In 2012, I graduated from the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and got my first job working for a chemical manufacturing company in Houston, Texas. Reflecting back on my job searching experience, it was so much easier than it is today. I had worked hard in college to make myself the ideal candidate: got a good GPA, had an internship, went to
behavioral interview prep seminars, and was heavily involved in an extracurricular club. My job searching consisted of going to a single on-campus career fair, getting 3-4 job offers, and picking the one that I thought was the best fit. Easy.
After graduating, I went on to spend the next 10 years at the same company. While the stability was nice, this meant that I never had to really find a new job. Sure, I did different roles within that company and I technically had to “apply” to those positions. However, finding a new role within my existing company was much different than applying for a job at a new company. Most of the time the
“interview process” consisted of my leader negotiating with the hiring manager of the role I was applying for and they would determine if I was a good fit for that role. By the time the interview process rolled around, I had a fairly good idea about the outcome, positive or negative.
Fast forward to the present, I am in the last quarter of my computer science degree from OSU and really starting to pick-up the interview process. And let me tell you, it has been humbling, very humbling. This time around, I didn’t strive to be the perfect candidate. I still made good grades, but I didn’t do all the ancillary things that would have made me shine, the main one being an internship. In my opinion, internships are great for people with no work experience; you learn how to work on a professional team, lead a meeting, etc. However, I felt like I already had those soft skills from my tenure as a professional for 10 years. In addition, I didn’t feel that the technical skill you learn at an internship are that extensive, certainly not something you couldn’t learn on the first few months of a new job. So, for these reasons, I forwent an internship, instead choosing to finish the degree as quickly as possible.
To conclude this note, if I could do it all over again, I don’t know that I would do anything different. After all, every minute I’m in an internship is a minute I’m not working full-time making twice as much money. But through this experience, I have learned that not having all the bells and whistles on the resume, even if you are an experienced hire in a related field, does make a difference to some companies. Only time will tell if I made the right choice.
