Two really great things happened to me over the last three days, career wise.

I got a 6 month placement in Germany and I landed myself a professional job of my dreams here in Melbourne, to start in early Feb. After a whole year of wading through all this employment crap... it's finally happened. I am just incredibly ecstatic about these two jobs but the timing and the circumstance is making things rather bittersweet. Why? Because I might have to pass up my long waited Germany placement and thus Europe travel for this job... :(

I am currently awaiting my official letter of offer and employment contract in the mail so I can read over and after that I'll maybe try to negotiate my starting date. My ideal outcome would be to defer my employment in Melbourne until after I get back from Germany so that way I can do both and be fully satisfied. But this is a Catch 22. The position I've managed to be offerred is a very competitive and very rare opportunity and to top that off, they only hire when they need people. I feel incredibly lucky (I might even stretch this out to 'blessed') to get this job and trying to ask for a 7 month deferral may jeopardise it?? Oh I don't know.

Yesterday, when I found out about this offer, I was soooo incredbily happy but soooo incredibly sad at the same time because I could just see Germany slipping away from me. I see Germany ranking very high in terms of personal growth as well as being an incredible experience that will not come again. It is a really hard thing to give up... but I will not give up this job in Melbourne for anything either. Man, yesterday I had the weirdest feeling in me. Happy but heartbroken. Satisfied but uneasy.

Ok so enough whining about this for the moment! Things will manage to sort itself out, I hope. I just need time to get my head around all of this that's happening. As my dad says, "it never rains but pours"! But this is what I'm in for...

Basically, in...

Germany - Will be based in Schwieberdingen a little township 10km from Stuttgart. 6 month project based employment doing mainly computational fluid dynamics stuff. I'm not an expert in this field, but I know my fluid dynamics pretty okay (in terms of theory) and I am a really fast learner when it comes to using programs. I got the software at home and I can do the tutorials to get myself a bit up to scratch. So basically, this is an engineering position.

Melbourne - I'll be an Actuarial Analyst with a consulting firm, working mainly in the field of superannuation. My office will be right in the heart of the CBD (my most ideal work location here in Victoria - Hey, when you're an engineer, there are possibilities of you ending up in whoop whoop places like Mt. Isa and Sale!!). They will train me up and support me in becoming a fully qualified actuary (I have to sit exams, just like the CA). I want to be an FSA one day!!!

I hasn't totally kicked in yet that I now have a professional job and that my career path has been more or less set. Being an actuary is entering a highly specialised field and I think you're either in it for the long run or you end up doing something else. I think I'm going for the former.

Having gone through all the SHIT this year applying for grad jobs this is a huge relief. I remember all the ups and downs (mainly downs) of the long and tiring and degrading process. I'm going to tell you all about it because it was such a huge part of my year...

First up was my applying for investment banking jobs believing I had all the right skills to be a banker. This was early in March this year. I applied to 7 investment banks and only 1 asked me for an interview. I got straight rejections from the other 6 banks which really made me upset considering the time I spent and effort I put in applying for each job... answering all their silly HR questions like "What makes you think you are worthy of the job", "Describe a time when you overcame a challenging situation", etc. I little part of me died every time I received a rejection because I felt I had all the qualities they look for: Strong analytical & problem solving skills, enjoys working with numbers, strong communication skills, team player, self-motivated, drive to succeed, etc. Atleast give me an interview! What more do they fucking want?? A cover letter that actually has a mechanical tongue that will literally and physically lick their arses and polish it at the same time???

So I went for that 1 interview and I went home crying thinking I did really bad. I was in curled up in a ball in my bed the rest of the afternoon because I felt I screwed up my one and only chance to be a banker. It was my very first 'professional' interview too - my other interviews were for part time retail jobs. To my surprise, I was called back to sit their 4 hr psychometric & ability test at their office. I was ecstatic... I ran downstairs screaming in sheeeeer happiness. I did the test which gave me a headache after those long 4 hrs (without a break!). I was truly exhausted.

Deciding that I was a smart cookie from my test results, I was called back again for another interview - that went for a bout 1.5 hrs, with managers of the departments they think I'd be good in. That interview went really well and I thought I had the cat in the bag. But no, I was called back a week later requesting for yet ANOTHER interview, this time it was 3 hours long. The interviews were of high stress, focusing on my knowledge in finance rather than my personal goals, ambitions and strengths. I felt it was degrading and how do they expect so much from a grad?? They completely drained me of my finance knowledge until I could no longer answer any of their outrageous questions. I felt like crying then and there. How can these managers treat me this way... and this is an interview not an oral examination!!

