Creative Ways To Get The Job That I Want

“I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but not everything you want.” ― Ray Dalio, Principles: Life and Work

This quote triggered me to reflect on how aligned it is with my personal experiences in getting the life and the job that I want through persistence and creativity. To live an adventurous life, filled with experiences and achievements. To get the job that I’m truly interested in the role or the company.

Slide into the DMs, even if it’s a big consulting firm — Business Analyst and Cloud Engineer at Accenture

I was at the end of my 5th semester and still studying abroad, the 6th semester is starting soon and the requirement is to have an internship.

Not being at my home country to attend the job expo or quick job matching events at my university, it was more challenging for me to land my first professional internship job. The internet is the only thing I could depend on.

At some point after applying through job posting portals or their recruiting sites, filling the forms with repeating details of my resume, getting those automatic replies said that my application has been submitted and will be reviewed, and keep on waiting;

I realized I needed to be more creative in getting their attention and to think of a way how to get noticed quicker.

Never thought that sending a Direct Message (DM) to Accenture’s Official Instagram account, asking whether they have an internship opportunity at the moment and for an email address to send my resume, ended up as a shortcut to get noticed. Allowing me to land my dream internship, all within 2 weeks.

They replied to my DM with the HR personnel email who’s in charge of the internship opportunities and connected me with her.

Have you ever wondered what is the purpose of maintaining their presence on social media and being interactive, like couldn’t it be our first door to talk with their personnel too? Well, with that success story, this thought is validated.

Join their event, find subtle ways to show your potential, and tell your intention — Voice Actor at FemaleRadio

When I was 12 years old, there was this national radio station that I loved to listen to every morning on the way to school, especially because they have this folklore radio drama program that was entertaining.

Nope, I wasn’t that curious or ambitious that would suddenly think of trying to be the voice actor for that radio drama program.

However, there’s an event, a mom and kids singing competition to be precise (called The Duets). By sending a record of singing together and getting qualified, they’ll play the records on the radio, and gives the chance of being interviewed directly and live from the radio broadcasting room at their office. THAT is an interesting experience to get! (and yes, in short, we got invited)

From there, the dream is getting bigger, I got interested to be a voice actor. Stepping my foot in their office, getting to know the influencing people also the broadcaster is the right path to achieve it, as well as asking questions on how the morning folklore radio drama program is being created.

Saying things like “is it difficult?”

Nice seniors/professionals tend to teach and let you try (in this case is reading the script) to show you how easy it is and this is a subtle way for us to show our potential, and next is just me telling them that I’m interested to be the real voice actor for their program.

Here, I also learned that every time we exposed ourselves to something new or achieve something that we would never think of before, we will have more faith to dream bigger, and we will learn more about our talent, passion, and potential.

Get into the company first, role second — Daily Worker at Kitchenette Restaurant and Ismaya WeTheFest Summer Music Festival

Ismaya Group is a company that provides diverse lifestyle hospitality properties like F&B and live events, WeTheFest is one of them, a three days music festival with lineups from international hottest DJs to the rising Indie bands (which most are my favorites too). For me, it was the coolest festival to attend in my home country.

The 18 years old me want to come but didn’t have money to buy the ticket.

Since the festival falls on my long semester break and I also wanted something that will keep me busy with new experiences and extra money, plus preparing to get the chance of being the first one to know if they have an opening to work at the festival, I started with looking at any of their job openings and apply for it, which I landed a job as a Daily Worker (or server) at one of their restaurants.

Not until a week of working, I got the news of an opening to work at the festival, having built some credibility, it was easy for me to get it.

The job was selling F&Bs while strolling around (and kinda enjoying the concerts), but if we manage to sell out all the stocks from the kiosk, we are free to enjoy the festival freely. Hence, I was so motivated, taking hundreds of orders, finding ways to sell faster, and did it.

What came up to my mind was only to find a way to work with them, which will give me access to enjoy the festival, couldn’t believe it turned into reality.

I get to learn another thing as well, through that selling experience, I realized that it’s not only about actively approaching more people means we get the more chance to sell, but most importantly, it’s also about finding the right marketing words when we’re approaching those people.

Once I found the magical marketing words, the number of people converted from the people I approached into a buyer, was increased.

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The common thing from all these ways is focussing on opportunities, instead of the obstacles. The potential growth and rewards, instead of the risks. Usually, in reality, the risks are much more trivial than we’re thinking

Don’t underestimate the power of starting simple or starting from the bottom, as long as we know our goals, keep on alert of the possibilities, and make use of the benefits from networking, we can have just about anything we want.

I’m glad that I started early to explore things, new experiences sometimes will be our best teacher to grow. I still have other creative ways stories on how I got the job that I want, will write in my next post :)