Kevin Zou

Takeaways from my job search as a new grad

December 31st, 2021

There were two major thoughts I had going into my final year at UBC:

  1. Having as much fun as possible
  2. Job search

We can save the details of first topic for another post, but to sum it up it's been an amazing final year so far.

Now let's talk job search.

The story

Over the pandemic and restrictions in the summer of 2020, I (like many others) got a bad case of the travel bug. I had visited Japan the year before and was interested in going again, and I got the idea to actually go for a year to teach English. This was my way of taking a year off after graduating while a) travelling, and b) not burning a hole in my bank account.

The situation was not one-or-the-other, and I was fortunate enough that I could puruse the option of teaching in Japan and a SWE job out of school. That being said, the one thing I underestimated was how difficult it would be to actually find a job. I quickly went from seriously considering Japan to abandoning the idea and focusing solely on job search.

Around the same time I was considering Japan, my friend (who had a full time offer in San Francisco) planted the idea of me looking for jobs in the States. Previously I was content with either returning to a previous co-op and haphazardly sending out applications to FANG companies, but we will see from the results of my job search how I shifted to companies in San Francisco. Said friend brainstormed a list of 100 companies to apply to, giving me a great base to start with.

The beginning was tough. I did poorly on an Amazon OA and was not finding much success elsewhere. But I just kept applying and eventually you get interviews and eventually one sticks. After nearly 4 months of applying, doing OAs, and interviewing, I finally received (and accepted) an offer for an exciting startup in San Francisco. The opportunity is great, not only for my professional development but to explore the world and gain more experience overall.

Throughout the process I made heavy use of Notion to track applications and it definitely provided order to all the chaos. In retrospect there are small improvements I'd make, but ultimately it was a simple and effective way to facilitate my job search.

The process

  1. Upon finding a company to apply for, I add it to
  2. I would add this company + their hiring page/link to a table in Notion
  3. When I applied, I would set an Apply Date to know how long since my application
  4. Update the entry in Notion as needed with an OA/interview/etc.

My profile

  • 5th year Computer Science student from UBC
  • 16 months of co-op experience (small/mid sized companies)
  • Plenty of front-end web dev experience, some full-stack experience
  • Leadership roles within two student clubs (one being directly relevant to development/engineering)
  • Small personal projects

Interesting stats

I applied to 114 different companies, located in a variety of places:

  • 98 in the United States
  • 12 in Canada
  • 3 in Japan
  • 1 in Europe

Of these applications I was:

  • ghosted by 60
  • rejected by 48
    • 8 of which I was in the pipeline for
  • interviewing with 1
  • offered a role with 1

The remaining 4 companies did not align with my job search, and I decided to not move forward in the hiring process.

Takeaways

  1. Applying is draining, especially if you're not getting responses. I couldn't be too picky about the companies I applied to, but it's important to apply to places that fit your needs. Whether you're "good enough" is less important - an application only takes a couple of minutes to submit and the worse that will happen is getting ghosted.
  2. Job search was difficult to juggle with school. It was fairly common to have school deadlines coincide with OAs and interviews.
  3. Having people to motivate you, give advice, and provide leads is extremely helpful. Many of my close friends had put a ton of work into their own search and they provided great insights. In fact, the company I received an offer from was actually sourced by a good friend.
  4. Be confident in yourself, especially the further you are in the hiring process. It's easy to forget the people you are talking with are just that - people. If you have an interview you already know they like you enough to not reject you. They are also spending time and money on you because they deem you hireable. It would be a loss for them to not hire you, so remember that they are actively looking for reasons to hire you.
  5. It only takes one yes to cancel out every no.

Random thoughts

  • I had a couple of referrrals to places, but they did not get me further in the process
  • I prefer technical interviews over OAs
  • Japanese companies rarely have entry-level roles

In conclusion

It has been a wild 4 months and I'm amazed at how things turned out. I did a complete 180 in terms of what my future looked like, and now I'm bound for a different city in another 4 months. The entire process was grueling, but now that it's over I can breathe a little.

The main motivation for this post was to reflect on the entire process. The fact that it's over still hasn't sunk in and it may not until I graduate and get ready for the next chapter in my life. Hopefully there was a useful tidbit or two that you gained from reading this post.