Insights on the journey of looking for your first work experience

Hi ??????, my name is Karina and I felt like sharing... ??

I started my professional career a couple of years ago and I'm no expert, but I believe that because I'm not that far from the start I can give you a good and real inside of what it's like to look for a job, to make your resume and always keep in mind that relationships are EVERYTHING, especially if we're talking about work.

So, I'm not gonna tell you about my history, you can check it in my profile (and if you have any questions please reach out and I'll be happy to answer) but it was kind of a big surprise. I started in a global-big-corporation and I have the best time. I learn the processes and what it's like to have a leader, a mentor, and a boss that doesn't have to be the same person. I learned that relationships between areas are important, and most importantly, I learned to lay down my defenses and erase this old and boring idea that we need to be SUPER respectful with our superiors and peers (because when you work in LATAM you know what I'm talking about, let's share a mate and talk about the government you know, or the last concern you went to)

That little intro was just to tell you that your first work experience will be magical in so many ways and either you're having a bad time or you're happy, you have to squeeze it as much as you can because it can be the foundation of your work ethic, so you need to filter everything you learn to pick up the best practices of the market. Here are my tips for... everything related to work, honestly:

?? "I never worked legally before, I was a cashier or helped in my family business" GREAT, use that ??

People tend to believe that if you didn't sign a contract that doesn't count as a professional experience, but they're wrong. If you're just starting your career I can assure you, that it helps because it shows you're responsible, you have the right attitude, and you learned processes and how to deal with clients.

Also, non-profitable projects are great as well as long as you can say something about it. Why did you do it? What did you learn? What were the challenges? Would you do it again? What's the next step? It's super interesting to hear candidates talk about this because I want to know the person behind the job titles, and who you are besides your position. I like people who have interests and find purpose in more than just earning money (not bad at all but it's interesting, even if you love money, show me you have projects where you thought about creative ways to save/earn more)

?? "Basic jobs like assistant or waitress or cashier are so easy to explain but hard to sell on a job interview" well, you are wrong my friend ??

A couple of years ago, when I didn't have experience, I had the opportunity to use this platform to find great people. One of them is Kaitlyn. She's an expert in the HR industry (little did I know a recruiter and an HR expert are different) and I connected with her just to see if she can help me in some way because I was applying to EVERYTHING but I had no answer what so ever. She told me sometimes, if you don't have a professional job description or if you don't have one at hand, you can just google the description. Just search "Administrative Assistant job description" and all you need to do is read and copy + paste all the tasks that apply to what you did. It's a great way to add professionalism to a "simple" job (there's nothing simple about anything so don't you ever think little of yourself, never. Every job has its complexity, especially the not fancy ones. I see you, I respect you.)

??♀? If you don't have job experience and you're applying for your first job, make sure you're participating in extracurriculars ??

We all hear the question "Can you think of a challenge you had faced? What did you do/ what was the outcome?", how do you respond if you feel like you never experienced anything interview-worthy?

Sometimes everything is in your head. Believe me, working with 4 people for a university project is not something simple, especially when the number of participants grows. We face difficulties every day, you just need to prepare for this challenge in your head because an interview is the first test of your storytelling skills: Everything needs to have an introduction or beginning, a conflict, and a resolution, whether it's good or bad. Remember that you need to be careful about the tone and how you tell it because you can put yourself as the victim of the situation, the problem-solver, the hero of the story, and the most perfect man alive, or a leader.

Remember they want to see how you manage problems if you analyze the situation and look for a solution if you're short-tempered if you get frustrated easily, or if you're emotional. And you don't have to be perfect about it, we all have flaws. If you are sensitive and emotional like me, you can say it, you should say it, in some jobs will be a disadvantage but at least you know that that role was not a fit for you! (Looking for the bright side here)

Let me give you a clear example: I've been chosen as a youth group leader in my church several times, and I've been in charge of the logistics a couple of times for the fall camps we have outside the city. That gives you SO MANY EXAMPLES OF POSSIBILITIES because it involves emotion, teamwork, organizational skills, communication skills, trusting, and delegating. Everything can be a challenge, just take a few hours/days to think about your own. Be creative! And write it down. Read it to your friends or family and check if you're clear about the whole history.

?? "I'm applying to EVERYTHING and no one is giving me the opportunity." ??

I made a list back in the day of how many companies I applied to. Wanna take a guess?

.

.

.

.

.

55. 55 job applications on multiple platforms (because you know what I'm talking about, EVERY MAJOR COMPANY HAS A DIFFERENT WORKDAY WHERE YOU HAVE TO CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT) and after 55 rejections (silent or through an automatic email) I made it, I got the opportunity to work as an intern at Dell Technologies. And you know what? Worth the wait.

I just want to say that I talk from my point of view. I know is hard for people who have a family to take care of, it's harder to wait so long even when you apply to everything, and there's SO MUCH competition out there. I know that, but I truly believe that you'll get the job you need to be in. I'm a believer, so this could come as a cliche but God will make way.

You will find it. And I hope that when you do, you'll be happy about it. There's a moment where you start to apply to everything, even if it's not what you want but you check the requirements so you do it, but if you have the chance to choose please, do yourself a favor and choose what makes you happy, or where you're comfortable. And if you can't choose, I pray that you find a great place for you, some workplace with great people.

?? Be creative with your resume! ??

I really like a good resume. I remember a few resumes and I can give you a lot of examples of what to do and what you should not do, never. For example, NEVER use a light green with white letters and share with me 14 pages of your projects and experience, I really don't need that. I really encourage people to try to sum up everything into one page, two if it's really necessary. Do not add your exact address, it's not necessary and it's actually confidential, we don't need that in resumes if you get hired the recruiter will ask for that information.

