deep breaths: a 3-step guide to recruiting
Stop and take heed: you won’t die if you don’t get a summer internship.
I can say that, because I also didn’t have a summer internship a year ago, and as much as I whined about how it was going to jeopardize my ~future very successful career~, it ended up not — and led me to opportunities that made me figure out what I actually wanted to do.
I completely get it though! If you live in the ‘ambitious, probably second generation immigrant, middle to upper middle class business kid’ mindset, you probably feel torn. You want to get a good job; you are under pressure to get a brand-name job, specifically, to prove to your family that your degree was worth it. You are in a supportive yet invisibly competitive friend group that silently judges worth based on the title and company you earn. You feel like your life is a series of steps, one after the other, each one critical not to miss.
Simultaneously, most business students are creative and thoughtful. You wonder to yourself what life would be like if you didn’t have to give so much of a shit about internships or jobs. You wonder if it’s okay to step off the beaten path, even for a second. Is it okay to take a risk when it’s not calculated? What if you just did something you liked and — omg — didn’t get paid for it?
Going after ambitious goals is a good thing; tunnel vision is not. I recognize that the job market for people in my age group is incredibly promising, and also incredibly competitive. Frankly, the resources in schools simply are not adequate at preparing students for the kinds of pressures and tasks associated with recruiting, and many of our supposed ‘mentors’ — parents, or professors — have little to no idea how the job hunting market has changed.
While I’m not a professional recruiter or HR manager, I am someone who’s recruited — a lot. I have hated and loved different aspects of it. I’ve spent hours reading different blog posts on how to get jobs, realigning the font on my InDesign resume to make text fit, pitching practice questions to myself in the mirror. I’ve spent so much money on Ubers to and from interviews, and time on the About Us section of dozens of company websites. I’ve cried over not getting jobs, and over getting them. Most importantly, I’ve felt the same intense fear everyone else has: will I be nothing without a job?
Well, I didn’t really think that, but it certainly made me very depressed not to have a job, and I’m writing this blog post for two reasons:
- To give some of my tried-and-true methods for recruiting
- To remind you that not getting a job isn’t the end of the world
With that, let’s get into it.
Recruitment is a game, so get into a gaming mindset
Statistically, you will be rejected from most jobs you apply to. This is not an indication that you’re stupid or unqualified, but unless you are consistently performing in the top 1% of your peer group — which in itself is already hard to evaluate, since so many jobs look at ‘holistic’ traits (including but not limited to grades, projects, side-businesses, volunteering, social media, case competitions and hackathons, etc). — you will not be getting an interview for well over half of what you apply to.
This is okay, and you need to tell yourself so.
Some context: for one of the internships I got, I was told by the recruiter afterward that the acceptance rate in our group of 25 interns was less than 1%. That is more selective than Harvard. (Incidentally, I also didn’t get into Harvard.)
What I was struck by was how fortunate I was to be in that position. I know for a fact I am not in the top 1% of my age group. It hadn’t even occurred to me while applying just how statistically unlikely it was for me to be sitting there. An average internship has anywhere between 2–4 rounds of screening, and if each round is accepting less than 20% of applicants to the next, your chances of getting in are far closer to 0 than you think.
So when you start seeing your inbox flood with rejections — and it will, inevitably — you need to learn to not let it affect you. In behavioural economics, we study a phenomenon called ‘loss aversion’. It means people weigh losses much more heavily than they weigh wins, and the subsequent loss and/or fear of loss causes people to behave irrationally (like not gambling, even when odds are in their favour).
Recruiting is a game in which the poker chips are your pride and your time. You do not stand to lose anything from a rejection other than pride and time, so give it up freely. Take your rejection, and if you’re like me, feel free to delete it so you’re not reminded every time you open your inbox.
The reason I focus so heavily on this point, and the reason I bring it up first, is I truly believe the reason people do not get great jobs is because they do not apply to enough of them.
People overestimate their abilities, but more often they overestimate HR — they assume HR will read into their resumes, see some amazing person pop out at them from the page, and be willing to send them to an interview. What’s more likely happening is your resume is being fed into a machine parsing for keywords, like ‘analytics’, ‘communication’, or ‘Python’, and recording instances of it. Recruiting is like a game of speed dating, where in the first round, the company spends no more than 3 seconds looking at your before making a decision. Are you strong enough to make an impression in those 3 seconds?
If you are like most, probably not. That means that in order to be successful, you must both:
- Be qualified, or overqualified for everything you apply for;
- Apply to more than you think you need to.
“But Kristen,” you say. “The company I applied to is small and is a nobody! I’m definitely going to get an interview!”
