Hello,

As some of you may know, I started my journey to migrate to New Zealand in December 2014. I finally landed in Auckland (as most of us do) on in the last week of May. Not being sure whether I had come in too late for the so-called 'job season'.

After spending 52 days, applying for 62 jobs, 25 clear rejections, 14 interviews with 4 different companies, on July 12, 2016 - I land an offer letter. I send an acceptance the following day. I received another offer the same day. Politely turned it down the following day. I am joining, where I wanted to and in the role I wanted, on Monday.

So, after being through the anxiety and possibly, the most trying phase of my life, I feel I must share my experience and some lessons learnt. Of course, I strongly believe that everyone has their own journey and must walk on the path they make for themselves. No two journeys or experiences can ever be truly same.

1) Persistence. Do not give up. Just don't. Yes, there will be bad days. Grit it out.

2) There will be rejections. Roll with the punches. Move on.

3) There are plenty of jobs out there. In my profession, IT (specifically, PM and BA roles), organisations are struggling to find the right combination of talent - this much I could gather from my hour long + conversations with multiple HR managers, recruiters and senior managers interviewing me. There is never too late a date to arrive, barring X'mas and such... but you catch the drift.

4) There will be some recruiters who will just blow you away. Do not get worked up. I had a guy judging my skill and motivation over 1 minute of conversation. Be polite and state your case. Then, hang up, if you feel he/she is just not interested.

5) Prepare for the worst. I know that's cliche` but keep an open mind while walking into an interview. In my experience, I have been asked somewhat offbeat questions (given that context of interview was entirely something else) - have you ever sold anything you didn't believe in - did you have to lie for it to someone? Why did you quit coding - would you still do it if you had to? What is your biggest professional failure and what were the reasons..how did you overcome or have you overcome those aspects of your personality yet? .. Again, to some, they may not seem offbeat but to me, they caught me off guard and I had to think on my feet.

6) Companies love if you have researched about them - this cannot be overemphasized enough. Read about their products. Try to correlate that to what you want or like to do. There will be an opportunity, I guarantee, you can position this in your answer. I have had folks tell me they didn't know some aspects of products when I brought it up! For instance, I even did counter research - found 'improvement' areas in their websites which I offered as ' observations' - without getting critical.

7) If you're in a technical role, prepare thoroughly. They expect you to know all aspects of your core competency. But they may not ask you in a lot of detail. It will always be centered on 'how'.. 'why'. Everyone has their own way of preparing but here's what I did.

- Critiqued my own CV.. to shreds! To the point I felt under confident. Then, started asking questions and built a long list of how and why and what.
- Find examples.
- Write examples.
- Memorize the steps. You gotta do this. There are sooo many aspects of preparation that you need to memorize key data points and take it from there.
- Draw plenty of diagrams.

8) Relax 10 minutes before the interview. No notes, not fidgeting. Nothing. I walk. Just loiter. May be it looks dumb but everyone has their process. The first interview I gave I was soooo stiff and sweating like an open tap! The interviewer went out of his way to make me comfortable. Second interview - ditto. Third one, I just stopped caring for 'what-if'. I told myself to just suck it up and remember, its not the end of anything. At worst, you move to the next interview. At best, they call you in again. The interviewer wants to see you relaxed yet focused so they can see who 'you' are. Thats really important in NZ - especially for folks like me who are new to the workforce.

That's all I can think of in a nutshell.

All the very best to everyone out there looking for work. Your day is not far. Cannot be, trust me. Keep at it.