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Thread: My break, my experience

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
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    New Zealand
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    Default My break, my experience

    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.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    37,824

    Default

    Congratulations! Very pleased for you.

    And thank you for taking the trouble to share all your thoughts.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
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    Default

    Thanks JandM.

    Before I deep dive in to my next phase of house search and new job settlement, I thought best to put it all down for everyone and hope that it benefits others like me. And dispel few myths like 'job season'. Its a good market for jobs but yes, its small. So, needs that much more focus on CV, studying JD, researching the company you're interviewing and making every interview count.

    All - Please feel free to PM me if you feel I can offer any feedback or need any inputs (my 2 cents!)

    Again, all the very best!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2016
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Jerry Maguire View Post
    Thanks JandM.

    Before I deep dive in to my next phase of house search and new job settlement, I thought best to put it all down for everyone and hope that it benefits others like me. And dispel few myths like 'job season'. Its a good market for jobs but yes, its small. So, needs that much more focus on CV, studying JD, researching the company you're interviewing and making every interview count.

    All - Please feel free to PM me if you feel I can offer any feedback or need any inputs (my 2 cents!)

    Again, all the very best!
    Thank you for sharing your experience May I know what specific job titles/positions were you applying to? And also the number of work experience. If I'm not mistaken, those criteria will play an important role for employers.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Christchurch
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    384

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    Awesome post!

    I would add just one thing: customise your CV for the position for which you are applying. The first screen is often done by someone in Admin or HR who is simply matching phrases in the job ad with qualifications/attributes listed on your CV. Don't assume someone will connect the dots.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    New Zealand
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chisknorr View Post
    Thank you for sharing your experience May I know what specific job titles/positions were you applying to? And also the number of work experience. If I'm not mistaken, those criteria will play an important role for employers.
    Business Analyst
    8 years work experience.

  7. #7
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    Mar 2015
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    New Zealand
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bozeman View Post
    Awesome post!

    I would add just one thing: customise your CV for the position for which you are applying. The first screen is often done by someone in Admin or HR who is simply matching phrases in the job ad with qualifications/attributes listed on your CV. Don't assume someone will connect the dots.
    Absolutely. I just replied to someone on 'pm' and advised the same thing. Tailor to the job advertised. Then, when you get the call, tailor the conversation to show your experience and strength that can be related to the job advertised. Of course, you wont know everything and thats all right. Show you care, do your research and pick out examples (recruiters always, in my experience, respect insightful , even simple, experiences). And more questions come out of it - so if your experience is genuine and relevant, bingo.. you drive the conversation to next interview. Thats how it worked for me.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Indonesia to SG to Nelson
    Posts
    12

    Default

    Congratulations and thank you for sharing your experience !!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Wellington
    Posts
    139

    Default

    Congrats. Useful Info

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