Well Jimmy (Jimmy?), recruiting has an interesting way of surprise-upsetting people. I have a friend who made it into final round for a Big 3 consulting firm; that same friend was rejected at the resume stage for a 3rd tier firm. Long story short, interviews are never guaranteed, regardless of the brand name of the company.
Tl;dr Get over your pride, and send out dozens of applications. Allocate time to complete them.
Protip: Tracking applications can be very helpful. I have a folder with over 60 resumes to different companies over the last two years. I have tracked which resumes have been successful at being screened through, and which haven’t, and combined the successful features into my current CV.
Shorten your shit
Look: we are all unique and complex beings. We have complicated desires and intersecting interests. I’m sure your life-to-date has led you on winding roads over many an obstacle, and built you into the treasure trove of qualifications, experiences, and character you are today.
That being said, recruiters don’t give a shit, so stop writing your resume as if you are a 40-year old reflecting on life. It doesn’t need to be so long!
The number one tip I was given by a mentor with regards to resumes was this:
“The goal of a resume is not to get a job; it’s to get an interview.”
Wow. I like it so much I’m gonna write it again.
“The goal of a resume is not to get a job; it’s to get an interview.”
The reason this is such useful advice is that it eliminates so many problems for people who struggle with resumes today.
“I can’t fit it all into one page!”
Guess what, you don’t have to! The goal isn’t to tell the complete story of who you are; it’s to tell a partial story, one that’s interesting enough to get to round 2, that the recruiter says, “Wow, I’d like to hear more.”
Do you know where else this psychology works? Online dating. You don’t delve into your family history or dreams in your Tinder profile. You put up a cute pic, maybe a sassy lil caption, and state some of your interests so people can start building an image of you in their heads.
Same logic goes for resumes. You need to come across as likeable, someone they can work with in an office space; you need to be unique and memorable, so adding a little personality via graphics or wording is always encouraged; most importantly though, you need to give flags through your resume that indicate you’re good enough for the job, without going the whole nine yards.
This was a huge struggle for me at first. I’m not a business student, so explaining how an economics/political science student with Model UN experience was applying for startup jobs was hard enough.
Plus, my biggest accomplishment to date — which is still true today — was founding a non-profit consulting club in school. However, explaining to recruiters what my club did, and more importantly why it mattered, took an insane amount of time and space. Notably though, it didn’t matter. Extracurriculars just don’t matter as much as job experience. (Brand names, in this case, help a lot.)
So, as painful as it was for me, I eliminated all mention of my proudest achievement, and narrowed it down into this tiny, 11-pt size bullet point on my resume.
Eliminating the paragraph I previously had to describe this volunteer position allowed me to spend much more time discussing my formal work experience, which came across as more interesting to recruiters. This bullet point still includes the words “President” and “Consulting”, however, meaning if resumes are screening for leadership or consulting experience, this still pops up.
There are other general tips on resumes that I probably don’t need to go into too much depth on. Use numbers to quantify your impact, and estimate where unsure. Use action words like ‘led’, ‘directed’, ‘synthesized’, ‘analyzed’ to augment your impact. And, for women especially, avoid usage of words like ‘helped’, ‘assisted’, ‘co-coordinated’. Women have an overwhelming tendency to underestimate their impact in work settings; so ladies, (everyone, really) feel free to brag.
But above all, shorten your shit. You need to make an impression in three seconds, so better to make an incomplete and strong impression, than one that generates ‘omg tldr’ feelings.
Protip: Summaries can help a lot in the storytelling aspect. I include a 3–4 sentence summary of myself at the top of every resume. Here is one summary I used for an (eventually successful) application last year.
Cool. Now HR knows who I am, and via confirmation bias, will look for experiences that correlate with what this summary said.
So what?
Let’s say you’ve applied and are now facing interviews. (Maybe I’ll write a separate post on interviews in the future!)
If there’s anything I’ve learned about senior leadership, it’s how much they loooove summaries. Very few high-ranking businesspeople love to dive into details; they often want quick business-y insights.
So after HR has spent several hundred to thousands of dollars recruiting you, you are now sitting in the final round. They know you are qualified, interesting, smart, and capable of being a good fit. Now you have to answer: so what?
This is usually a make-or-break moment. In every successful interview I’ve ever had (by which I mean I received an offer), I’ve answered this question explicitly. I mean, I literally posed to the interviewer:
“But you don’t care about any of that. All you care about is: so what? Why hire me?”
