Internship Search Diaries Ep. 1 | first week of applying, updating resume, cold messaging, etc.

I have 3 months to find an internship, and I'll take you guys along the whole journey from applying to jobs, getting hopefully an interview, to then securing a job that hopefully I'm gonna be very happy with. Let's get started with this series. Hello guys, welcome back to another video. Super excited to be starting this new series. My vlogs from this point on will mainly be about job searching, but I'll also show other bits of my life, so hopefully you stick around either way. Today I'm starting off with driving practice. Gone wrong. That's right, starting off this video with a very good note. We got in a car crash with a fire truck. Hey guys, so I'm back home, and as you guys saw, we did get into a car accident, and I'm still super shocked through that experience. It was honestly really scary. I mean, everyone's okay. But the craziest thing is we got in an accident with a fire truck, which is very, very funny. I'm really happy that my sister was in the car with me too, because I don't know what I would have done. It would have been definitely harder for me to figure everything out on my own. And also really, really crazy how this is the second car accident I've been in. The first one I wasn't driving. But yeah, another reason why I'm kind of super scared to drive, because I've been in already two accidents. And I just— yeah, the road always scares me. So I have a lot to do that's on my internship list, and the first thing that I will tackle is listen to a podcast about cold emailing. So cold emailing, super, super important. It's, um, kind of something that's gonna get you a little bit ahead because a lot of people apply to jobs, but there are so many applicants that apply to these job postings, so the chances of you being one of the few that gets selected is very low, and you need to find other ways to get your name out there. And so cold emailing is one of those ways. Even though it is going to take a lot of cold emailing to finally get a response, it's worth it. And so I want to learn more about it because I feel like I've done a few cold emails before, but I haven't really fully dived into it. So I'm going to listen about a cold emailing podcast from Samir and from Colin and Samir. Colin and Samir, they have a really cool podcast channel, and I'm going to be listening to the Cold Email Expert: How to Get a Billionaire's Attention. So it's about 1 hour and 34 minute podcast, and I'm actually going to go on a walk and listen to it. And I'm also going to be taking notes, and as soon as I finish taking all my notes, I will leave the notes in the description below so you guys can check them out as well if you don't feel like listening to the whole thing. But yes, that's the first thing. Let's go on a walk and listen to these this podcast. Hey guys, so I just came back from a 2-hour walk, and you guys, I did it! I finished one of my first tasks on the internship to-do, which is to listen to the podcast. I took so many notes. Let me show you guys. I took this many notes, you guys. As you guys can see, crazy much. Um, pretty much like tried to write down a lot of the keynotes he talked about and a lot of things that I feel like would be really valuable to remember and look back to. What I want to do now is I actually want to put all this in a Google Doc and just format it a little bit better and maybe add some stuff that I didn't have a chance to write down because I want to send this to a few of my friends and also just post this online for other people to access because I feel like watching podcasts definitely takes a bit of your time. Like, a lot of times I just listen to podcasts without actually taking notes, but I feel like there's so much value in taking notes from things you consume, from things you read, because you just get so much more knowledge out of it. Okay guys, so I just finished taking down all the notes and it's about 6 pages. I did some bolding, I just made it look a little nicer so it's just easier and like better to, to read. And I love this. I definitely want to push myself to take more notes on podcast episodes I listen to. I definitely want to do more of it if I have time. But yeah, super proud of everything that I read here and that I wrote down, and hopefully I can start implementing some things and let you guys know what things I've been implementing. So I'm having some trouble downloading, uh, this book on the Kindle. So before I kind of figure that out, I decided to just continue reading this book that I, that I got a while back. It's called Build: An Orthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making. It's another like super cool like self-help book which Again, I kind of stopped reading. I think a whole big part to your internship search is not just applying to jobs, but also like trying to like learn on your own because a lot of interviewers, they want to see a growth mindset and they want to see you like tackling new things and working on new things. And even on interviews, you can talk about how you're, you know, you're reading these books or you're trying to learn new things. And actually, for one of my past interviews, I got this question, which I was not expecting. The last question they asked me, what is the last book you read and how did this book like help you grow? And I was like, I did not know what to say. I ended up like just telling them a random book that I didn't even read. I just— that was the first book that came to mind. So I pretty much lied to them because I didn't have any books to share. And that's like, that was definitely really awkward and embarrassing on my end. Like they told me to think of a book and I just couldn't say anything because I wasn't reading back then. So yeah, I'm just trying to like read more, I guess. So while I'm here, why