Day 30 - April 30

I have been out of touch with things since the last two weeks. Not good at all. I haven't been applying, nor have I been speaking with people.  I spoke to an alum from Medallia and then took a nap. I went out and got some dinner and just came back. 

I have to apply to Capital One, whose interview process I hear is quite fast. I can do that and then also connect with the alum at Google next week. If the company I interned for doesn't come back to me next week, I think I'm going to be done with them.  This would be the second time that they treated me this way and I won't be bothered to network with them again. 

I am so tired of networking. I don't want to approach people with the idea of getting a referral. However, all the people I spoke to have been extremely sweet and have volunteered to pass my resume along, which is truly awesome.

Yesterday I went out with some of the alums. One of them was really mean to me, but after some other people joined it was better. I am not in a happy state and the last thing I want to do is meet people, especially those who are mean to me. I think I'm too sensitive. I've been this way since I was young, its so hard for me to not read people and take things they say to heart. Maybe that's why I have trouble making friends and when they say things that insult me, I'm hurt.

I won't dwell on the past now. I have to think and act quickly for the future.

Statistics for week 2 ending April 22nd 

1. Informationals - 3
2. Applications - 7
3. Emails sent - 36
1. Alums - 24
2. Recruiters - 12
4. Questions - 0

Statistics for week 3 ending April 29th 

1. Informationals - 4
2. Applications - 0
3. Emails sent - 1
1. Alums - 1
2. Recruiters - 0
4. Questions - 0

Day 28 - April 28

I spent the whole night watching movies as I simply couldn't sleep. This is totally unhealthy. I woke up at 9:45 finally and I have to motivate myself to do something for recruiting. I haven't been working on anything. I have to pull myself from this and start doing something. This time is precious and I will never get it back.

I spoke to family and will go have something. I have a call with an alum from Etsy in the afternoon and also have the interview with the startup in the evening. I need to prepare for that.

The call with the Etsy alum was good and the interview with the startup was good as well. They have another call scheduled for next week.

Day 27 - April 27

I woke up at 9:45 am today. I prepared some questions, spoke to family and then watched a movie. The call went well. After that I cooked lunch and had a nap. I have to get started on the informationals. I have been really slacking on that side. In the evening, I met a friend for tea and going to bed now. 

Day 26 - April 26

I had a couple of discussions with the company I interned for yesterday. I have to have another call tomorrow. This seems to be endless. I have been feeling sick since getting back and didn't do anything today as well. Just spent time watching movies and taking rest in bed. I have an initial round of discussion for a startup on Thursday evening. Have to prepare some good questions for the discussion tomorrow and will prepare for the discussion on Thursday.

One of my alums called me around 10:00 pm. He gave me some pointers on looking for jobs and asked me to contact a few alums and report back in a week's time. He even offered for me to stay at his place and look for a job. Of course, I'm not going to do that, but still, I thought that was really nice of him. 

Day 22 - April 22

Today I woke up only by 10:00 am. Felt rested when I woke up and very peaceful. I had difficulty sleeping last night, maybe because of the swimming, I had some body ache. However, I went through some agile presentations and fell asleep. Today I had a call with an alum in IBM. She gave me some good suggestions for trying for roles in Capital One and another startup in Durham. It's been a lovely rainy day today. I must go for a run at 7:00 pm. I have a call with an alum from Cisco and Capital One today. I will speak to another alum at Google at 8:00 pm or later to understand how to prepare for the next discussion at the company I interned for.

I couldn't speak to the alums at Google and Capital One. Maybe I can speak to them over the weekend. That idiot who insults me keeps texting me and asking "What's up". I usually respond "Nothing much". This has been going on for a whole week. 

Day 21 - April 21

I think I slept around 6:00 pm yesterday and woke up only this morning at 9:00 am. That's a straight 15 hours. I think I was kind of depressed because history was repeating itself and neither the recruiter or the hiring manager at the company I interned for replied to my emails. I can't wait to move from here. This whole MBA journey has been so suffocating. I am very much an introvert and the whole partying doesn't make any sense to me. I would rather bond with smaller groups of people.

Today, I got an email from the recruiter asking for a time to speak in the afternoon. Let's see what he has to say.

