10 Insights Gleaned from 41 Interviews in the Bay Area during the Pandemic
If there’s anything worse than a global pandemic, it is being jobless during a worldwide pandemic. During March 2020, I found myself unemployed and anxious to secure a new job. My company had just been acquired prior to Covid, so luckily I was not exposed to the trauma of being laid off or furloughed. I was fortunate to have been given almost half a year’s notice that our team was going to be laid off by the end of February 2020.
When the time rolled around at the end of February, I handed in my work laptop and was onto my next adventure. I had planned a trip to Australia to take some time off before getting back into the 9–5 grind. During my last week’s stay in Australia, lockdown protocols were starting to be enforced in the United States. All travelers visiting other countries were advised to return back to the states or forewarned to stay in the country they were in for an indefinite time.
When I returned back to the Bay, the stark reality of paying my rent, car, and expenses quickly dawned on me. As I scrolled through Linkedin, I could see countless posts of people being laid off or furloughed. Companies were downsizing rapidly and it seemed like new positions were scarce. People were looking for new positions at an all time high.
Hopefully my experience with recruiting in the SF Bay Area can help others with their job searches. Although the work I do may not directly translate to other roles, the following tips I have gathered are universal. Without further ado, these were some of the key insights I gathered from 4 months of job searching and after 41 interviews at the advent of COVID-19.
1.Grit
Interviews are definitely when it boils down to it, a numbers game. Resolve and perseverance are key to make sure you do not lose steam as the months fly by and after multiple rounds of interviews. When I was recruiting, I submitted more than 100+ resumes and filled out various submission forms on Linkedin, Angelist, or Company websites. In total, I did 41 interviews including phone screens with the hiring managers and zoom video calls with prospective teammates. At the end of the whole recruiting process, I ended up with four offers.
2. Exercise
It’s imperative to exercise and maintain a healthy lifestyle while interviewing. While it may not seem relevant to interviewing, exercising improves your mood and that translates through how you present yourself. Interviewing can not only be mentally exhausting but also physically exhausting. Your posture is the best it’s ever been, you are smiling nonstop trying to keep friendly rapport and conversation. After various rounds of interviews it’s normal to be drained. To keep momentum, you must take care of your health in the process.
3.Network network network
From my personal experience, I had two clusters of networks, one with recruiters and the second was job posting sites like Angelist or Linkedin. Luckily I had gone through the recruiting process only 10 months prior so I had some recruiter contacts who had been following up with me as I was working at my last job. They were great in terms of helping me prepare for interviews and guiding me throughout the process. They had a plethora of resources whether it was interview guides, sample behavioral questions, or mock interviews. Some even gave me feedback from the interviews I had.
4. Interview Scheduling and Strategy
I would summarize my four months of interviewing in waves. The first wave, I was pretty “green” as what my recruiters called being inexperienced, in terms of timing my interviews. My Google calendar was scattered with first, second and final round interviews all with varying timelines. That was a mistake. When I received my first offer, I was still interested in another company more, but I had not timed it right; the other company I was interested in, I was still in the middle of their hiring timelines. The reason why timing is so important is because you want to be in a position to negotiate multiple offers and have choices.
5. Smile and Talk Slower
Being cognizant of smiling and taking the time to talk will make you not only a more friendly candidate but also a more polished and well-spoken one. A smile is the best way to cut through the seriousness of an interview. Additionally, you are also naturally more nervous during an interview, so make a conscious effort to slow down your talking and take time to breath. Also refrain from rambling.
6. Follow the STAR method
The STAR method stands for situation, task, action, and result. That is how you should frame your answers. The best way to prepare for the interview is to be as familiar as possible with the tasks and projects you have done at previous roles and have experiences to back up your behavioral interview questions. Actions speak louder to words if you can show them how you took initiative or improved systems at your past job, the interviewer will see that you are a proactive candidate who not only does their job responsibility but also goes beyond.
7. Dress the Part
As the world gets more and more virtual, the way you present yourself can be more and more lax. We all get it, you want to be comfy at home. However, dressing the part can set you in the mood for interviews and phone screens, and help with projection, posture, and mood. If you dress the part, you can play the part and land the job.
8. The Offer Letter-You have the Power
You have to realize that when you receive an offer, the company has poured in its resources to ask you to work for them. At this very moment, you hold all the cards and have the most leverage. That is when you can negotiate whether that’s a higher pay, more equity, a later start date or extra days off. Whatever it is you wish to ask, the company will most likely try to match it or appease you because they want you to work for them and don’t want any other companies to snatch you up.
9. Don’t accept an offer out of fear
Granted it was the pandemic and I was seeing my bank account dwindle, I knew in my gut I could not just settle for a job even if it meant a steady paycheck. I consulted my mom when I was conflicted about the first offer I received. The first job offer I received was a sigh of relief. However as I weighed the pros and cons of the job, I could not envision myself working at that company for over a year. Ultimately I turned it down and did not succumb to fear. A couple months later, I landed an offer at a great company and whose team was a better fit for me.
10. People>Compensation
By far what I’ve learned from my limited work experience is that the people you work with make a world of difference. Bad managers and coworkers can make or break your work experience. A healthy and dynamic work environment is crucial to fostering your career growth and trajectory. As a wise coworker once said, “Never have I been so rich, but never have I been more miserable.” He had been flown out to work on our engagement and was living in a high rise in the SOMA district in San Francisco, but the work and culture of the team got him to a breaking point. Moral of the story, money is not always the most important factor.
These 10 tips helped me through the grueling process of interviewing and I will continue to utilize them in future job searches as well. They proved very helpful as I navigated the 41 interviews with various different companies in the Bay Area. I would like to acknowledge I was very privileged to have opportunities during the pandemic and know that I had the resources and support that helped me through the process.
