resolving conflict)  Research situation (talk about my masters degree) Answer stupid questions with a stupid answer.  “What is your biggest fault?” I work too hard (Steven’s experience with E&Y)

Where do you get jobs from? Use BYU! This will get you places. Career Fair  Really looking for a job? Don’t just go to talk to specific people. Go to talk to EVERYBODY and pass out as many resumes as possible.  I got lots of interviews this way…eventually my full time job.  Numbers game again.  Dress up (Josh from USAA – IT students did not present themselves well, I was the only IT guy invited) Byu.experience.com – best place ever  You upload your resume once – then it is EASY to apply – just click apply to a ton of jobs!  They will later message you letting you know if you got an interview.  Don’t do it just once – go back again and again, looking for more jobs and applying. Especially *before* the career fair. Information sessions  Mostly worthless, but definitely go for companies you are particularly interested in

Where do you get jobs from? Make a list of companies you are particularly interested in  Apply online to ALL of these websites BEFORE career fairs, etc.  This WILL be time consuming. But worth it. USAA, Boeing Life is all about who you know (although what you know helps)  Who do you know at different places? Previous grads, friends, bishop, etc.  Most of the time, they are happy to help.  Marcus -> fly to boeing

Where do you get jobs from? You won’t be able to choose where you go.  Face it – if you want the best job, you can’t be picky about your location.  Big 4 has a place nearly everywhere – but mostly places you should be happy just to get your career started.  In general, you probably don’t want to turn down a job because of location until you already have better options. Head Hunters  The only people that found me from CareerBuilder, Monster, etc. (but still use the site)  Richard Terranova from Ampian Staffing (if you are desperate and want to go local)  

Big 4 Accounting Firms These guys LOVE BYU students – they get the business school guys, but we’re better than Isys students  Apply early. Like September, the day school starts.  They aren’t for everybody. You do IT audit. It isn’t really technical.  Lots of experience – you can meet and talk to all sorts of CIOs from many companies. Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, KPMG (Grant Thorton also) Another example: Ask for favors – the worst they can say is no.

Resume This is HOW you can an interview  Have Bev look at it! She is good. Tailor your resume to the job you WANT, not the job you HAVE.  I had a lot of web devel experience – I had to change it to seem more like system administration and/or security. Lets look at mine.

So you got an interview Research the company  No really, I’m not kidding. Recruiters all say this is important – you don’t want to sound dumb (Dish Network interview)  What positions do they have available?  What does the company do? Where do you fit in? (helps ask intelligent questions)  Who is doing your interview? Did he go to BYU too? What did he graduate in? Always a full suit  Do you know what business professional and business casual means?

What do you ask? How many hours will I work?  Consulting = lots of hours  Accounting = cyclical (mandatory 50 hours Sept – Jan)  Many others just 40 hours and go home Education  How much will they pay? Others  Health, whatever…

What else do you ask? “Anymore questions?” Always have some! Just think of something, it isn’t that hard. Don’t have 20. Talk about what you REALLY want to do. It is often a downside to say “whatever in IT”  Networking?  Security?  Web Development?  Database administration? They aren’t as interested in what you CAN do as what you are interested in.  Datawarehousing got me a job with ExxonMobil. Show you are different from the weird CS guy  Show my woodworking pen.