So i'm posting the story of my life in hopes that it inspires somebody else, but more importantly to drive home just how much "luck" is involved in getting that really ****ing elusive first job.
If you don't know me IRL (a handful of you do) I'm a 22 year old Compensation Analyst/HR Business Partner for a large scale entertainment company servicing contracted employees, multiconcurrent employees, and a bunch of other employment classes specializing in equity compensation and bonus structures. To put this as blunt as I can, I had absolutely no ****ing intention of ending up where I am right now, but god DAMN am I happy I did.
I've been in finance my entire life. I was a member of the business club in high school, took financial electives in high school, joined a fraternity with a plethora of finance alumni, and did a number of internships that directly pertained to what I wanted to do (I originally wanted to work on the buyer side of IB). Some of my internships (I had 5 total in my academic career) were absolute class with top notch compensation, excellent leadership, and really well structured programs in place for its members. But those internships don't turn you into a savage. Their a resume goldmine and have some excellent skill building exercises, but the difficult internships (that are usually illegal) are the ones that made me into a hungry, excel maestro psycho that I wound up being. I also participated in my school's portfolio planning, attempted to compete in the CFA challenge (lol, didn't go well), and got numerous excellent contacts in school. Me and a classmate almost had a case study we did published but we simply didn't have the time to complete our paper in time.
Now why the **** did I tell you all that? Because it did **** all to get me a job out of undergrad. Go figure, like most finance professionals my age can attest to, my resume still wasn't much better than a handful of my graduating class. All that hard work did **** all when it came to send in 200 applications only to get like 4 responses for thinly veiled sales positions that I had no interest in doing. It was dehumanizing. I felt like a total failure and that I was doomed to bartend for like 10 years while trying to get those ****s at Goldman Sachs to like me. I applied to the 5 year program at my school to do my MBA concurrently with my bachelors. So a full year of pointless attempts at networking (learned that real quick from this thread, LOL) and some more pointless resume stroking ahead. Yippee.
So I decided to apply to a company I liked a bit so I had something to do for my last fall semester. I actually totally ****ed up my interview because of a clerical error and it poorly set the tone for the entire interview. The recruiter called me back while I was **** drunk to let me know she went in another direction (although she had made up her mind on a candidate and I was just a formality, I found this out later on). But she let me know that someone in HR really liked my resume and wanted to talk to me. Now sober me would have said **** no to this, and call it a waste of time, but I was happy and in another place so I was like SUREEEE LETS TALK. Our interview went excellent and I was hired into the role, I was actually their first intern in that particular sub department. Hit it off really well with my boss and my supervisor and was quite literally thrown to the wolves because our department was heinously understaffed at the time. My role had me reviewing stock award contracts and loosely managing the plan, general administrative stuff but I caught on very quickly and became very well versed in our plans and their structures as time went on. I became the go-to guy for this stuff because my director was so busy and it was in the middle of a rough season for us. I started asking for more work, and developed my skills there like nowhere else with an excellent group of mentors. They extended me for another semester because I was really happy there and fit well in my role; it was in the back of my mind that I wanted to do something like this instead of IB but I didn't take it that seriously. My second semester I started interacting with the SVP of my department a lot more, doing projects just between us and preparing presentations for him. My SVP was ****ing incredible and to this day, the best boss I've ever had. Keep in mind, I was hired more in a data analysis role and a lot less in a compensation role, but compensation were so worked to death they absolutely needed me there; my supervisor (the guy that hired me) was doing work he quite literally had never done before because they were desperate.
I let my SVP know I wanted to make a career here, and that I've never been so engaged like I was here. He subtly pushed me onto other teams that needed help after me telling him this and I thrived, because this was obviously a test and I wasn't about to fail it. Loved my role, got as involved with the company and corporate outings as I could, and was generally having a great time and learning more every day. I would get officially hired halfway through the semester, even though we didn't really have the budget room for this, and I went through the ****ing roof. Today I got a big salary adjustment as part of our new approach to young talent retention, and I'm making serious money right now when people my age aren't even getting jobs. I'm so blessed and thankful that my work paid off, but, let's recap here.
1) I (THANK GOD) ****ed up an interview that cost me the job I originally wanted and was SIGNIFICANTLY more qualified for.
2) I was **** drunk and in a totally different state when I agreed to another interview that I absolutely would not have done sober.
3) I was the first intern in this department.
4) I got a supervisor who was brand new to this field who was willing to go on the line to give me very sensitive work. Things most supervisors, uh, would not do.
5) I was dropped into a team that was mostly new and in an extremely busy and stressful time of the year.
6) I was blessed with an amazing team that wanted nothing more than to see me succeed.
7) I was fortunate enough to stupidly go the MBA route, which bought me a PERFECT amount of time to.........totally change my career?
8) I was fortunate enough to have a SVP who WENT OUT OF BUDGET to keep me.
9) I got a very, very gracious salary adjustment, because of my MBA.
Sure, I worked my ****ing ass off to get where I am now. But look at all the dumb luck I got hit with to get there. Look at all of the "wow, this really happened?" situations I encountered. I just wanted something to do for a semester!!!! And here I am.....the happiest I've ever been and in an absolutely wonderful spot in my life and my career.
All of you youngins (people my age, lol) need to take note. It's so luck based. Getting that 1st job is so damn hard because so little separates us from each other. Really, none of the advice I could give you differs from most of the excellent advice some quality posters here have given. But as a generation, we're really fighting an uphill battle, and it's hard man. I'm blessed, every day I recognize this. But you will be too. I promise.
Know your worth, try new things, grind away those internships you hate, get people on your side. The keys to success.
It's hard guys, but I have faith in all of you. And I'd be delighted to help any of you with networking or anything you might want to know. We're a great group here, hit us up.
Godspeed friends.