It's also important to watch the typography and fonts! You need to decide if want to show yourself as creative, formal or casual because letters also send a message. Choose carefully what you want to communicate, and play! If you're more of an artistic profile you can do so many different things. Think outside the box! And this also applies to portfolios and URLs with your projects and examples of your work.

?? If you know what you want to do (if you're lucky enough haha) dive deep into the industry and subject ??

Do your research on all the things you need to know about your area. If you like HR like me, you have a WORLD to investigate. There are different departments and areas to focus on like people experience, candidate experience, generalist, payroll, IT recruiting, remote, operations, and employer brand. SO MANY THINGS and this applies to every single area. The Internet allowed us to have everything we need in different formats, so take your time to develop and grow in your area even before you start: Read books, listen to podcasts or audiobooks, follow influencers or representatives of the industries/areas, connect with peers or people who can be your mentors, watch Youtube videos, follow LinkedIn pages or join Slack/Telegram/Discord channels and find a community so you can learn together and have each other back,

?? You're not alone: Use LinkedIn to connect ??

I don't know why did you start using LinkedIn, but I started because I wanted to find people, great people. Either peers or work friends or leaders, mentors, CEOs, or influencers, you can follow them and see their content, and you can even try to connect and talk with them. They are people, just like you and me. I had the opportunity of meeting people around the globe, even when I didn't have anything to do with them. I mentioned Kaitlyn before, and I used this platform to talk to one of the founders of Rappi, Simón, or to one representative of Mercadolibre to write my thesis about fintech, Guido.

LinkedIn it's an amazing platform, so use it wisely. You can build your brand and start posting and you can become an influencer in your industry, your role, and your area. You can reach out to whomever you want and talk about anything! But be careful what you share, make sure it's from a reliable source because... fake news are all over the world and everywhere, and we don't want to misinform anyone.

Most importantly, when you reach out to people, remember to be kind. This world needs kindness no matter what you do and where you are, show love and respect to the world. Be open to learning and listening.

?? LinkedIn is not the only place to look for jobs ??

Dear reader: LinkedIn might be the biggest networking platform, but depending on your location, you have all kinds of pages like Indeed, Glassdoor (now working with Indeed), Bumeran, Google for Jobs, Computrabajo, Zonajobs, Hiring Room, Adecco, Manpower, Wolib, among others. Those are job boards where everyone can publish a new position.

You can also check the company's web page if you want a specific company like Disney, JP Morgan, Dell Technologies, IBM, Sellerate, etc. Usually, you can find it on the home page of their website. And if you want to go a step further, you can also reach out to the recruiters of the company! Be careful though, some of us are really busy and might not get back to you as soon as possible but it's worth the shot!

I know that if you're planning on working in tech, the world is completely different. You can rapidly check the general pages and job boards but we move at a different... speed. You will receive LinkedIn messages all over once you move forward in your career but in the meantime, you can check Revelo, work freelance with Upwork, and other companies like Turing.com, Toptal or Andela. It's also pretty normal to find job opportunities through Telegram groups or Discord Channels. If you're in LATAM I can share with you some of the groups so you can hear about it!

Like I said before, following people who are known in the industry can be very beneficial. I used to work in a company whose main service was selling high-tech, so I had to follow a lot of people from the BDR/ADR and Sales world. An amazing guy called Andrew Mewborn created a job board with different companies and you can check some remote jobs from all around the world. It's small but if you want that type of job you can check his page, it's called The Good Morning Job Board! The recruiting community in Argentina also has a Slack channel where you can find job opportunities so engage with people and find more about these type of boards and communities!

Last but not least, you can check companies who hire people from all over the world for clients! Athyna.io it's one of them and you can find jobs in Sales, Marketing, IT, Design, and Administration. It's great and it has a super friendly UX so I highly recommend you to check it out! And it's ALL REMOTE. You need a great level of English and all the requirements listed on each job post, and the recruiters, sourcers, customer experience, sales reps, and all the team will help you with everything you need

?? Do your research on the companies you apply for ??

This is because the relationship is mutual. They check your resume, so you need to check their rating. Two main platforms to do that: Glassdoor is the most important one, and the second might be LinkedIn, and I'm not talking about their LinkedIn profile, I'm talking about reaching out to current employees to discuss the opportunity. You have the right to know about the company culture without a recruiter selling it to you, at least that's what I think.

For IT, remember it's different. You can check the Glassdoor page, but you can also check another platform called OpenQube. You'll have different resources besides the rating of the companies like salary benchmark, what technologies does the company use, reviews and what do they offer as benefits.

Another alternative is asking for another step in the interview. You can ask for a peer interview with someone who will be your buddy or part of your team or just a random employee from another area. It's always good to meet someone from the company that's not a part of the hiring process.

?? Last thoughts... ??

So, I don't know if someone told you anything I said before... But I hope you learned something and you can share it with someone who didn't know about it?

I love working in recruiting, because to be honest I love the journey of finding your new job, and the process of everything, from attending interviews to the onboarding process, the anxiety from both sides, to be honest! Taking care of people's experiences is the best thing for me, and that's why I love to understand people and how they think and act.

I hope this was understandable, but if it wasn't and you have a question, like I said, please reach out! I love to talk and if you disagree with me, reach out as well because I need different perspectives of this life, it's enriching haha

Thank you so much for reading, it felt amazing to think about this because it applies (hopefully) to people in different stages of life, and I can look back with no regrets what so ever, I've met incredible people and I can seriously share with you amazing people who can help you grow in your career, and if I don't know them I'll try to reach out to them for you! ????

#experience #firstjob #jobprocess #interviews #job_opportunities #recruiting