So finally I hear back that I'm going to the second round of interviews next week. I will prepare well this time. My first round preparation was pathetic. I did nothing but watch movies and waste time. And only on the morning of the interview did I go over some behavioral questions. This time should be different.

Part of the reason was that their treatment of me for the last interviews was not that great.

I spoke with an alum at Medallia and with another alum at Capital One. Both the alums were very helpful and offered to refer me at their companies.

From 6:45 to 8:00, I was at the pool swimming. It was great after 2 days of break. I think I don't swim hard enough. 

Day 20 - April 20

Today I woke up at 10:00 am. I was watching movies until early morning 3:00 am. I wrote to the recruiter and the hiring manager at the company I interned for, but no response. I hope it's not a no. This company had interviews with me in February and they decided not to hire for that requisition any longer. The way the recruiter and hiring manager handled the communication was really bad. They would ignore my emails and I usually had to follow up three times to get a response. The recruiter was the worst. She never even had the courtesy to give me a clear picture of what was happening although I interned there . 

I have a sense of deja vu again. The hiring manager I spoke to was really good to talk to but again, people say all kinds of things but never follow through. I'm expecting the same here after my initial experience interviewing with the company.

I reached out to folks at Medallia, both recruiters and alums and I hope I can get the conversation started. Some of the recruiters at Medallia were really helpful, they forwarded my resume to the appropriate teams. This is a good strategy instead of only relying on alums. Only one alum responded and I hope to speak with him tomorrow.

I have become really cynical about people. Even when people speak sweetly to me, I have my BS detector on to detect any signs of insincerity. I find that most people are insincere when they interact with me regarding any position because they want to keep their options open.

I didn't exercise yesterday because I didn't want to run into people on the way. I will go today for a swim. That is one of the activities I look forward to. I'm kind of feeling hopeless again and I hope that going for a swim will lift my spirits.

I applied to 7 roles at Cisco. Tailored my resume to the roles. Let's see if anyone gets back.

Day 19 - April 19

The initial discussion with the company I interned for went well. There may be subsequent discussions and I have to brush up on Python, REST API and Django but I hope it will go well.

I started with the Python introductory course on Coursera.

Day 18 - April 18

Today I had two informationals, one with a senior executive with the company I interned for and another with a senior executive from Staples. Both went well. I also filed my taxes today, had a good lunch, swam for an hour and preparing now.

One of my classmates from school contacted me asking me to donate for the class gift. Seriously?! I don't even have a job and this is hardly a worthy cause. Donating to the school at this point is not on my mind at all.

She didn't seem to leave me so I contributed a small amount just to get her off my back.

Day 17 - April 17

Today again I woke up very late around 10:45. I then spoke with family and went brought some groceries and started for swimming. However, I forgot that the pool was open only until 3:00 pm. I thought it would be open till 5:00 pm and I had to come back. I watched a movie to relax and I will go over my behavioral questions. 

Day 16 - April 16

I woke up at 11:45 am today. This is really bad. I didn't keep an alarm and didn't realize how time passed. However, now the hopeless feeling that I get in the mornings when I wake up is gone. I am ready to face the day.

I shouldn't be sleeping after 10:00 am. I should wake up, meditate, read, work out and then face my day. Or at least, I should have these activities as part of my day. This will improve my mood and help me be positive.

I put all my items for sale on the university listings, craigslist, facebook and offerup. The total value of the items I have is around $700. I hope I can sell them before leaving from here.

I was just going to prepare some interview questions when my tax consultant called me and spoke to me for an hour and gave me instructions on how I should be mailing the forms for taxes. He was asking me to file as resident alien, when clearly as per the law I'm a non-resident alien. I do not want to deal with the IRS now or in the future. I had a hard time convincing him about that and finally I managed to convince him. I emailed a couple of alums at Wayfair. I'm going to have some milk and hit the bed.

Review of week 1

Writing this blog has been great. It has been a great place to vent my feelings and get my thoughts in order. This pas week has not been so great in terms of informationals. I only had 5 informational and a recap with another alum. I should be doing more. Pleasantly, all the people I spoke to were more than happy to forward my resume. I'm getting a lot of traction from alums which is awesome. I didn't apply much either.

