My First Job Hunt: Fail or Win?

By the end of spring semester of my freshman year, I had only one thing on my mind—I needed a job. Summer was fast approaching and I had endless amount of time. Therefore, I started my ever-lengthy job hunt. When I say job hunt, I do not mean calling a few expert companies and emailing them my resume. By job hunt, I mean visiting every store in the mall and leaving each of them with my resume and contact information. Of course, there are many things I could have done differently to make my search easier, but that is a common mistake students tend to make.

I luckily managed to land a phone interview with GT Career Services. And as one may guess, it was most definitely a surprise phone interview. I was in the process of going to my next class when I received a phone call from the person who would eventually be my boss. In the haste of my job search, I had failed to look into the backgrounds of each business. Fortunately, I knew what GT Career Services did and so I was able to answer the questions with only a little hesitation.

What I learned from my phone interview experience is that it is very important to know the company or business before applying for a position. There is no saying what a person may be asked on a phone interview and so having a little knowledge ahead of time makes it that much easier. In my particular phone interview, I was asked the usual “tell me about yourself” or “why do you want to work for us” type of questions. Although these questions may not seem important at first, I realized that the employer learns so much about you just from those two questions. I was satisfied with the answers I provided and I even went further to ask a few questions myself.

After the phone interview, I wondered if I would get the job. So many questions went racing through my mind. Did I sound too laid back? Was I original at all? Did I tell too much about myself? Should I have asked about what steps I need to take after this? Did I make a lasting impression? I wouldn’t know the answers to the questions until the day after where everything in my life changed from right to left. Stay tuned!