Finding your first co-op, internship or New Grad role is brutal in today's job market. There's no magic wand to fix this issue, but as a 2nd generation Canadian who managed to break into the corporate world through lots of failures & learning, I wanted to give back to students in my down time.
Finding a job is a skill in itself and many schools don't really teach this skill. I've started donating time each Sunday to provide free career coaching on ADPList. However, I realized that 1:1s is not the most sustainable so I wanted to dedicate time on building a self-serve, async resource hub for students to leverage. Investing time in this building this free resource in the hopes that it helps students that are struggling!
All of the sections are Works In-Progress! Always welcome feedback or suggestions If you have any feedback or thoughts, you can connect with me here!
I am sure that this answer comes up a lot, but I do believe that students who make an effort to network while in school set themselves up for success. Networking is an opportunity to learn more about the industry, learn of new job opportunities (before they are posted) and get insights from employers on how to stand out as a candidate. It should be noted that networking needs to be authentic and should be long-term focused. You should be connecting with people in order to build genuine relationships based on shared professional interests & values rather than the sake of securing a summer job.
Not sure of how Coffee Chats work?
One important point in networking: not every single person will have the capacity to support you, and that's okay. The reality is that we're all working professionals with families, obligations and commitments that exist outside of the work place. Alot of the time, I get messages from students and unfortunately, I'm not able to respond, not because of lack of interest, but due to capacity challenges. Students, when networking, it's important to not take "no" personally. Many times, it's just the one "yes" or offer to help that opens a door for you.
I find that when I tell students to "network", they automatically assume it's going to a stuffy career fair with thousands of people. There's nothing wrong with this approach either, but as an introvert, I actually much prefer 1:1 conversations more than anything.
If you're looking to find 1:1 coffee opportunities, some organizations to check out:
- Your local university or college's alumni program.
- Reaching out to speakers at your local community tech event or meetup.com. If you're in Tech, I compiled a list of meet-ups here if you want to check it out!
- Sites like Ten Thousand Coffees or ADPlist where you can get matched with professionals in the career path you're interested in. Alot of these professionals have intentionally volunteered their own time to meet students!
These are opportunities that are not posted, but come from informal conversations from friends, previous co-workers, referrals, networking and more. It's more work to tap into the hidden job market, but it's much more effective than applying through generic job boards. If curious, my last 3 jobs (including the one at Shopify) was actually from the hidden job market.
If you're not able to tap into the hidden job market, you can still leverage public job boards. I've taken the time to curate some below! Would also love readers to recommend job boards that I've missed as well!
Examples of Public Postings:
- Campus Career Centres - if you're a student at a college or university, part of your tuition goes to student services like the Career Centre. Alot of the time these career centres will have job boards available for students that go to that particular school. Highly recommend this is a first place to start
- Talentegg.ca - directory of co-op, internship and new graduate jobs for Canadian students! They also have a resource section for students on various career development topics.
- Handshake - directory of internship and new graduate jobs for American students! It's the best place to go to! I learned about this platform while as a Campus Recruiter working on hiring in the US school system.
- Otta - I just recently discovered this website, but it's super cool! You can set the details of your ideal role (job title, level of experience, location, salary expectations) and this site will automatically recommend jobs for you.
- Indeed.com/Indeed.ca - Indeed is probably one of the most well-known platforms for public job postings. Worth mentioning!
- LinkedIn - As a student, you should really have a LinkedIn profile. It's basically the calling card for modern day job search and serves as a marketing tool for you to stand out. One really interesting feature about LinkedIn is the ability to set auto alerts for jobs that match your interests. Check out this article to enable the feature.
Learning to leverage Boolean Strings to source job postings
- As a corporate recruiter, my job is to headhunt. Sharing some tips and tracks for students to leverage boolean strings to find job opportunities.
- What is a Boolean String?
- Try putting this search string into Google's search bar: (site:linkedin.com) AND (“internship” OR "Co-op" OR "New Graduate") AND Toronto - VOILA, you'll get a list of jobs from LinkedIn that correspond to Internship/Co-op/NewGrad and Toronto
Things that have interested me about a person's profile:
- Courses/Academic Background - show us what you're learning. If it's unconventional and intentional - I love that, it shows me you have intellectual curiosity.
- Hobbies/Interests - I've always found that if someone is able to channel their passion into continuous learning (even if it has NOTHING to do with their career), it's a huge signal of discipline and self-motivation. I see it as a sign of their growth potential in their career.
- Side projects on Github, Kaggle, Behance - having random projects you work on shows me that you're interested in your field outside of the direct pay check. I'm not expecting someone to be commiting code every night on personal projects while raising a family! I think having side projects is a nice optional thing that can show recruiters that you enjoy the craft/career you've chosen. I think it's also important to state that if you genuinely are fulfilled in your day-to-day responsbilities (don't get me wrong, being paid is super important to), you have a higher chance of sustaining yourself in the marathon known as a career.
- Campus extra-curriculars, specifically leadership roles - Getting involved on campus is a huge plus for students, you get to: meet new friends, build new soft skills (project management, time management, public speaking, and more), networking, and much much more. Outside of the benefits to you as a student, as an employer, I love seeing what students are passionate about and it is a signal that you're the type to take initiative and fix those "broken windows".
Each course is video based and allows learners to move at their own pace as well. As a student, you can really build up your technical skills to prepare you for future work terms & impress your employers! From my own experience, Excel & Outlook Fundamentals are a great start to your learning journey.
I firmly believe the best candidate is the best person for the role and the best person for the company. The strongest candidate may not get the job if they have not taken the time to learn about the company including its values & products. For students interviewing for summer internships, I strongly suggest taking the time to research the company you are interviewing for.Some potential sources of information include:
- Career Focused Websites (Glassdoor, etc)
- Social Media Websites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)
- Corporate Social Responsibility Reports
- Company Financial Statements or Quarterly Earning Reports
- The Recruiter
- The Hiring Manager
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The most common type of interviews are STARR interviews (Situation, Task, Action, Results, Relate). Knowing how to communicate in this format will do wonders for your job search. My secret hack to mastering STARR interviews is to create your own bank of examples for various competencies you've demonstrated. IE. If you know detail-orientated is required in the jobs that you apply for, you should take the time to write out 2-3 examples of times where you showed detail-orientation. The intent is not to memorize the examples verbatim, BUT, it allows you to automatically jog up the example and be able to authentically and clearly communicate an example. The worst thing is when you know you've showed the skill before, but your mind just runs "blank" due to the pressures of a live interview.
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I always advise candidates to review the skills, competencies & qualifications section of a job posting before an interview. Imagine that section of the posting as the thesis and your answers as the paragraphs in your essay. You need to consciously link back to the thesis in the conversation.
Be kind to yourself
Last, but not least, be kind to yourself. The job search process is not easy and may be filled with rejections! I know that I received rejections well into the double digits while looking for internships & full-time work. Don’t take it personally and use your rejections as motivation to improve your applications and interviews.
I hope this github repo helps you with your job search and that when it comes to that time in your career where you can give back, you choose to do so. Please pass it forward! :)