Recruiting fun

In the three years I've worked at Microsoft, I've been to four career fairs in my school, University of Toronto, to help Microsoft find strong candidates. I got involved with recruiting during my internship at Microsoft. There were some dinner events with all the interns from UofT and the recruiter and I remember us passionately wanting the recruiter to hire more people from UofT.

A few weeks back I went on another recruiting trip to UofT. There were two days of manning (and womanning) the Microsoft booth, talking to candidates, taking in their resumes. I also took the time to meet with some candidates personally, not as part of the recruiting process but just to give them more of an insight into working at Microsoft and answer their questions. I gave many candidates my work email and have been answering their questions. We also had a "Meet the Company" presentation to all the students, giving them a deep-dive into Microsoft. In my slides, I focused on career growth at Microsoft.

I am passionate about doing all this because I love my school and want more people from my school to have the same opportunities I have been lucky to have. I think working at a company like Microsoft really broadens your horizons and enables you to learn and contribute to high impact products. It's my way of giving back to the school. And after three years of being involved with recruiting, I was really happy to see more people in my school knowing about Microsoft, going through the interview process, and also working at the company.

Recently, a good friend of mine who also works at Microsoft asked if I could come up with a list of advice for new grads, because he was going on a similar recruiting trip to his alma mater.

After much thinking, I came up with this.. Yet another "Top 10 list"



1) Do what you can to make sure you have a good first manager

Your manager plays a very big role in your career development and this is especially important in your first job because he helps set the foundation of your career. Rudy Guiliani, in his book titled "Leadership", talks about leadership style and how our own leadership styles are highly influenced by the first set of leaders we are exposed to. Your first manager will be one of the first leaders in a professional environment that you will be exposed to and there's a high likelihood that you will mimic a few things your manager does well. Therefore, you want to mimic a person who is an absolute rockstar at work.

Also, this breaks down into two things to look for: A) Working for a rockstar manager B) Working for a manager who knows how to groom and grow his/her direct reports.

The first point is important because if you report to a manager who is mediocre, you will not learn as much. However, you could also be reporting to a superstar manager but one who does not know how to teach other people the things he/she does well.


2) Network with people well established in their career


Working is very different from school. Remember how you would talk to 3rd and 4th year students when you just entered university about all matters pertaining to University life, from courses and academics to parties and fraternities? Talking to someone with a few years of work experience is almost the same thing. They've been in situations similar to the ones you'll be in now as a new grad. They can give you good advice. They can share mistakes they made and learned from so you can learn from their experiences.

Networking in general is great for your career, regardless of what type of job you have. It's helpful to know people who can help you with your career moves and career growth.


3) Work really hard

There is no substitute for hard work. However, the reason it is especially important in your first few years is that it helps you build strong work ethics for the rest of your career.

Also, the first few years set the foundation for your career. It's the only time you are at the bottom of the organization so you really get to learn the nuts and bolts of the operations of a company. For example, if you are an engineer you will spend most of your time doing technical work in your first few years. Then as you get more responsibilities, you start doing a lot of non-technical work such as project management, product planning, cross-group collaboration etc.. And then comes a point when you don't do any more technical work (if you choose that career track into management). At that point, the years you spent working as an engineer will help you make decisions especially when you have limited data.


4) Passion is key

If you are passionate about your work, you will automatically work super hard which eventually leads to better results. Also, you'll work more efficiently and effectively. You won't even think twice about staying up late at night to finish up work .


Even if you haven't quite figured your calling, or what your career mission statement is, as long as you are doing something you are enjoying, eventually things will just figure themselves out and you'll find your calling. At least that's what Steve Jobs implied in his Stanford commencement speech and I'll take his word for it. Steve Jobs talked about how you can't "Connect the dots" looking forward, but you can looking backwards. In other words, once you've worked for a few years and always done what you felt passionate about at that instant, you'll be able to look back and figure what your expertise are and based on that you'll get closer to figuring your calling.

5) Work towards finding your calling

One thing I've observed over the past three years is that the most successful people find a niche and become the best in the world at it. (Okay a bit of an exaggeration, I wrote about it in "Breadth vs. Depth"). Some people seem to know from the get-go exactly what they want. But things are very different in industry than in school, and as you are exposed to real-life engineering problems, your interests often begin to change.

For example, in school it may seem interesting to work on network security but when you get to industry you'll realize it's way different in industry than in school.

6) Pick a growing industry/company so you can grow with the industry/company

Given a choice between an industry that is constantly changing and growing, such as Technology, versus more traditional industries (utilities perhaps?, although there's innovations in the utilities industry as well, but at a much slower pace), always pick growth.

Let's say you get into an industry (or company) which just has 1,000 people. As the industry (or company) grows to say 100,000 people in 10 years, you will be the most experienced person and thus one of the leaders of the industry. By that point you will have the skills sought out for executives in the industry.

Compare this to joining an industry which already has 100,000 people and it will only grow to 105,000 in 10 years. In which scenario do you think it's most likely you will become a senior executive? The first one of course.

7) Pursue your passions outside work

You'd think that to be super successful, you should just work 200 hrs /week. Or just spend every awake second doing something work. However, so many executives, CEOs, are part of organizations outside work, or have passions outside work they still pursue. Why is that? I've theorized a few reasons:

i. Firstly, I think it's probably good to keep your mind off work so you don't burn out or become too boring. It also gives you breadth.
ii. Second, some of these activities are great to expand your network. Golfing is considered a networking sport because by being part of country clubs you network with high net worth individuals from very diverse backgrounds.
iii. Thirdly, it's a way to pursue your passion from multiple avenues. E.g. you are passionate about industrial security and you are working as a security engineer pursuing your passion at work, you can also join (e.g.) the Canadian Society for Industrial Security and further impact the field you are passionate about.


8) Build your online presence and brand

This is very new to our generation. I read a fantastic book called "Career Distinction" by William Arruda & Kirsten Dixson which talked about how you should build your career brand such that you never need to look for a job - Jobs will look for you.

If you have a strong online presence, it will be easier for recruiters to find you. I have a LinkedIn account, although I haven't spent enough time updating it to have something I feel good about. But I've gotten approached by various recruiters for job opportunities. I've not pursued any of those opportunities but that would be the subject of another blog.

9) Don't be afraid to ask for help

There's a lot of smart University grads who think they can do it all. And it works out okay in school. You may be in project teams where you do 95% of the work. However, this doesn't scale well in industry. And there's nothing wrong with asking for help.


10) Have fun!!

You may have lofty ambitions and work 100+ hours / week to realize your career goals. And you'll probably get there if you put in the effort, follow your passions, and play it smart. But in the midst of that pursuit, don't forget to have fun. When you look back at what you've accomplished at work, the moments you will remember the most are all the inside office jokes with your colleagues and managers, the team celebrations when successfully completing milestones, and the bonds and friendships you created with your co-workers. Unless you have a 9-5 job (which you won't if you have any grain of ambition) you probably spend more time with your co-workers than with your family. You spend most of your life working. Might as well have fun while you are at it. Good luck!