What is the best mindset to achieve them?

How to ensure a successful job hunt here in the US as an international student? One place to start is with a successful job hunt mindset. What is the proper mindset? It’s the set of beliefs that you hold about yourself and your job hunt which lead you to having more conversations and less time in front of a computer.

When do job hunting mindset issues arise?

Problems with the mindset arise when you least wish them to, such as even before you start! Your beliefs might be preventing you from starting. Or when you are presented with an opportunity to talk with a hiring manager, instead of confidently introducing yourself, thoughts arise such as, “I'm not supposed to talk to senior people.” Like it or not, we bring a lot of these negative beliefs to the job hunt. Other popular beliefs include, “I'm not able”, or “I'm not prepared” or “My skills are not good enough.” Possible outcomes of job...

Make it easy for others to know how we can help them

As we come up into the recruiting season, we need to be able to communicate clearly how we can help other people achieve their goals. And of course, it can be tough when applying online to make that point. We don't even know if people are even looking at our resumes.

How to best be noticed - this is a question of method of the job hunt.

When it comes to getting job offers, our best branding is this: we are there to help address a certain set of solutions that clients or the company needs.

How do we stand out with employers? That occurs when we are able to have impactful conversations. When it's NOT clear how we help a company, or our approach is “we want a job”, that makes things very difficult for the employer.

They’re not going to take time to guess or help you complete your sentences. So even if you're networking with people and they want to be helped, one of the common problems we have is not really being...

Discover what’s possible with a healthy job hunt mindset 

We often run into rejection in our job hunts before we ever start. This is called self-rejection. We see the glass half-full, or efforts to try are likely to be without result, or we feel getting our dream job is out of reach. Maybe we heard someone say something like that about themselves or about you and we adopted that view. 

It’s time to stop this harmful habit of self-rejecting and open up to what the job hunt has to teach us. 

Why change? I know, right? Where we are is usually where we feel comfortable. But on the other hand, where we are now is NOT where we want to go. 

And then there’s the perspective of anyone we talk to: they’ll want to see that we believe that we can, whether we actually can or not. One of my best growth experiences came from believing that I can and finding out that I had much to learn. Would not have learned it if I didn’t feel I could in the...

A Blackstone Client Experience

I wanted to talk to you for a moment about how to get into those harder to get into firms, and one of those that comes to mind is Blackstone. 

Recently, I had a student go from zero prior finance experience into Blackstone, and I wanted to tell you a little bit about what that experience is like. If you are interested at some point in moving into one of those kinds of secretive or challenging firms you might find this useful. 

When exploring companies of interest, I always like to develop a target company list - a target list of companies. Ask yourself, where do you want to work? Having that focus is super important and will help you get into these harder to get into firms.

Researching a Company

Let’s look at Blackstone. What we always want to do when we first take a look at a company is going to their website, and when you jump into the website, you see across the top a number of different things that you could research. 

For...

Ever considered attending Grad school? Ever wondered whether that is a good move for you now?

I went to grad school. I went to probably too much grad school!

I did a grad degree when I was doing a startup (just to kind of hedge my bets) - and it kind of worked out: Company, worked out, we listed it publicly - and I ended up getting a master's degree.

Then some years later after work, I went to a dual degree MBA program. 

“I probably have too many masters! As a result, I'm qualified to talk about the subject - having three of them.” 

Now here is what I see as the three top reasons to attend grad school.

Reason #1: Going deeper in a field where you already have some experience 

The first reason is that you have worked for a couple of years and now you want to go deeper into that subject. Do you love finance or do you love electrical engineering? You've done it?  Do you want to go deeper?

All right. You actually have some experience and grad school is...

Let’s talk about creating a crazy effective professional summary for your resume! 

The first thing I want to do is to start off by saying that you do need to have a professional summary for your resume. You need to have it there - it needs to be prominent and on the top.

If you don't have a professional summary, you are basically not going to succeed in your job. Sounds controversial, but essentially this is the truth because we want to talk about what a professional summary means and what it implies by having one.

Essentially, by having a professional summary, you are making a statement about how you help solve a particular kind of problem. A crazy effective professional summary will do that, whereas ones that are less effective are saying something very general or what you're looking to have and what kind of a job you want, those are less successful as professional summaries.

To start things off, we want to talk about the essential aspect of having a professional...

“Have a plan or become part of someone else’s plan”. Heard this one before?

Here’s an example DIY job hunting plan you can consult:

1. Focus on firms you love—Not just job postings. Build this list and track your outreach from this list.

2. Consult 20-30 junior hires doing the exact function you wish to have. Reach out over LinkedIn and set up calls to do this. Ask them all of your “dumb questions”.  -- (Assuming your data is “normal”, it does take 30 data points to reach statistical significance ^^)

Become more than a resume to company leaders. People hire people, not your resume. Network!

Don’t judge yourself. Focus on process. Continue to refine your process so that you’re doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Recently, I posted about “shaving” weeks or months off of a job hunt.

Someone messaged me back asking what I meant: “Shaving?” she asked?

I can’t imagine what she was thinking.

No, not like shaving a goat.

“Shaving” means saving time. It also means cutting through illusions, installing a professional mindset.

For example, some people think it takes weeks, months, even academic years to get a job. Some think the summer job hunt is “over” since it’s now June, not realizing that internships in July and August are still possible with a bit of efficient messaging and advocating for your own goals.

Are you advocating for your own goals? If you’re not, let’s get you doing that. It’s a habit that strengthens with practice. One way to start is to reach out and ask for the advice you need.

Usually, a call can be quite helpful for this - and I'm happy to find a time.

Just DM me and we can find a time.

Stuart

"When you come to the edge of all the light... and are about to step into the darkness of the unknown...

...faith is knowing that one of 2 things will happen: there will be something solid to stand on, or you’ll be taught to fly." -- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

To shave weeks, months, even years off or your job hunt is possible.

But it does mean moving into what you don’t yet know.

So how to take a step into the unknown, if it’s going to be such a great thing?

For me, I had to hit the boundary of what I knew about the job hunt. That event appeared as a failure.

That led to asking more questions about how and why I failed, which led me to succeed. I had been taught to fly.

To speed up job hunts, “fail forward” - to be moving in the right direction.

A lot of us work hard (apply online), and get nowhere. It’s a failure, but not in an efficient direction.

We need to move in the right direction.

In what direction are you headed? Can I help you get clarity on...

I LOST ALL MY NETWORKING CONTACTS!

What if you had to start the job hunt completely over?

Identify the companies you want to work for.

First, ignore if they have open positions.

Create a target company list. Identify the decision-makers.

Create networking opportunities within those companies.

In my new NETWORKING COURSE, we look at the action steps to create great networking opportunities.

No one can hire you unless they know you.

Check it out here https://bit.ly/networking203

Remember, you are just one meeting away!