My target for each week is

1. Conduct 25 informationals a week - 5 per day
2. Submit 50 quality applications a week - 10 per day
3. Send 200 emails - 40 per day
1. 100 recruiters
2. 100 alums
4. Prepare 10 questions a day - 5 technical cases, 5 general cases

Considering that I got this good advice only this week, here are my statistics for week 1 ending 15th April

1. Informationals - 7
2. Applications - 24
3. Emails sent - 27
1. Alums - 21
2. Recruiters - 6
4. Questions - 0

Navigating larger companies

I'm still lost as to how to navigate larger companies. Larger companies do sponsor visas and have a lot of alums there. However, the challenges are the following

1. Too many Business Units
2. Too many alums
3. Too many positions

To navigate this maze, I need to find one person who will forward my resume for as many positions I find. However, this was possible only in the company I interned with. I found an alum who is a real sweetheart in terms of helping others. He helped me find my internship by referring me. For full time too he referred me up to almost 20 positions so far in all kinds of roles (analyst, manager, sales, etc). These kind of people are so hard to find.

So this should be my strategy going forward.

1. For each company I will reach out to at least 5 people, so that even if one person is busy I can quickly fall back on the other people.
2. Also for each company I will reach out to at least 5 recruiters, so that the recruiter who is hiring for the role knows I exist. 
3. Identify latest positions. This is a pain in the wrong place for many of the positions because they don't have the options to sort by date. 
4. Tailor resume and submit.

On condescending people

Some people have been condescending to me recently.

One of my classmates told me when I was asking about something related to taxes and she goes "If you are stupid, what can other people do?". Well, I was really amazed at the audacity of that statement.

Another of the condescending people is my ex-manager. He recently called me up and advised me to apply only to the most boring companies because I won't get noticed at larger companies and my profile is unfit for well-known companies.

Time to distance myself from these kind of toxic people.

Day 15 - April 15

I woke up today feeling so disturbed. I submitted 3 applications for a company I interned for. I customized my resume for 2 but couldn't find any similarity between what I had done before and the role I was applying for for the 3rd application, so I just left it and submitted the resume that I had. Yay! Just one more. Customizing and submitting applications is pure torture. But I heard back from two of the recruiters at the company for the applications that I submitted yesterday (Senior Program Manager and Business Development Manager), so I hope this is a good strategy. They haven't invited me for interview or anything yet, but hearing back from the company itself seems like a good thing.

I heard back from another recruiter at the same company and they rejected me for the Marketing role (Partner Program Marketing Manager) I had applied for. At least the recruiter had the courtesy to reply to me and let me know.

Finally heard back this afternoon that they may be discussing with me next week for the Program Manager role and I am super excited about this company.

Do three checks before stalking people in companies
1. Are there alumni in the companies
2. Do they sponsor visas
3. Is the company hiring

Today I spoke with an alum from VMware and she told me she would help me get my resume noticed at VMware and also asked me to contact another person at Verizon. She also said she would coach me. I felt happy after the conversation and felt I was not alone in this.

I didn't go for swimming or exercise for the whole week and I'm feeling so unhealthy. I got dressed to go but it was slightly chilly and I decided against it. I should start from tomorrow. I came back and cooked some food, had dinner, watched Natalie Portman's interviews (I love her) and tracked the past week's progress. I will now speak with my family and call it a day.

Day 14 - April 14

Today I had a conversation with someone in ZocDoc and an alum gave the following advice

1. Target companies that are larger which don't have visa sponsorship issues.
2. Target roles that are general. I think sales and business development fit the bill.

So I applied to a Microsoft sales role and then I had a good lunch with a dear friend and just got back. I am reaching out to Microsoft Sales people and I will talk to more people at larger companies and try to get my resume noticed.

I applied to 5 roles at Palantir. 2 Business Operations and Strategy roles and 2 Technical Project Manager roles. I am going to apply to some other Deployment Strategist roles.  I also wrote to the two alums to see if they could put me in touch with the recruiter. I should write to the recruiter as well.

I also reached out to the recruiter at Kabbage and an alum at Indeed to see if they could consider me for sales roles.

