Mining for Jobs Part 1: Applications

After two months of going though the job hunt process, I'm happy to say that I've found work for Winter 2015! As a first year, particularly Stream 4, I definitely felt the pressure from submitting my first application up to deciding which job to take. In this next series of posts, I'll be reflecting on my experience with the different steps of the job search and what I've learned from the first ever job search.

The University of Waterloo has an internal job search system called JobMine (which inspired the title of this series) for its co-op students to find and apply for jobs on. The first part of the job search consisted of reading through hundreds of listings and deciding which ones to apply for. JobMine limits applications to 50 per round, likely to prevent everyone from applying to everything. Without much previous job experience or even programming experience in general, it was a fine line to decide between the "safe picks", entry-level jobs that didn't require a lot of experience, and the "long shots", jobs where I didn't meet all the requirements.

The easiest way I found to sort potential jobs that I wanted to apply to was by three categories:

1. Fits most requirements
2. Fits some requirements
3. Hard to get

As I added jobs that I was interested in to my shortlist, I added them to one of the categories; this made it a lot easier to keep track of how many of each type of job I was shortlisting. Then, when it came time to apply, I could easily choose from the categories and keep track of how many jobs in each category I was applying to.

From this round of the job search, here are some important things that I learned:

• Don't be overwhelmed by a long list of required skills: As a general rule of thumb, employers who list a lot of requirements generally aren't looking for someone who fits exactly all of them. I mostly applied to jobs from the first two categories above, but I also took a chance to apply for some "hard to get" jobs. You never know specifically when you'll fit well with what an employer is looking for; while it's good to be realistic, the required skills are only part of the picture.
• Don't be scared to apply to jobs that many people have applied to: I made this mistake when considering whether or not to apply for some jobs, in thinking "what chance will I have against tens or hundreds of other people"? Again, you just never know, so if it is a job that you really want, it doesn't hurt to take a shot.
• Be specific on your resume: Writing specific details about relevant skills or experience and how they'd apply on the job not only helps employers to connect your skills to their work, but also helps you in deciding what to talk about/elaborate on if you manage to snatch an interview!
• A cover letter isn't always the best way to go: I actually chose not to write any cover letters when I applied for jobs, because I didn't have a lot of time to personalize them for different jobs. From what I've heard, it's sometimes better to not include a cover letter at all if it's going to be a generic one. Unless you're confident that your true interest in a job or skills description shines through in a cover letter, it might be best if you just didn't include one.

Overall, I definitely learned a lot from the very first round of job application; thinking ahead, I will be changing my mindset a little when applying for jobs next round. I hope that these tips are useful to Stream 8 co-op students or anyone really who is looking for a job. Job applications are a crucial first step because they are the deciding factor for whether or not you receive an interview (which I'll be talking about in the next part). All in all, be prepared, don't be afraid of failure, and I'm sure the results will show for themselves.

Midterm Week Is Over

It's hard to believe that my very first university term is already half over. Last week, commonly referred to as "Hell Week" here at Waterloo, has been a whirlwind of studying for and writing all of our midterms in the span of five days. There were definitely a few stressful moments throughout the week, from unease about the very first exam (calculus) to apprehension over the notoriously difficult physics midterm. Reminiscent of the pressure that I'd felt during International Baccalaureate exams only a few months ago, this week seemed to bring about more anxiety due to it being our first official test of university. Whether it was self-motivation or simply the weight of stress - likely a combination of both - many of us spent the weekend of Thanksgiving studying rigorously for the midterms to come.

Since I am in Stream 4, midterms happened to coincide with the second-last week of job interviews for winter co-op positions (which I'll be talking about more in my next post!). I happened to also have one to two interviews a day, so I spent the week running around from midterm to interview, then back to my dorm to prepare for the next ones. Thankfully, we had the week off from classes, meaning that we could focus all our effort on exams. One of the main things I've enjoyed about living in residence is always having a group of people to study with; in high school, I preferred to study independently, and while I still like to study alone for more major exams, it really helps to have a network of people to go to with questions, where we're able to help each other out.

They key to midterms, I soon realized, is to study past exams. You can study lecture notes or the textbook for as long as you want, but it isn't as effective as studying actual exams from previous years. Often, it becomes easy to see patterns of questions you know for sure will appear again. University exams focus more on applying what you know versus simply just knowing it, so it really helps to practice examples and put your knowledge to the test. 

Overall, midterms went by smoothly, and I am quite pleased with how I did. I think that they were a great introduction into how to better study for exams in university; it already feels as if finals are right around the corner. Thankfully, they're not all in one week, as they are quite heavily-weighted toward our final course grade. Now that exams are over, the focus is back on securing a co-op job; I'll be discussing some of my experiences with employer interviews soon, as Monday is when I find out where I'm working next term! More exciting details to come.