The Job Search!

Since a lot has happened since my semester ended the end of May, I am just going to give some updates about things that have happened this summer before I begin my new life as a college graduate.

Bike Race in front of the capital building

The Job Search

I spent the month of June in Atlanta at home with my family, visiting with friends and working hard on the job search.  I applied to at least 10 jobs a day, in different industries and in different areas around the USA. I knew I just wanted to get a job, even if I had to move far away from home. I had 7 interviews in 6 different cities and even more phone interviews. It was definitely exhausting, but my goal was to graduate college with a job. I had interviews in Raleigh, Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, Atlanta and Madison, Wisconsin. I had interviews for jobs such as Recruiter, Outside sales, Supply Chain Logistics, Plumbing Sales, Rent-a Car Sales, Foreign Currency Analyst, etc etc! The job interview in Madison at Epic was an amazing experience. It was for the Project Manager position.

The terrace

Basically I spend about 50% of my time traveling to different clients (hospitals, universities, clinics) teaching them and implements the healthcare software program that Epic uses. It is a combination customer service/implementation position.  For my interview, Epic flew me out there for 2 days and paid for everything (which was nice) Sunday I landed in Madison and quickly made friends with a guy from NJ. We were in the same hotel (many of the recruits were in different hotels) so we decided to go explore Madison together. The downtown area was very nice, with the capital, the University of Wisconsin (over 29,000 undergrads) and a variety of different restaurants and museums. There was a bike race and a cool international festival going on so we just hung out in the downtown area watching and eating some good food. Madison is in between 2 large lakes so the downtown area is called the isthmus, but it is really gorgeous with lots of boats and jet skis on the lakes. There is also this area called the terrace where there are restaurants, bars, and a big open area for concerts right on the lake.  After the festivals and exploring I took a quick nap and then I went down to the lobby to wait for my Epic employee to take the recruits out to dinner… but they never showed up! So me and my friend Evan just went to dinner in the restaurant in the hotel and ordered some delicious cuisine. We also had access to the governor’s lounge which means free drinks and hors d’oeuvres... Yummy! Finished the night with some True Blood and then off to sleep.  

Restaurant on State Street

The next day we had to wake up early to start our long day. We got to the Epic Campus right on time and had a good breakfast. The campus is something out of magazine.. Similar to Microsoft as it is a private company. There were different themes for each building (Dungeons & Dragons, Indiana Jones, Heaven & Hell, Grand Central Station) There is even a slide and a tree house. It was really cool to see how different Epic is to all other companies that I have interviewed with. All 16 of the recruits in our group were introduced to the software, watched a presentation, and then dispersed for the day. I had 2 in person interviews, a 10 minute presentation that I prepared, a case study interview, and over an hour of math/English/programming testing. It was a crazzzyy day! I ate lunch in the cafeteria where they had about 10 different areas of different kinds of food (I ate pork chops with blueberry jalapeño salsa) yum! After all of the interviews I had some time before my flight so I was able to explore some more of Madison and the University campus. I was very impressed with how nice and clean everything was.

On the terrace

About a week later, after about 2 more phone interviews and probably 100 job applications, I finally got the call that I got the job! I was so excited that I finally got a job offer after all of the rough times I had with applying and interviewing. The offer was great, a much higher salary then I was expecting, awesome benefits and great experience… The only issue is I have to move to Wisconsin (hoping I won’t freeze to death my first year.) But I am pretty excited to be moving and having another adventure starting September1st.


If I have advice to give for trying to find a job:

Apply to at least 5-10 jobs per day and make sure that you use different sites. I used CareerBuilder, Monster, simplyhired, job mate (through USC) and a variety of others

Use your contacts! I talked to uncles, aunts and friends about potential jobs and contacts that they could help me with

Don’t just apply to your dream job.  Would I have loved to get my dream job as a foreign currency trader? Yes… but I am building some great experience in the IT and Healthcare field, two growing industries and learning a lot along the way. I applied to a variety of different industries and made sure I did lots of research on the company and industry before my interview=very important

The squeaky wheel gets the oil. If a company says they will get back to you and they don’t, start sending e-mails/phone calls to remind them. It helps you stand out. Another thing is send thank you cards/e-mails after your interview. It is a small gesture that means a lot!

Thanks for reading and more updates will follow