I submitted 3 applications for the company I interned for. Have to do 4 more. Somehow managed to tailor my resume but couldn't do the cover letter. I have to apply for more roles and it doesn't seem that I can do 20 applications in one day. I should at least do 10 a day. This is pure torture.

I spoke to one alum from Target and she offered to forward my resume. The other alum from Target didn't call. She was supposed to call at 5:30 pm. Oh, well. This week, I haven't been reaching out to as many recruiters or alums. Here is my plan.

1. Reach out to 40 people a day. 20 recruiters, 20 alums.
2. Apply 20 applications. 10 customized applications. 10 small applications.
3. Prepare 10 questions a day. 5 general case questions, 5 tech case questions.

Day 13 - April 13

I woke up with a disturbed mind because I have to go to school today for a session. I filled out two applications for Microsoft and Nest and customized my resume and cover letters for both according to the job requirements. This feels more intentional and focused and I will see if there is any improvement. My target is to submit 20 customized applications a day.

So I went to school today and as soon as I went to get the bus, I met a classmate who asked me where I was going for full-time. It was pretty annoying but I kind of expected this from people so I told here I'm still recruiting and then headed to school.

At the session I was careful to avoid speaking to people and only made an effort to speak to people I really liked and felt comfortable with. On the other hand many people were delighted to see me and came and gave me hugs. I do like these people at school but everywhere there are some people who are not empathetic and will try to put you down.

I heard back from the recruiter at Nest saying she had passed on my resume to the university team. I got a message from the recruiter at Microsoft that she is busy so I will remind her after a couple of days.

I spoke to an alum who recently got into Nest and she gave me suggestions on the roles to target. She was really sweet. She told me to look into roles at Apptio, Mulesoft and Wayfair.

I have a bunch of applications to submit for the company I interned for. I got a referral from an alum there, so I will tailor my resume and cover letter and apply. 

Day 12 - April 12

Today my roommate woke me up with a loud conversation on her phone. I was instantly irritated. Sleeping is the only thing I do without thinking about a million things. And someone has to disturb that too. 

I have a session at school tomorrow and I'm dreading going to that because I don't want to meet classmates who will ask where I'm going for full time.

I have the call with this company in the afternoon. Hope I do well.

Update on this call, the company rejected me by saying that I was overqualified for this role.  So annoying that they had to get me on a Skype call to say that. Well, whatever.

Evening I cooked dinner for a friend and spoke to family and decided to call it a day.

Day 10 - April 10

This past week has been quite productive for me. My spirits are much better now after speaking with alums and getting their advice. They have given me some good tips for the job search. Let me see how things work out after implementing their advice. As usual, just as I anticipated, the useless career counselor guy just asked me for my contacts, which I didn't send. I am not going to share my contacts that I have taken pains to cultivate with the career counselor guy who doesn't want to do any work. He will actually take this list and pass it on to other students as if he has those contacts. Alumni are better than the career management, for sure. They give practical advice and have some clue about recruiting.

So the major things I learnt during my conversation with alums are

1. Tailor resume according to the jobs
2. Reach out to university recruiters/talent sourcers
3. Reach out to alums
4. Apply with a focused approach

I'm applying to companies in this way now. Let's see if this yields results.

Day 3 - April 3, 2016

Woke up at 10:00 am today. Didn't set any alarm because I was not anyway waking up earlier. Sent a few emails to Coursera alums and identified some opportunities to send to DocuSign alum. Spoke to family for an hour. Cried a couple of times, because it seems like my career is going nowhere. I never thought that it would come to this. So much of the job after MBA depends on what you have done before MBA. I am even trying for customer support manager roles and business analyst roles now. I can't say that I will only accept this because I need a job. And these roles are not even the roles that I really want.

In the meanwhile one of my classmates wanted to meet to hangout. I don't really want to meet anyone now, so I have to come up with some excuse.  God, I just wish I could go to sleep and never wake up.

