I think the biggest and most important piece of information we included was about time management. Maybe I think this is a lot more important because I’ve been interviewing with so many companies and I have been applying to even more companies, but I wish I knew the commitment level each application takes. Each application is asking for the exact same information. They want to know your education background, your work experience, your extracurriculars, and what makes you different from all the other candidates. But every company wants it in a different format in a different order on a different page. And of course you can’t just send in your resume (even though it contains all the info they want), you have to rEgypt everything and then hopefully they will look at your resume and see how you wanted everything to be formatted and everything you wanted to include. And even though typing each application only takes an hour or two (let’s say an hour and a half just on average including writing a cover letter and such), after you apply for ten jobs you’ve already spent fifteen hours and you haven’t gotten anywhere but hitting the “send” button.
Now let’s say half of these companies decide you are good enough for an interview. This means for each of these companies you have to at least a hour (probably more like two) researching and reviewing exactly what it is about them that you like, what area you want to go into, what the job description actually entails, locations choices, and the list can keep going. So now you’ve spent another ten hours (twenty five total so far) before you even get to the interview process.
Now you finally start getting to talking to people. Each interview takes around an hour and a half commitment from making sure your suit is clean (doing laundry if it isn’t) making sure you get to campus on time, and then actually going through the interview. So this stage takes a total of seven and a half hours. We have already spent over thirty hours on job stuff and gotten no where near an offer.
Let’s be generous and say of these first round interviews, you get invited for three final round, super days, or on sites. This means you have to set aside at least two days (one day for travel, one for interviewing), but sometimes three days to attend their interviews. And we get lucky, and we get an offer from one of them. This means from the starting ten companies, we’ve spent 175+ hours to receive one offer… Now imagine if you started with thirty companies. Or fifty.
Having to deal with all of the time I had to set aside from school, friends, or just relaxing is honestly exhausting. And draining. I really wish I could’ve known the demand that applying to jobs would take so I could’ve taken an extra class during my junior or sophomore year just so I would’ve had a lighter work load and could’ve managed everything better.
alexanderhansen2016 