| Everyone gave extremely valuable pieces of advice, but your advice the strategy is going to be really really helpful. I am going to follow what you suggested, but if you could answer some of my further questions, that would be great. I have not been making contacts to much people. I did not even apply to positions in a daily basis. I just occasionally spent 3~4 hours applying to a bunch of companies on their career websites from either Google search or LinkedIn/Monster/Indeed etc. I just copied and pasted almost identical cover letters always with my resume for every application (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e8rx0JiEGlpwxTa2--7rQvla...), as writing in English was very time-consuming for me, and I was busy, and mostly, I knew they would not give a damn about my cover letter attached to the application even if I had put much effort on it. Thus far I had two (one on-campus and one phone) interviews, each with a good company, but neither of them were through a web application.(I got rejected from both, though..) I did not care too much about the applications, and I kind of messed them up.
One relief is that I have not applied to companies I prefer the most, which are start-ups and mid-sized companies in NYC, and I went to NYC to attend Columbia University Engineering job fair 2 weeks ago. I talked to people there, handed my resume(the original one that did not look very good), and got business cards from 7 people from different companies. Of those 7, I had memorable conversations with two, esp. with an entry-level engineer about my Rwanda project(he would at least vaguely remember me. but they only use web languages, so I may not fit..). There were quite many good companies based in NYC in the job fair, and I have some 'stories' to talk about when I contact them. I would like to focus on the companies I want to go to, and I want to do well this time.
Of course I will have to apply for 'safety' companies, too but I will put my time and effort in applying to 40~50 companies in NYC and Silicon Valley. Here are some of my questions.
First of all, you said you contacted people in the companies. Whom did you contact (HR? Engineer? Sr. Engineer? CEO? or someone else?), and how did you find their contact info? Second, what do you think I should include in the three sentences about myself? Language(Java/C++)? Experience? or other soft skills and characteristics? Could you show me an example? Lastly, although you made "it as easy as possible for them to get back to me, and take the conversation from there", it is not easy for a non-native like me to write a letter that is easy and simple. Particularly what made your letter easy for them to get back to you, not compromising the amount of necessary information? Thank you so much. |
As for who to contact in the company, I would say that you try to contact the person who would be your direct supervisor in your new position. They're going to be the person who is best able to evaluate whether you are a good fit for the job, and if they decide they want to hire you, they'll make it much easier to go through all the paperwork. If you don't know who your supervisor would be and it's a large company, try to find a senior engineer at the company. If it's a small company you could contact the CEO. These people at least will have a decent idea of what positions are available and who you'll need to contact to talk about them. Avoid HR at all costs. Also, since most "careers@companyname.com" email addresses go straight to HR, try to avoid those as well. Finding the email addresses can sometimes be tricky, but I was usually able to find something by googling peoples names/positions/companies.
When I say "make it as easy as possible for them to get back to me" it's less that I'm trying to write a simple letter, and more that I'm only asking them for a small thing. Asking someone for a job is a large thing to ask for. Even asking for an interview is a large time commitment. You simply want to ask them for information about the positions they have available. After you've received that first email it is much easier to turn around and propose a time to talk on the phone.
I'll give you an example, from start to finish of what this conversation could look like. I've written the first email such that you could fill in the blanks and send it off. I've structured it such that the person reading could read the first paragraph and immediately respond (the phrase "what follows is a brief description of a recent project" tells them that if they want to skip that paragraph and just email you back they can). The project is probably the best way to do three sentences about yourself, but if you wanted to change it to highlight more soft skills you could.
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First email to a company:
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Subject: What's happening at <Company Name>?
Hi <Contact Name>,
My name is Hyunwoona and I'm a Computer Science student at <College Name>, with a focus on <Technical Skill relevant to the job>. I've been looking for internships, and came across <company name>. I was particularly interested in <specific thing the company is doing>. I'm hoping you could tell me more about the work happening at <Company name> and about the positions you have available.
What follows is a brief description of one of my recent projects:
As a project for <company || open source project || personal reason || class name> I worked on creating a <what you crated> using <language>. My focus with this project was to <description of why the project was worth doing (like: it's never been done before, needed do it faster, or make it clearer)>. I particularly enjoyed getting to see <specific technical aspect of the project> up and running. <If possible, add a sentence with a link to the code>.
Best, Hyunwoona
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Response from company:
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Hi Hyunwoona,
The work we're doing at <Company Name> involves a lot of <stuff> and <other stuff> right now we're working on <some broad vision>. We are looking to hire interns in the coming <time period>
We're currently looking for interns for the following positions:
1) <Job Title A> -- This position involves <Something related to what you're capable of doing>
2) <Job Title B> -- This position involves <Something unrelated to what you're capable of doing>
If either of these are something you're interested in, we should discuss further.
Best, <Contact Name>
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Follow Up email:
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Hi <Contact Name>,
Thanks for the response. I think I would be a good fit for the <Job Title A> position and I'd love to talk more about it. Can we set up a time for a phone call? I'm available <times when you're available>.
Best, Hyunwoona
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Of the emails that I sent that led to interviews, more than 2/3 went almost exactly like that. Occasionally, I would have sent it to someone who would pass my email along to a colleague, but from that point forward the response I would get would still be pretty similar. I hope this helps. Let me know if I was unclear about anything.