Day 2 - April 2, 2016

Today I woke up at 10:00 am and worked on Ruby on Rails until about 12:00 pm. I was then mostly chatting with a friend, had lunch and then spoke to an alum from Pinterest. He offered to refer me at Pinterest, but also warned that most of the PMs at Pinterest were from HBS and it would be better if I looked at PM jobs at bigger software companies and then moved to Pinterest. He also said that typically startups don't have the budget for MBAs. Also he told me to try for Product Specialist roles at Google, FB, etc. That was a productive conversation. He also didn't have much to say about moving to the Bay Area except that it was very expensive and said that it was better to move there after graduation.

I then went and bought some groceries, all the while thinking I hope I don't meet anyone from school and that I don't want to make small talk. I then went for a long run for about an hour and a half, showered, ate some cereal and penned my day down.

Its amazing how little gets done when there's so much time to do things. I am going to keep track of time from tomorrow especially since I have to be mindful and also since I seem to be wasting a lot of time on the phone. I also have to sleep only by 2:00 am since I don't seem to muster the energy to wake up early. My mornings are usually filled with dread and hopelessness. After that I slowly muster the courage to face mornings.

Day 1 - April 1, 2016

I decided to chronicle my experiences in the job search and life in general for two reasons.

1. It keeps me motivated to do something
2. It would help others who are trying to search for a job and perhaps others can learn from my mistakes.

So here goes.

I had a couple of informational interviews today. Given that I'm trying for both PM and Operations jobs, I spoke to alums from Nest, Avaya and Prosper Marketplace. The general advice from people was that I need to be more focused on my job search. The alum from Nest told me that an operations job was very different at a hardware company when compared to a software company and asked me to speak to people at Apple, which looks like it doesn't care much about previous background. She did not offer to refer me. After our conversation, I realized that my experience was not a good fit for Nest, and I decided to stop networking there.

The alum from Avaya asked me to do research on certain companies and was willing to put me in touch with people at those companies. The alum from Prosper said that I need to seek a PM role after MBA and taking up any other role would hurt my chances later. She was willing to refer me as well.

Also, one alum from IBM said he can't refer me to roles because I didn't seem to be focused in my job search, meaning I was trying to apply to roles that had no connection with my previous experience, my MBA and what I was trying to do in the future. Oh, well. 

I also made an awesome connection with a PM from GitHub. She is simply amazing and was very sweet in answering questions I put forth to her. She suggested that I brush up on technical skills, including learning Ruby on Rails and Python.

One person from our career management center reached out asking if I need help. I have always found nothing useful came out of the conversations with the career management center and they have usually been a waste of time. When I do meet them, they ask me to share the contacts of the alums that have been helpful so that they can pass that on to other students. Why they don't do their job and try to be of use to students is a mystery to me. 

On the other hand, I also have moved to the next round at a travel brokerage company and hope I can do the next round of interview well. This is on April 12th.

I went for a long swim today. To be honest, my roommate was playing a movie very loudly and I found myself getting irritated, so I thought best thing to do now is to get out of the house and go for a swim. I find myself in better spirits now, much much better than I was this morning. I will definitely go for a swim everyday.

The depression of joblessness

Not having a job is terrible. When all your B-School classmates have a job and something to look forward to after graduation, here I am without a job. I don't feel like speaking with anyone now. I actively avoid those who want to make any conversation with me and hardly go to school. I have completed my credits so doing that is easy. Even on those few occasions I go out socially, there is always some dumb ass who manages to ask, "So where are you going after school?". I have to resist the urge to punch them in the face. And also have to endure the sympathetic looks of classmates and people who are just plain curious.

Its been a month of not going to school and my schedule has become so erratic. I cry a lot, don't eat anything healthy and even those few conversations I have with alums lack so much confidence. I hardly know where I'm going and I don't want to speak to a soul.

I know this is not healthy and I don't have anyone to share this with. No support system and I don't want to show my emotions to those who don't care about me.

Off-campus recruiting

The MBA schools generally paint a rosy picture of recruiting, but try off-campus recruiting and you will realize that all is not what it seems. My school is not known for tech recruiting and I have to do a lot of informational calls and get referrals from alumni to get my resume noticed by the recruiter at companies.

However, even after that it is not a given that I will be considered for the job. I have experience in tech, but not in product management and many jobs are straight out rejections because of that.