How to Get a Job

1. How to Get a Job By: Christopher Cole

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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)

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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) • 801-253-6126 • rterranova@ampianstaffing.com

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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?

12. 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…

13. 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.