Interview Stories: The Recruiters and the post interview preparation

So after around two days of resting at home... I started executing my plans. Ok first I will need a computer hmm well where am i going to get that the computer what configuration I am going to choose ... so it was typical search mostly was online I hardly went to any showrooms to see what they looked like ... anyways the brand I was going to buy was DELL ... why coz everybodys buying dell why not me? hmm so I started visiting their websites trying to find a laptop with all the configuration i need the RAM the hard drive size the processor each and everything and where was doing all the searching well ofcourse the CPL (see last post). So while this laptop hunting was going I started bombarding resumes sending them to different places initially I was only responding to advertised jobs pn these websites
www.dice.com
www.monster.com
www.careerbuilder.com
www.chicagojobs.com

and some other random websites but these were the ones that I was commonly surfing and looking down for jobs and applying them instantly though most of the jobs advertised on these site ask for a lot of experience I still managed to find some relevant jobs according to my little experience... and so the hunt begins.

the first problem I had was how the time alloted to me for using the internet was just an hour and everyday I had this little diary where I took my notes containing reminders where I will apply tommorow what sites I will visit tommorow and so on, somtimes you have to wait for a while before you can get hold of a computer so during that time I would read books related to careers and hi tech jobs and magazines and PC magazine too to see where DELL stood in the market of laptops. so this was the usual routine everyday was the same day... but the bad part was no response maybe somewhere something was wrong i was beat ... a month passed by and no phone calls people called but they would offer me non technical jobs then there were these emails that asked me "Are you authorized to work in teh US?" aargh I was replying but would never hear from them during those days I started thinking seriously that I must write a cover letter now before its too late and change my resume a bit so I just did that using the library computer I started editing my resume and writing a cover letter from scrath with the help of some career books I managed to write a short cover letter and improved my resume ok now I am ready so bring it on... well not exactly I started sending my resumes to advertised jobs and started researching software companies in chicago also learned about Illinois Software Association (formerly known as Chicago Software Association) got direct links to the software companies here in chicago and started

Preface to the Job Hunting stories

couldnt think of a better title :) well I stepped into chicago this year.. i knew what I would expect from a place like this .. its not karachi or pakistan the place is different and challenging and exciting. One thing was sure I would have a really hard time searching for jobs I had already done some research in karachi on the software related jobs here in chicago and my oh my the experience and everything these guys need here to get a job but that wasnt my only worry since I didnt have that much of a experience for these jobs the other worry how am I going to convince the hiring people to give me an interview call. In karachi you only needed a resume and then you start bombarding these resumes to different companies and sooner or later you get a call from these guys for an interview.. well such wasnt the case here as I learned due to the trips that I had made to the chicago public library also known as CPL I must say these are the best resources that a job hunter can use not that jobs are posted here infact you have free access to the internet and printing services and loads of career related books the library just rocks hey anyways i can write a lot about the library but I think it deserves another post. The books helped me learn a new dimension in job hunting... cover letters well not that I hadnt heard of it before but really here i saw cover letters in action I learned how important it is to write a cover letter asking for an interview your resume only markets you the cover letter persuades or rather tries to convince the hiring guy to call you for an interview. I also improved my resume two times in just 2 months not that there was something relevant to add but actually there was a lot of room for improvement for the resume so I just did that I learned that how important it is to have a short resume and how to write a resume that best outlines your skills and I think after editing my resume two times I just did that and then starting receiving calls a chain of calls but the process wasnt that easy it involved the heat of chicago , the tension and loads of other stuff as well. Following articles will elaborate more of how I finally landed on a job.

Update

Quite a while since I posted something on my blog. Well lately i have been really very very very busy with interviews and the whole process the tension the calls the heat was on... and chicagos weather wasnt helping me much hey summers here and now the weathers going good now so soon its going to be goodbye summer and hello winter ... real soon.. in the last week of august now... there is so much to write I have almost taken the offer of a Software Engineering position at a technology firm here in chicago... there are so many stories to tell and I am gonna write them all as time permits me. so from now onwards a regular blog can be expected. so watch this space. bye for now.