This does two things:
- It indicates you are mature enough to understand HR’s goals. So many people go into recruiting thinking that it is just about outcomes for themselves; to get themselves a job. But recruiting is a two-way street, and after your interview, your interviewer will need to go to someone more senior, and give a 10-second explanation of why you. Make that job easier for them.
- It indicates business sense. Succeeding at business is 90% knowing what people want to hear, and usually what people want to hear is a ~*key insight*~. Business sense is valued in literally any job imaginable, whether you are a software developer, a marketing coordinator, a consultant, a janitor, an accountant, a teacher, or a freelancer.
Learning what your ‘so what’ is will take time. You need to get good at understanding your brand. (Interestingly, your brand is often not what you think of yourself; your brand is how you come across in professional settings, and what your experience holistically says about you.)
My ‘so what’ has usually been that I always land on my feet. I come from an unusual academic background. I’ve worked in startups and in corporates, across 3 different industries. I’ve reported to CEOs and also been at Tier 11 in a company hierarchy. I’ve done everything from writing blog posts to pulling Nielsen data.
Some might say that makes me erratic, but I choose to turn it into a story; one that says that I explore a lot, or that I adapt quickly to new situations, or that I like learning.
You probably have something similar on your resume. Maybe you are lacking an obvious skill for a job, or have a ‘gap’ that leaves your application imperfect. See if you can turn it into a positive!
Car mechanic? You’re someone who’s worked with clients on objects of high value to them, and who quite literally gets their hands dirty. Mall job? You’re great at collaborating in a team environment to reach goals for the whole unit. Volunteered overseas? You’re someone who likes to make impact, even if that impact requires significant adjustment on your end.
Any experience can be spun positively, and it really just takes practice. I used to work at Shopify; one company mantra is “Do things, tell people.” Do your thing, and tell people. Tell people your so-what.
It’s going to be okay
Honestly, this is all practical advice, but what students probably need the most is emotional support. None of the above advice may be new to you, and maybe what you really need to hear is that it’s all going to be okay.
You are probably tired, and discouraged, and even if you know you have to keep applying you may keep thinking, “What’s the point?” Nothing’s turning up. You’re afraid of having a mediocre job or no job after all your work in school and clubs, and what it might say about you to not have one. I get it.
I’m someone who has always been driven by achievement. I think a lot of my identity is rooted in it, and so when I don’t achieve, I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself. Simultaneously, when I do achieve, I don’t really feel particularly proud; I just feel like I’ve maintained at the same level.
This is an incredibly unsustainable mindset. It’s bad because it caused me to have constant breakdowns; like I mentioned in Point 1, failure is statistically likely, and I was no exception. Every failure literally brought me to tears; and of course no one had sympathy for me, because why should they? Everyone fails.
It was also bad because it prevented me from improving. When I rooted my identity in achievement, I believed success was inherent. When I failed, I believed it was bad luck, or that I was maybe just defective as a person. I didn’t look back on what I did wrong, or how to improve.
In the year where I had no internship, I had to spend a lot of time alone, asking questions about who I was when I didn’t have clubs or case competitions defining my identity for me. One outcome of that was I realized I really loved writing, and started up this blog again.
Spending time away from recruiting also allowed me to realize I could live without success. I did not need the approval of my peers to be happy, so I stopped seeking it out. I learned I was a person outside of my achievements and failures, and as such was able to fix my mistakes meaningfully. While I used to be someone who feared feedback, now I actually kind of look for it.
As my final year at university ends, I realize how much of my time, of my life, was spent towards finding a job. Virtually everything I did led to this point. Info sessions turned into club applications, turned into club executive positions, turned into case competitions and presidencies and more clubs. All of those turned into frantic applications, and dozens of interviews, and a few jobs, for which I am grateful.
However, I can’t say I was particularly happy throughout all of it. I learned a lot about what to avoid; namely, toxic people who can’t stop talking about recruiting or who can’t stop comparing jobs.
All the time I spent strategizing about my future job took away from my present happiness. Time I could’ve spent being happy I spent being anxious. I didn’t get to explore things I had always wanted to, like auditioning for a musical or joining the photography club. I never got to know my residence floormates as well as I would’ve liked, or met as many friends, in general.
I have lots of regrets about my university time, but again, I don’t believe failures are inherent. Moving forward I hope to spend my time doing things I love, when I want to, and treating recruiting as one should: a necessary evil, which, when done smart, doesn’t have to be painful. My hope through this blog is that if you’re going through something similar you realize you’re not alone, and that this period isn’t forever. You have to play the game, but you don’t need to play it too hard.
Thanks for reading! I’m Kristen, an economics student with a passion for technology and social issues. Leave me your thoughts below!