don't I talk to you guys about kind of what these past few days have been looking like with my internship search. So I started applying for companies 3 days ago and I currently have— I've currently applied to about, I think, 23. Wait, let me count. So I've currently applied to 27 companies and all of these companies I submitted a resume for. And these are companies I've applied to roles that they're hiring for. So I haven't really done any cold emails directly to companies that aren't applying, which I should start doing because there are a lot of great companies out there that probably aren't hiring or they don't have a job posting out, but they may be looking for someone. They're just not— they don't have an actual visible job posting. So you never know what companies could actually use some help. So that's why I think it's important to also apply outside of just job postings, because there's so many hidden stuff that you can find. So that's what I'll be doing next. But so far I've just kind of been looking on LinkedIn, mostly LinkedIn as like my main job board. The location I'm looking at is California, somewhere in the Bay Area. I've been applying to lots of places in San Francisco, which is the dream place I really want to work at. For my third co-op, for my third internship, which is what I'm searching for right now, my goal is to work somewhere outside of Canada or somewhere outside of Waterloo because I've done two co-ops here and I just really think it's time for me to expand and like expand my social circle and expand like my experiences. So, so far I've been pretty much applying to companies in the US. Yes, US, mostly California. I use this spreadsheet to track all my progress. I put down company, role, location, and status. And I also want to start reaching out to people. That will happen. And so far, and I have like a lot of my resumes which I've been customizing. I will show you guys on the screen how my resume kind of looks like right now. It's, um, one page. If you guys don't know, try to make your resume one page. Font, people recommend make sure it's not as low as 10. Mine is 9.5, and I'll keep it that way for now. But I think I heard there is a recommendation that said make sure your font is not any smaller than 10. Another thing that I want to mention is, is yeah, I make sure to like tweak the resume a little bit. And of course I use ChatGPT to help me, guys. ChatGPT has been a lifesaver. When you're applying to jobs, there's going to be a lot of questions and a lot of— sometimes you're going to have to write like paragraphs and then you have to write an essay for a job board. Sometimes you have to write a cover letter. Cover letters are annoying, which is why you let ChatGPT customize a cover letter for you. Of course, like make sure you read it as well so you know that it's saying the right things. But— and the positions I'm also looking at are— I've been looking at a lot of social media communication marketing roles, so lots of like content creation. But the one thing I also really want to try looking at is talent acquisition roles. I am very interested in talent acquisition. One of my friends said that you give people opportunities, which I love doing. Like, I always see so much potential in people and I love helping people. So I think a talent acquisition could be such a fun role to try. And so that is something I'm also going to be looking at moving forward. But yeah, these are little things I wanted to talk about for now. I'm sure there's going to be lots of other things I'll talk about, but yeah. Good morning, guys. So it is the day of my driving test and I woke up and I want to have a very nice breakfast to start the day. Usually I like to have my breakfast or like just to eat a little bit later, but because of this test, I definitely need to fuel up before. So I have an omelette with some cucumbers, bananas, and peanut butter. So that is— and a little bit of coffee. This is what I'm gonna be eating. Okay guys, so we are on the way to Stratford. For the road test, and I will see you guys when I pass because I will pass. Hey guys, I'm back in the car and you guys guessed it, I freaking passed the test. So, so happy. There are a few things that I still need to work on. The first one is lane changing. I feel like I don't speed up enough before lane changing. I have to make sure I speed up and then I lane change. Change because especially on highways, like, there's gonna be so much traffic. Like, I can't just slow down and change. Like, that's so stupid. So yeah, anyways, yay, I don't have to worry about this anymore, and I'm so glad. Hello guys, so it is the next day. I just finished editing my Socratica documentary, or a little bit parts of the documentary, and now it's time to go into more internship search. But of course, you guys, I love to switch my environment, so we are actually gonna go to a little cafe and do some search there, get some— maybe get some matcha, and then just keep doing internship search. Today on the to-do list is to start searching for new roles. So I've been applying to lots of social media marketing positions, but I'm honestly really interested in talent acquisition roles. And so today I'm going to really try to research more about what talent acquisition is. Is this something I'm really interested in pursuing in the future? And I'm going to start like finding roles that I could apply for. Let's go to a café. I ended up going to this really nice café called Midnight Run. I've only been here once on a date. Yeah, my first ever date was here. That was like 2 years ago and I haven't been here ever since. It's actually really, really nice. The cozy vibes are here. It's kind of like what you would expect a café to be, a good amount of café ambience with a bit of chatter and the smell of delicious coffee. I ended up getting a matcha latte because I've been