Depending on the student, the fast-approaching summer can either be an exciting time to start a new chapter at an internship or job, or it can bring a continuous sense of nervousness, knowing that this will be another summer without opportunities to advance their career. Having personally experienced both situations, I would like to share insight into how I transitioned from being jobless to landing my dream job.
For context, I am a coterminal student in my final semester, on track to finish both my undergraduate and graduate degrees in cybersecurity in just four years with a 4.0 GPA. I have interviewed and landed jobs at almost every major tech and finance company, though ultimately, the internships I pursued were with Tesla and Amazon. I now help people boost their careers through videos that have amassed millions of likes on my social media accounts on TikTok and Instagram (@zamham_) because I wish I had the knowledge I have now when I was an up-and-coming student.
However, it was not always like this. For the first year and a half at Illinois Institute of Technology, I struggled to find any opportunities. The feeling of waking up every day not knowing if I would ever hear back from a company despite submitting hundreds of applications, and progressively thinking I was not good enough to land a job in my field, loomed over me. However, one crucial decision completely changed everything: networking.
Every day, I attended career fairs at Illinois Tech, other universities, and public events in downtown Chicago to speak with recruiters. Yet I never received any leads on getting a job due to my lack of experience. I was stuck in a loop where I needed experience to land a job that would give me experience.
One day, everything changed when I signed up for a tour of the John Deere office downtown. This was not out of the ordinary—I had gone on numerous company tours in an attempt to land a job. When the tour ended, and I had not received any leads besides being told to apply online, I began leaving like everyone else.
Then, something switched. I decided to go back inside and speak to an employee at John Deere. After giving a quick elevator pitch and mentioning my passion for cybersecurity, I was invited to speak with a cybersecurity professional. Though the call was intended to help me learn about cybersecurity at John Deere, it ended up allowing me to express my technical skills. The cybersecurity professional referred me to someone else. After about four of these call jumps, I found myself speaking with a director of cybersecurity, who, after a few minutes of chatting, offered me a position in the John Deere Cyber Tractor Challenge that summer. The experience I gained that summer was the catalyst for landing my dream jobs at Tesla and then Amazon.
The importance of networking in today’s job market cannot be stressed enough. Recruiters receive thousands of applications daily, so separating yourself through networking—rather than just being a resume—can change everything. Whether it is through career fairs, LinkedIn messaging, or simply socializing in public, you never know where a conversation might lead.