I’d been putting off a moment for a long time — the moment when I start applying for jobs.
While I was working on my last degree, I was told frequently and confidently that I would have no trouble finding a job — physics can be used anywhere, and people with the degree are in high demand… so I was told. Well, it turns out that physics, without experience in anything else, is only useful for graduate school, which I had no interest in. It took me half a year after graduating to give up my efforts and take a job unrelated to anything I was interested in, until I could figure out what to do next (spoiler alert, OSU was my next step).
Because I was assured time and time again that I could easily get a job, and then proceeded to find it impossible to even get an interview, I’d been feeling some deja vu lately. “Software engineers are in high demand right now! You’ll have no problem finding a job!” Sound familiar?
But, things are looking different this time around. For one, I’m applying to a lot more jobs than I did a few years ago. I’m 23 years old — I don’t need the job to be perfect, I need experience and then can focus on the perfect job. This was not something I understood the first time around. I have a spreadsheet full of the jobs I’ve applied to, jobs I’ve heard of, companies I want to look into, and the spreadsheet is vast. I have to color code it to navigate it! This isn’t to say I’ll take any job, just that my standards are much more realistic, and it’s opening a lot of opportunities.
The second thing I’ve learned is how to network. I always thought networking was sending messages to random people on LinkedIn that I liked their company and wanted a job, or going to career/networking fairs. It turns out the best networking strategy was just to talk to the people I know about what I’m pursuing. Telling people you’re graduating soon and that you’re really excited about your future in computer science is a great segway into the fact that their cousin works at such-and-such company and would be happy to talk sometime. Who knew networking was that easy?
This is all to say that I had an interview today, have an interview tomorrow, and have another scheduled in a couple of weeks. While my spreadsheet is long, I’ve only been applying for a couple of weeks, so I’m feeling hopeful that I’ll get more interview requests soon! This course of events is so contrary to the crickets I was expecting, and it’s extremely uplifting!