I didn't get the job after all that hard work. I was crushed but I was expecting that rejection. Looking back at it now, I am glad I am not a banker. I don't think I'm prepared to work the high-stress-120-hrs-a-week job and having absolutely no social life. This was a huge wake-up call. It made me think a lot harder about what I wanted for my future... identify what was important to me... it made me prioritise things.

I then started a string of engineering job applications. I thought "ok, so I won't be a banker then... let's get back into engineering". For some reason, my heart was not really into engineering as a profession, which was why I had a go at banking. Don't get me wrong though, I loved studying engineering. It was simply the best course and I enjoyed applying maths to complex physics, etc... but I really couldn't see myself doing field work or getting my hands dirty or getting wound up in a male dominated field. I didn't want a glass ceiling restricting me from really getting somewhere. As much as many companies promote themselves as equal employers, I couldn't see a very bright future for me as an engineer - in the long run. But this point, I thought engineering was the way to go since I couldn't make it into banking. Most of the engineering jobs I applied to were on the basis of "Not crazily interested but let's give it a go and see what happens. I need a job" - you get a bit desperate at times.

I was a lot more sucessful with my engineering job apps. I got interviews with every single company I applied for (which was only 5 in total, I think...). I think applying for banking jobs really got my resume up to scratch and I was often shortlisted from 1000 applicants to the mere 70 that they interview for first round interviews. One oil and gas company even called me back for a second interview, I was one of the 25 in that round. The rest were group interviews that I felt were incredibly stupid and a poor way of finding good grads. I didn't expect much from them. I didn't end up with any of these engineering jobs cos 1. oil and gas, my heart wasn't really in it and you could tell, 2. the rest were group interviews and there were only like 3 positions out of the 80 ppl they interviewed.

The problem with applying for the top engineering companies is that competition is very tough and there are probably a small handful of positions (max 10 positions for 1000 applicants). I only applied to 5 and that's not really trying at all. Y'see, I applied for Germany and I figured that I'd only want to give that up if I landed an awesome job here... and to me, an awesome job is a structured grad program with a large engineering firm. I didn't even bother with smaller companies or the consulting firms. I applied for 3 automotive companies but I don't think I stood a chance for those. Well, I have no automotive experience except for automotive safety... I can't compete with guys who have done internships previously at auto companies! I don't even know the difference between a Berlina and a Commodore!!! In mechanical engineering, I'm amidst students who actually can open up the bonnet of their car and tell you what everything is. I, on the other hand, can't. For that I felt I wasn't worthy.

I felt I would be a crap engineer anyways. I really have no interest in designing mechanical components (unless they are aesthetically pleasing), production and processes and crap like that. Going out to factories, getting hands dirty, doing field work, travelling out to really unglamourous whoop whoop places - great to get out of office but really, no thanks. I also didn't want to work out in industrial places like Clayton, Braeside, Port Melbourne, etc and wearing cargo pants. I'd do these things if I had to but if I had a choice, I wouldn't. And choosing a career means I have a choice! I'm a city office girl carrying around my PDA, thank you! Still, not getting these engineering jobs made me very upset to the point where I felt that I'll never EVER get a job. Again, a little part of me died each time I was rejected... all that effort, hard work, travelling to interviews, preparations... getting nothing in return. It's effort that never gets recognised. And that really hurts.

Then I discovered coastal engineering and hydraulics because my thesis was pretty much coastal engineering. I found it very interesting and it didn't involve designing ugly mechanical components or living out in whoop whoop. I love water, I have great interest in fluid mechanics, so I thought this was it. I wanted to be a consulting engineer specialising in hydraulics and working towards a Charted Professional Engineer status (CPEng). I thought that maybe my professor will get me a job at his consulting firm once I'm done with uni, as he's a director at a company specialising in marine related work. Then I found a large consulting firm looking for a grad in their Water group. I thought I found THE JOB. I applied... and basically, I haven't heard anything from them since. I checked whether they received my application and they did. But still no word. I suppose it wasn't for me :(.

Meanwhile during this whole time, my Plan B was to go to Germany if all this fails. Towards the end of the year I decided to stop applying for jobs unless they were jobs I REALLY wanted, because I also really wanted to go to Germany. Germany was taking its sweet time getting back to me and all was pretty miserable at some stage. During mid Semester 2, however, I was told of an actuary grad position with a large global consulting firm. Having a sniff at the company website and reading more about the profession and what it's like to work there, this was a job I REALLY wanted.

