For those of you who missed it, I recently finished My First Chapter at Microsoft as a Sales Operations Program Manager in Canada. Since I took on a role for someone who was going on maternity leave, I always knew that I had to keep my eye on what’s next.

In the previous blog post, I talked about making time for professional development, expanding my network and perspective, and finding my passion (aka what gives me energy). Here, I am continuing the story of my job hunting process.

Building My Career Walking Deck

Once I started actually applying for jobs on the Microsoft Career portal, I reached out to the hiring managers to let them know I was interested. In my e-intros, I attached a one pager from my Career Walking Deck and asked for a virtual coffee chat. Some of them said no (or didn’t respond), but most of them said yes! In the virtual coffee chats, I would prepare some questions to learn more about the role and team (see next section).

Although it took quite a bit of time and effort, I tailored my one pager to each role before sending it off to the hiring manager. Although some of the elements stayed the same (like my background and interests), I tweaked the keywords and experiences to fit the job posting. For example, when I applied for a Business Program Manager role, I would emphasize my operations skillset vs. when I applied for a Communications role, I would emphasize my blogging and marketing related experiences.

Interviewing In Action

I like to think that your initial coffee chat with the hiring manager is already an interview of sorts. It’s essentially an informal opportunity for both you and the hiring manager to get to know each other. It was important for me to make a strong impression. Usually, I started off by going through the one pager that I originally shared via email. Afterwards, I would ask these questions:

1. Can you tell me about your career path and how you ended up leading this team?
2. What is your team’s mission and how does this role play a part in it?
3. What are the top 3 things you want to see this role accomplish in the next 12 months?
4. What is your leadership style and the team culture like?
5. What advice do you have for me if I am serious about this opportunity?

After the chat, I made sure to follow up until I either got a formal interview or rejection note. If I was lucky enough to secure an interview, I would flush out my Career Walking Deck in much greater detail. This surprisingly took hours of preparation because I had to:

• Determine 3-5 buckets that the role & responsibilities fell into
• Identify my relevant skills and experiences for each of the buckets
• Set up coffee chats with team members or stakeholders to learn more about the role/team
• Develop a 30-60-90 day onboarding plan if I were to get the job
• Prepare other assets or analysis that demonstrated my understanding of the role and its challenges
• Brush up on my interview skills (e.g. mock interviews with my mentors or coaches and get feedback)

Then when it was go-time, I made sure to bring a bright smile and lots of energy to the interview 😄 (please stay tuned for another blog post that dives into interview preparation tips or subscribe to see past interview tips/resources).

Timing My Outcomes

Although my overall job hunting process took many months of research and reflection, the formal part (applying and interviewing) took place over 3 months from June to August. To summarize my job hunting stats, I applied for 8 different opportunities, got 6 interviews for 4 of the opportunities, and landed 1 role. Yes, I’ve been rejected but I asked for feedback every time—which I now keep in mind for the future.

Since the goal was to land multiple job offers, I tried to time my applications and interviews so that they could take place within weeks of each other. Although I was close to achieving this goal, I decided to proceed and accept my first and only job offer because it was THE ONE that I knew I was most passionate and excited about!

And there you have it, a 2-part overview of my job hunting process during the pandemic. Hopefully you picked up a couple tips here and there that will help you land your next opportunity. Be sure to also share your own ideas and feedback with me by commenting below or messaging me on LinkedIn.

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