seeing lots of people drinking it on Instagram and I wanted to hop on the trend. It was surprisingly super tasty and not bitter at all. So on this day at the café, I started researching more about talent acquisition, what kind of qualifications I need to pursue it, as well as I started applying to talent acquisition recruitment roles. So progress, I've been here for over 3 hours now. I'm actually about to go in around 30 minutes, I'll leave, but I've gotten some really great progress on everything. So I actually ended up applying to 5 more companies, this time in the HR and talent acquisition roles. And now what I'm doing is I'm pretty much going to find all the companies I'm interested in, and like, I'll reach out to different companies. I'm just going to I'm going to send them a message that I'm looking for internships in marketing and HR for the winter. Later on, I'm actually going to buy a LinkedIn premium membership and just send out all those messages because you do need premium for that. So yeah. So I just finished working at the café and now I'm heading home to have dinner with my family. And oh my gosh, guys. Hey guys, I don't know if you guys can hear me, but I had such a great time at the cafe. I got so much work done, I was super productive. I applied to great positions, I found like made a really good list of all the people I want to reach out to for internship opportunities, and it was just such a good time. Like the vibes, the atmosphere, the drink was absolutely amazing, and it was my first time working at a cafe, and I'm definitely going to be working at more cafes for sure because I loved it. It was so, so good. Hello guys, so it is about time that I buy the LinkedIn Premium membership, but the best part about it is, guys, you get a month free, so you don't have to pay the first month. So that's my plan. I won't pay— I'll pay for it, but then I'll cancel it as as soon as I have to start paying because I really don't need it for, for longer than a month. I can do all my search, I can do all my reaching out to within this month, and then after that we'll see what happens next. So yeah, I got the credit card. Let us apply to this membership. Okay guys, I'm starting my free trial. Free trial. Start free trial. Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. Okay guys, so I bought it. I bought the membership or free trial, so now let's start reaching out to people. Let's do this. Since getting the premium membership, I am now able to message up to 5 people per month outside of my network. I wish it was even more, but I guess even premium doesn't give you as much flexibility. The first person I ended up messaging was a talent acquisition specialist at Amazon, and I used the cold email format I learned about in the podcast I listened to at the beginning of the video. So pretty much you'd begin every message with acknowledging that they may be busy, so this message should only take 60 seconds to read and be sure it's actually 60 seconds. And then I'd go into introducing who I am and sharing how that relates to the person I'm reaching out to. In this case, I'm reaching out and saying I'm interested in talent acquisition. The third body paragraph would be asking a thoughtful but also easy question for them to answer. And then the closing would be something low commitment and giving them an easy way out. Something like, they don't have to respond, but a 1 or 2 line statement would be appreciated. And so I sent this similar message to a few more people, tweaking it a little bit so it's not totally verbatim. Guys, I ended up reaching out to 19 people and all of the messages or like cold emails were very unique. They're all different. So it took me a couple hours, but definitely worth it. Hopefully at least someone responds. At least one person responds. That would be like an accomplishment. Okay guys, so this wraps up the first week of job searching. Before we go into our wins, I'll give you guys some updates with how everything is going. So pretty much all rejections so far. No one, no one said yes, which again, I wasn't expecting any yeses because it's still the first week and I've applied to companies that have really high numbers. So the chances of me getting an interview even is just so low. But yeah, I'm not letting that stop me. Another thing is I didn't hear back from any of the cold DMs I sent. No answers yet, but that aside, some wins is that we've updated our resume, we discovered a new role. Now guys, I can apply to more than just marketing and communications. Now I can apply to talent acquisition and HR because I realized this is something I'm interested in and I also have the skill sets for those. So I'm going to be applying to those positions as well. Another win is that I've applied to over 30 companies so far, which is a lot for the first week. My goal is is to try to apply to over 100. That's going to be my first milestone, so hopefully I can get that milestone hit soon. Hopefully I'm not overambitious here, but I think I can do it. And another win is that we just contacted so many people even though no one, no one replied back. And also I got LinkedIn Premium for the free trial, which by the way, I actually don't really recommend Premium, to be honest. I wouldn't, I wouldn't pay for it. Like, I'm just going to finish the trial and after that I'm not going to pay for it because I feel like you could go without it. So yeah, but anyways, that's pretty much all for the first week. Hopefully you guys can stick around, and if you're on your job search as well, then I wish you guys the best of luck. Hopefully you can join me on this journey, and let's help each other out. I know we have what it takes to get the job of our dreams. So yeah, anyways, thank you for watching this video. I'll see you guys for week 2, and yeah, until then, see you later! Lungs on fluorescent and infrared.