After my poor performance at an interview for the company that I wanted to join, I have been talking to many people and thinking a lot about how I can change the situation. I am going to share how I see things differently from last week.
My first thing was to shift from learning from input to learning from the output. In the process of changing how I present who I am to others, the first question that I was asking myself was, "what kind of output the recruiters want to see in new candidates at the interview. If I were a recruiter, and I need to choose a new candidate, I will first think why I need to hire a new worker. Is it because my company is launching new projects or looking for somebody who can extend the work? Either way, I would like to find a new one who matches the company's requirements. So, how do I find one among many candidates?
We usually submit resumes, and it is a massive pain for a recruiter to read through thousands of resumes. All the thing the recruiter needs is an explanation about what the new candidates have done and why he/she stands out among all the other candidates? Simply, what he/she can do is very clear. The recruiters are busy and don't have enough time to read through all of our experiences and know who the candidate is. Instead, the recruiter would pick up some keys and dig it in. My previous resume contained too much information and wasn't doing a good job of explaining why I have been doing projects. I was always saying I want to find a job. But I wasn't focused on why I need one and what I want to achieve.
I admit that I always spoke gibberish at the interviews, mostly because I wasn't confident enough. I used to think about how smart other people were and felt very stupid. That was shown in the interviews, and whenever there were some hard questions, I was trying to hide the negative mindset, but I couldn't. So, I started to make what I have done and what I can do clear so that people can understand what value I can bring to other people and companies. Whether I am in an actual interview or just chatting, I tried to make it a priority.
I believe that everyone is unique in his/her way, and the uniqueness is always where the values are coming from. But we end up ignoring it and try to do things as other people do. I have seen so many people in Japan who didn't know what they were good at and told me that they had to choose their job even though they didn't like it. It is very sad, but it is very, very common in Japan. I was one of them, and I had been ignoring it until recently. I had been educated to follow others, and I took it for granted for 18 years before entering my college in the U.S. For me, everybody was creative and enjoying what they were doing in the college. While I was catching up with the culture and learning English, I was gradually losing confidence and lost my value. Since the American culture was too different from how I grew up, and I didn't have people who had a similar background, I assumed most of my experience as interior activities. Of course, that was a mistake.
Recently, I have shifted my conversation style from asking questions to explaining what I have been recently learning and how I think differently. I have seen some differences in how people are treating me. I started to talk about what I want to achieve and why I want to accomplish that. I have also been explaining why I was passionate about my projects. Now, I am gaining back my confidence and seeing what I can provide to people and companies. I have a unique experience and a different perspective based on my crazy adventures. Now, my task is how to present it to others in a better way.
I am also gaining my passion back. I have a dream to help many people with technology. Mainly, I want to help people who don't have enough money to access to medical help. I can see that this is my driving force. I do engineering to solve the problems and provide the solutions to these people, not just because coding is cool.
Currently, I am volunteering at the Venture Cafe in Tokyo as an ambassador. I think the practice makes my presentation skills better. I have gotten much advice, which was sometimes harsh. However, thanks to these people who weren't hesitant to take a step to give me advice, I am making progress to be more confident and finding what value I can bring to people. I am starting to see why there are always people and business around people who are willing to create a new world with their imagination and involving many people. I believe that I can be one of them.
Thank you for reading! Please leave some comments.