I believe I found a job!!! It’s essentially an official offer. I’m completely blown away!

I’m extremely proud of myself. I’ve been hustling so hard. Since December, I’ve sent over a hundred emails, had dozens of coffee chats, went to random conferences and events. It’s a constant process of asking for help, following up. So much follow-up, so much hustle. More hustle than I’ve ever done in my life.

I take pride in that. I hustled a little for my past jobs: I sent ~20 emails to get a research position with Rausser and Zilberman. For Beyond, I contacted numerous companies, and ultimately got that through a Berkeley professor. Then with my job in Taiwan, I did network and follow-up and landed the gig through a 5th degree connection.

Some lucky folks can get away for several years, perhaps even decades, without truly hustling. They might be comfortable in one large corporation, or attractive enough professionally that recruiters reach out to them. But the rest of us – the fool-hardy, idealistic, or ambitious – gotta hustle. In a weird job market, I was moving countries, changing industries, and essentially a fresh grad trying to break in. It felt like an impossible task.

The first mountain to overcome was deciding what I wanted to do. I had no idea. Even after having worked during summers, done economics research, organized political campaigns on-campus… I had no idea what job was for me. Well, I still don’t. But at some point I chose my priorities. The job, ideally, would let me: stay in the Bay Area, have the chance to grow and take on new responsibilities, and let me try on many hats. In life, I have many priorities – making an impact being another major one – but one job can’t do everything. For now, I want to be in the Bay where my friends are, and do things that make sense early career.

Then it was a question of what job would fit those requirements. I spoke to a lot of people in November and December and slowly made progress. Folks told me about roles and what they mean: product manager, sales engineer, customer success manager, account manager, operations. I learned that at big companies, your focus can be very narrow, whereas at small companies or startups, you can try on a lot of hats. I also learned at startups that people can have major upward momentum, especially if the company is doing well. So I had some semblance of an answer: operations or sales jobs at tech startups in the Bay. I had a one-liner, the answer to, “what do you want to do?” It was a major step forward.

Looking for my first big boy job, I had three main things going for me: hunger, charisma, and a book: The 2-Hour Job Search by Steve Dalton. His book was my bible. He broke down the idea of “networking” and fully understood the user journey. He has a wealth of experience (being a career counselor at Duke’s business school), a concrete way of communicating and a rational, measured approach to decision-making.

The book was important to me, because there is so much conflicting information about job searching. There’ll be dozens of resume templates, everyone has different suggestions of what you should do. It is the most frustrating thing ever! I learned quickly that advice is easy to come by and very hard to implement. I recommend the Dalton book, but why should you believe me? All I can say is that having one (and exactly one) go-to source of information that spanned the entire process was invaluable for my peace of mind. I didn’t have to overthink how I phrased an email or how many I sent or to whom, because I had a trusted mentor laying it all out.

I had many career chats, but two stick in my mind. My mom’s friend’s son – we’ll call him Dhruv. He’s 32, a product manager at a tech company. He says it’s important to have an intention going into a job. Fight for responsibility and pay. And leave when they’re taking more than you’re taking from them. He’s left and joined an impressive slew of organizations: various interesting start-ups, he worked for peanuts in the film industry, but ultimately realized he wants to save money first and do film later in life as a hobby. His perspective mirrors the excellent career advice essay by British journalist George Monbiot:

“When faced with the choice between engaging with reality or engaging with what Erich Fromm calls the “necrophiliac” world of wealth and power, choose life, whatever the apparent costs may be. Your peers might at first look down on you: poor Nina, she’s twenty-six and she still doesn’t own a car. But those who have put wealth and power above life are living in the world of death, in which the living put their tombstones – their framed certificates signifying acceptance to that world – on their walls. Remember that even the editor of the Times, for all his income and prestige, is still a functionary, who must still take orders from his boss. He has less freedom than we do, and being the editor of the Times is as good as it gets.”

Another memorable phone call was with Swami (name redacted), a partner at a VC firm. This call was brutal. I came in with my normal informational interview questions – broad, generic, and it was clear I hadn’t done my homework. Swami picked up on my bullshit and said, “Listen, Rohan, I say this lovingly. When you have 15 minutes to talk to a venture capital partner, you better do your goddamn homework.” He then told me what I should’ve done: chosen 3 firms from his portfolio, told him why I’m a great person to work at these companies, and told him why I’m excited by it. I was shocked – how many people have the balls to push back like that in an informational interview? I thought I was leading the conversation! Nevertheless, it was transformative. I told Swami it was my first time looking for a big boy job, and my first time packaging myself. Swami then said, “look, you’re new to the startup world, but you’re not new to branding yourself. You did it to get into Berkeley, you did it to get connected with me. When you have a polished, forwardable email I can send to a startup founder, call me back.” He was charitable and specific in his advice that I couldn’t help but go and do what he was suggesting.

That conversation was a phase shift for me. I realized I had to get serious about branding, preparation, and professionalization if I was to succeed. I realized that people are judging me not on my worth as a person, but rather my monetary value to their enterprise. Hiring people is like buying furniture. You want a strong, sturdy item that fits well in your home. The job market is a market for human capital. Goods on a market will only sell if they’re presented in the best light. I therefore needed to network, to have a shtick, a story.

Do I enjoy making these horridly objectifying analogies? No, I don’t. I had avoided it thus far because every ounce of me despises “snakey” behavior. Being a snakey networker was, in my mind, was for CEOs, consultants, and tech bros. But I had to recognize the cold reality of the job market. My goal is to have career growth and create an impact in the long-run, and for that, I knew I needed to drink the kool-aid in the short-run. With a different view, I could better create distance between my personal feelings and what needed to get done.

Things proceeded pretty quickly! I landed in the Bay mid-February. I went to two major conferences, one of which eventually led to an interview, then another interview, then a work trial, and an on-site marathon interview series, and then finally an offer. But since January, I’ve been “on the job” the whole way through – constant emails, going to events, asking “do you know anyone who might be useful to talk to?”. The one thing that does work out happens pretty fast, but it’s a matter of persisting and not losing hope until that happens.

Over the past four months, I approached the study and practice of job searching with the seriousness of an academic. I read the books, dove into the data, interviewed the experts. In something so random and luck-driven, you can really only focus on the process. Jacket on, jacket off. I’m proud of myself for persevering through it all.