他找到了一份Assistant Business Analyst job with a F500 company
Really appreciate VE for taking time out of your busy schedule to help me iron out my career path.
I feel obliged to share my humble job-seeking story with VE fellows. I enrolled in VE class back in 2010 when I was just about to finish my study. Back then, I was very keen to get into a promising industry with a fancy title, such as graduate program with bigfour accounting firms. After a couple of goes in the job market, I came to realise that it was next to impossible for international students with no local experience and no permanent Visa to land a fancy job. Someone might be good enough to succeed but I was definitely not in that group. Anyway, then I got to know VE through a friend and enrolled in the foundation class. The training course helped me get a firm grasp on MYOB and taught me how to present myself to stand out among others.
After the class, I got a job with an organisation in public sector as an AA, which was quite in line with my goal. The interview process was quite causal. Despite I had very limited experience to back up whatever I said, the interviewer somehow decided to take a leap of faith and offered me this job. Everything had been going pretty well down the track and I learned a great deal over the year. However, I still ended up reaching to a ceiling where progress became sluggish. After going back and forth for a while, I made the decision to move on to a place where was more fast-paced and challenging.
The one year experience I got didn’t seem to make the job-seeking process any easier.I got rejected a number of times, forcing me to get in the mindset that there must be somethingI did wrong. One day, I received a call from a job agency, saying there was an Assistant BA job with a F500 company. The position was very appealing whilst I needed to pass four rounds of interviews to get the offer. I kept telling myself not bringing more hopes up yet as history might repeat itself. The agency was very keen on me for no obvious reason besides her commission but she did offer some invaluable advices.
The first round of interview was quite intensive, including meeting with BA and regional manager for an hour and a short test on my writing skill and logical reasoning. At the conclusion of the interview, the BA with a big smile on his face said” it was perfect” and asked me to get prepared for the second round interview with the director who would fly from America to Australia in a week. In an effort to impress the director, I pulled all her information from Link in and read the company’s financial book like crazy.
The second round interview went surprisingly smooth with no hard question being asked. I could tell she was still beating the jet lag and apparently not in the mood of doing this interview. So I took the initiative to ask her a lot of questions over a number of relevant and irrelevant topics, which including stupid question like” do you reckon apple is looking to expand their product portfolio or narrow their focus on their core products like we did’. To be honest, I was just trying to keep her awake as making your employer fall asleep in an interview was absolutely the last thing you want. The agency called back in the afternoon to congratulate me on edging out all the other candidates of hers and encourage me to power though as her commission was within sight. The last two rounds of interviews were done with two big heads via Skype which I reckon were merely a formality to go through.
Eventually, they gave the offer after four rounds of torture. When I looked back, it was all worth it. The experience with a global company and exposure to the whole supply chain will open up a lot of opportunities in the future.