➪ Interviews
Key Terms:
| CECA |
Centre for Career Action |
| Jobmine |
This is UW's ‘portal’ (for lack of a better word) for co-op. Basically, you’re granted access to it roughly 2 weeks after the semester begins. You’ll use it to search for jobs, upload your resume (your transcript will already be there) etc. Your interviews will be scheduled through Jobmine, as well as decisions concerning whether you got the job or not. |
What happens when Jobmine opens? ↷
Okay, so you’re almost 2-3 weeks into your semester. You have been granted access to Jobmine. You start by uploading your resume. Your resume and transcript is the official package that gets submitted to a possible employer every time you apply for a job. Once this is done, go through the job listings. READ through the job descriptions carefully. Apply. Wait. Mentally brace yourselves for the rejections (which, as you’ll eventually come to realise, are inevitable). Hold your breathe while waiting for interviews. Repeat.
That’s it. Literally.
The process happens in 3 major rounds. The 1st 2 are quite brief (you're granted 50 applications). The 3rd one (number of applications increased to 99) lasts all the way till the end of the semester.
A few casual reminders though:
1. During the 1st and 2nd round (I think), you’re limited to 50 applications. Use these applications. They’ve been allotted to you for a reason. But use them well. Don’t just apply for every job. You have to do some rough approximations. Try to calculate the likability of being chosen for the job (more on that later) and your level of interest in the job. Lots of people complain of having being chosen for a job that they’re not really interested in. Be smart about it.
2. I asked quite a few upper year CS students on how to determine when to apply for the job. Let me clarify. You view a job description, and you feel like you meet some of the requirements. Most upper years are of the opinion that if you feel you satisfy about 50% or greater of the job requirements, you should go ahead and apply. That’s a pretty safe bet.
3. Some jobs might require a cover letter (what a pain). Banks have a real special corner for them. Its always nice to have a sample one saved. This way if you’re asked to include one, you'll be saving yourself plenty of time.
A final note: Aim to have these ‘prerequisites’ ready before job mine opens. Trust me when I say its going to get crazy when it does open. Just going through the list of jobs is going to take quite a while. And the 1st round doesn’t go on forever, just for about 2-3 days. So you’ll be rushing against time, applying for the best jobs, and trying to balance school work. Midterms will be just around the corner.
What happens after I've applied? ↷
Okay, so that’s the process of applying for the jobs. We have that down. Now comes the fancy part of giving the interview, waiting for the employer to ‘rank’ you, and waiting for the ‘matching’ to take place.
You will be scheduled for an interview along with a few other candidates. Either you get an email from CECA informing you of your interview selection, or you’ll have to check Jobmine yourself. DO check jobmine for interviews. I’ve been told that sometimes CECA forgets to send an email.
Next, you’ll will have to select a time slot. Easy enough. Most interviews take place at CECA. Your interview can either be in person or via skype. I have experience with both types, and in IMO, in person ones are way better. But that varies from person to person. My worst interview was via skype and one of my friends got themselves a job through an interview via skype. Case in point.
What happens if I miss an interview? ↷
DON’T MISS AN INTERVIEW. THAT’S A BIG NO. That’s because 1) You’ll make CECA really mad and 2) Leaves a really bad impression of you on the employer. Even if you hate the job, you HAVE to attend the interview. If you have issues with interview scheduling or something along those lines, contact CECA asap. Not only because they’ll be able to help you, but largely because you don’t want to get on their dark side. They might make you write an apology letter (who wants to do that?), and you might even get kicked out of Jobmine, and that’s not advisable unless you have jobs lined for you outside of Jobmine.
Is Jobmine worth the hype (and more importantly, the $600 per semester)? ↷
I’m aware of the whole debate that goes around regarding the usefulness of Jobmine and CECA. True, applying for jobs through this route can be painstaking sometimes. You have to pass the PD courses, as well as write out work term reports and whatnot. You’ll probably meet numerous people who’ll have jobs lined up for them outside of jobmine. Good for them. Here’s what I think: If you’re in co-op, you might as well avail this opportunity. You might choose to opt out of it once you’ve established yourself a bit in the industry, but I’d advise you not to take any chances during 1st year. Plus, this way the process is pretty streamlined, so you’ll be avoiding quite a bit of unnecessary headache. This, in no way, is a condemnation of people who choose to opt out of Jobmine. More power to them.
After the Interview ↷
Brief Summary: Your employer 'ranks' you first, followed by you ranking them. When rankings open, you view what your employer ranked you, submit your rankings of the employer, and then matching begins.
In detail:
Once the interview is conducted, the employer submits his 'rankings'.
Rankings are basically a number from 1-9, with 1 implying that the job is yours, provided that you accept the offer, and 9 being the lowest. Don’t lose hope if you didn’t get ranked 1. You can find the day rankings open on the CECA website. If you see ‘Offer’, congratulations, you got the job. If it says ‘Ranked’, you can go 1 of 2 ways:
1. The recommended way i.e. Take the job, even if you don’t want it. I personally know people who didn’t want jobs they got offers for, but refusal to accept this offer may result in a lot of unnecessary trouble, like getting kicked out of CECA. Not worth it.
2. Not take it, duh, and land in the above stated trouble.
Being ranked means you’re still in the race. Not being ranked implies a dead end. You won’t know what number you got ranked.
Yes, there is a Jobmine glitch that helps you figure out before the day rankings officially open if you got ranked or not, but you can search it up online.
When the employer submits the rankings is entirely up to them. Some do them instantly after the interview has been conducted, others the day rankings open, but that shouldn’t bother you. There’s not much you can do once you’ve given the interview other than pray.
Matching ↷
I won’t go into the details of the algorithm behind matching (you can find those details on the CECA website), but I can explain possible scenarios. With matching, nothing’s certain. Say you got an offer from your employer, but you don’t want the job. In this case, your best shot is to rank them a 9. But even ranking them a 9 doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get this job. You still might get it (happened to one of my friends). Similarly, you could get ranked, rank your employer ‘1’ in return, and get the job (which is what happened in my case). My point being, matching is quite a game of chance.
Once you’ve been matched with a job, according to CECA guidelines, you have to email your employer and set up your work related details. It's pretty smooth sailing from this point onwards. Some organizations may require you to get police reference checks etc, but the hard part’s over. You can now sit back, relax, and focus on the remaining semester.
You might hear people saying how the good job offers get snagged during the 1st round, leaving the ‘crappy’ jobs for the people in the continuous rounds. I’m not sure how true that is. But there’s definitely nothing wrong with having to continue all the way to continuous round. You have to be patient. Trust me. A
lot of patience. You’ll hear nightmares of people having to wait all the way until finals to finally get a job offer. Those aren’t just tales. They actually happen. So you'll need to persevere.
Interviews ↷
A few pointers for interviews:
1. Dress up. I can’t reiterate the importance of leaving a good impression.
2. Research the company. You should have some talking points in mind.
Interviews are intimidating. You know you’re being judged by a prospective employer, and that’s enough to make anyone conscious of themselves.
Everyone interviews differently. For some people, giving the interview is the easiest part, since they advertise themselves well through in-person interaction. For others, this is the worst part. Their resume speaks volumes but they fail miserably during the interview. Again, these are experiences. If they go badly, learn something from them and vow to improve the next time. My 1st interview was in person and the 2nd one was via skype. The 1st one went surprisingly well, but I totally wrecked my chances during the 2nd one. Don’t beat yourself over it. If you feel you lack in this area, attend the mock interviews held at CECA, or at some point by the math faculty.