As with most other graduating college and university students, I find myself in the process of looking for meaningful work now that I am days away from completing my advanced diploma. While one foot is out the door looking for the next step, I have the other firmly cemented into my classroom ensuring projects, presentations, and exams go as planned. It is a somewhat difficult situation that demands carefully balancing promises and expectations that not only you put on yourself but family, friends and the potential employers you are meeting on a daily basis. While some may take the approach of ’spamming’ the market with resumes in search of a nibble, I lean more towards looking for actual positions that I see myself growing and learning in.

Recently I was a finalist and interviewed for a Communications position with the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, interviewed for a Sales position with Cisco Systems, and spread my message at the Evolution Networking Event that my classmates and I organized. Having the opportunity to meet and interact with many different leaders in Ottawa provided me with the ability to search out what other companies I may be interested in working for. As with anything there were guests with ‘get rich’ jobs and others with ‘well it’s a great opportuinity’, but that is not what I am looking for. I want to work for a company that is going to let me be myself and provide me with the training, confidence, and ability to bloom and become successful.

While some time has passed since my Chamber interview and I feel unfortunately confident in saying I was not successful in getting the position (I will confirm in the morning with a phone call) I can now look back and think ‘what went wrong’? While I thought the interview itself went fairly well, the close was brutal. I got excited about how the first part went and got a bit over confident. So how did I learn?

I went back to my humble personality and set out to prove myself. The next interview I had was with Cisco and although I have no hints as to how it went from their perspective, I felt it went really well. I spent hours doing research prior to the interview about products and offerings they have. I gained an great understanding in what they were looking for by reaching out to others who have contacts within Cisco. I remained securely confident in who I was and laid out how important it was to me to remain myself and use my skills to successfully grow within Cisco. I remained calm while the final questions were being asked and continued the conversation for longer during the ‘do you have any questions’ portion ensuring my personality would be shown to the interviewer.

The point… I stayed true to myself, learned through the process of two interviews, gained a better understanding of the strategy required for a strong interview and ultimately did my best on the second one. While I hope there are many more down the road I would be more than happy if this last one was the final one for a period of time if I am successful in moving forward with Cisco. It is very easy to get confident in who you are and think ‘I have what they want’, but if you don’t actually show them who you really are then you have just wasted a great opportunity.