I first found out about the actuarial profession in Year 11, in Math Methods class. My teacher Mr. Schaffner was telling us about a job that was practically "the best job in the world" (I decided to research this fact and it is rated 2nd best job in the world this year Lol. So he lied.), where the "CEO of any company is unable to live without", etc etc. And I'm there sitting thinking "That sounds cool but like yeh right that'll ever happen to me!", as such jobs would be so hard to come by and I didn't even know what an actuary did, except they had to be good at maths.

My dad would then drop bits of information about the profession at home, but again, they were no more than a fleeting comment and something I never took seriously, because I was doing an engineering degree... I thought I was going to be an engineer. I had friends who actually specialised in studying actuary at Melbourne university - I thought you'd had to do that to get a job as an actuary. So the possibility of me being an actuary never dawned on me.

This year, when I had a super panic attack in Semester 1 that I there might be a chance that I'll fail one of my economics subjects (same day as when I was rejected from that very large oil and gas company), I began scurrying around the university's handbook looking for a subject I could do in semester 2 to make up my possible fail. I found the subject 'Actuarial Statistics', and having heard this word "Actuary" for a long time, I was curious and decided to enrol in that. I didn't even have the prerequisites for it, but I emailed the lecturer and asked nicely and said that I am good at maths and I do a lot of stats in engineering. So he let me!

I ended up not failing economics (phew, go me!) and so I ended up with two extra commerce subjects when I only needed one, which is meant to be some stupid first year core subject that I never got around to doing til final year :P. The commerce department contacted me saying that my enrolment was unacceptable and I had to drop one. I go "OK". And they dropped the first year core subject!! So I called them up and said "Hey, you got rid of the wrong subject. I have to do it cos its compulsory! Actuarial Statistics isn't compulsory, so drop that one!"

Then they told me that I could do the Actuarial Stats subject instead of the silly first year subject if I changed my course structure from the old to the new. And I'm like "YES PLEASE!" because I had way more interest doing Actuarial Stats than some silly first year core that would be just as annoying as a fly sitting on my shoulder.

So la di da, I found myself doing Actuarial Statistics - the only subject my university offers in terms of the actuarial stream. I had a brilliant lecturer and the content of the subject was very interesting and stimulating. For the first time I enjoyed statistics... the maths involved needed my skills from my engineering degree, yet applying with my knowledge in finance - it was brilliant!

Then a month or so later, Dad comes home saying that he knows someone who can give me an application form for a company who are looking for people with math related degrees to be an actuary. I leapt for it. I had an interview not long after... and then I heard nothing from them for 2 whole months. I thought they didn't like me and I actually gave up the thought of ever becoming an actuary. Then they contacted me saying that I'm still being considered but they aren't sure about positions just yet. So I waited... and then out of the blue a few months later they are contacting my referrees and I got my offer just *yesterday*!

Seriously, it was like I was sitting in the middle of a desert drought and then it starts raining cats and dogs.

Those of you out there who are finding the whole finding-a-job process disheartening and just down right fucking hard and slow, I totally feel your pain because I went through the same - this ENTIRE fucking YEAR right up until just last week. Whatever you do, don't lose heart and don't give up!!! Most of the time it is feeling down in the dumps and this is what makes things even more difficult. To be able to rock up fresh faced and enthusiastic to every fucking interview knowing you were rejected by another just yesterday... its truly a feat. If you're not getting interviews, get someone who has gotten interviews to look at your resume and cover letter and tell you what is wrong with it. Some people are lucky not to have to go through all of this but most cases, it's this hard. In some ways I'm glad that I went through all this shit because I now understand how tough things can be. But once you find that job... it is simply, just the best feeling... because you know you worked you ass off for it. :)

I kinda think that all those soul crushing moments that happened to me... gettin rejected all the time, etc, was because they weren't for me. I know its sorta lame to believe in fate... but all my life, I feel that things have happened for a reason. I rushed into investment banking without considering other finance career paths... believing it was the best thing for me. I applied for automotive companies believing that auto is where I want to be... but really, it's probably because every other engineering student was applying for them. There is a sense of 'loser-ness' when you're not applying for the "hottest jobs". I thought coastal engineering was IT for me out of desperation that no other engineering jobs interested me. I would not have even considered being an actuary if I had not freaked out about failing economics and then doing the actuarial stats subject. Y'know just all this stuff.

It's so hard to see this when you're actually in the process yourself in finding a job. You can't see round the corner, you can't see shit, basically. As painful as it all is, it is something where you'll come out stronger. Keep believing that when the right job comes along, it'll be yours!

xx