I met Alan on linkedIn, I didn’t know of him beforehand. He worked at Tesla, and thats not an easy place to get a job at. He goes to University of Alberta, we set up a meeting in which he broke down the process. He was the first person to teach me to write a good resume, and basics behind networking. This post is an application of what he told me, what I have learned from the job search, as well as things I’ve picked up over the years.
People
It is crucial to understand the nature of people. Getting a job is essentially communicating that you can do a job, for one to communicate there has to be a bedrock of trust. By examining trust, you can see how to build trust.
Would you trust a piece of paper about someone? Would you trust a text message with someone? Would you trust a phone call with someone? Would you trust a conversation with someone?
Where is it easiest to lie? Easiest to exaggerate your skills? I reckon its on paper and a conversation with someone is where I could trust someone.
trust in peron > trust over social-media > trust over resume
Prioritizing the job search in this fashion, could be very beneficial . Another way of interpreting this is the number of times you have to try to get one interview. You meet 5 people in person, likeliness to get a job interview is 20%, you apply to 5 jobs in person your likeliness of getting an interview is probably 5% .
Knowing this one should put in more work for those with higher conversion. If you are going to a career fair, wear a suit, put in work. Make sure you research the company. Practice your intro, if you sutter. There is no shame in practicing something simple. On the flip side, you really don't want to get the simple things wrong.
Have intelligent questions prepared, everything is information. Every word they utter gets you closer to the job. Phrase your questions in a way that gives you valuable information.
What is valuable information?
It could be anything that helps you advance towards the job, what kind of person are they looking for? What skills do you need to have?. Once you have collected this information you can began your research.
Ask yourself this question? Am I qualified for this job? If the answer is yes, continue if the answer is no then you might be wasting your time with this and it could be better to get another job.
Now since you know what person you need to be get that job, you need to align your interests with the company's interest. That line is profound; you may need to read it again. In an interview they can also ask so many questions, the guide to technical questions is to simply know them. As for personality questions, think back to who they are looking for, do they need someone that is skilled in talking to people? Do they need a leader? Do they need a person that needs to listen? Now reach into your arsenal of skill and experiences you have developed over the years, and see how you can do this. If they need a person that is skilled in talking to people, bring up how you worked at Mcdonalds and had to talk to people. If it’s a person that needs a listener, then bring up the fact that you are introvert and you love to listen. Beware no one question will be phrased in this way. You are always answering the underlying question. When they ask Tell us about yourself, they mean tell us if you are good fit to the company.
Personal metrics
5-10 in person meeting = 1 interview -> 1 job offer
154 job applications = 3 video interviews 1 real person interviews -> not sure about job offers I canceled my search once I had a job
Look at the ratio 20% - 10% VS 1.95%.
And these are video interviews not with real people,
just real interviews then 0.65%
Either way works, the only limitation is the number of applications you have to submit. I am a coop student but I got my job outside of co-op.
Resume
Theres only 3 big takeaways that I learnt
One page
Remove Clutter
Tailor your resume to the role.
One page
One page its the divine rule, since there is no time for recruiters to look at the second page, think of the last time you went on the second page of googles search results.
Remove Clutter
People can tell its bull shit, underwater ceramic technician for washing dishes. I personally don’t believe in that. The goal of the resume is to show what you know, if your description of what you know is convoluted then what you is most likely also convoluted.
Tailor your resume
This is something I don’t have much experience with, and something I started doing towards the end of my job application process. A faster way of doing this, recommended to me by a friend is having a Master Resume, One for hardware, One for software, one for soft skills, you get the idea. But now you can pull different parts of the resume to tailor it to your role.
SIDE NOTE: Using Ai is great, but honestly you can tell when something is Ai generated, and I would only use at AFTER you have written your resume, prompting it to critique the resume is also a good idea.
Adding metrics try quantifying your skills, its one thing to say I was the best in my city at ping pong versus saying I was best in my city of 1 million people. Now you can see the examples of how my resume changed below.
Interivew
These are questions that were asked
Tell us about yourself ?
Why engineering, why specifically Electrical Engineering?
How do you manage time?
What role do you play in a team?
Why do you want to work for us?
What's an obstacle you faced and how did you resolve it?
Are you interested in the role?
2024 October Page 1 of 2 
2024 October Page 2 of 2 
2025 January
Networking
(this is kind of a story you can skip it)
In the summer of 2024, all my upper year friends told me that getting a 4 month coop in ECE is no joke, and that half the coop kids didn’t get jobs. They said start applying as soon as possible and start making your resume now. This got me pretty stressed out, so I made my first engineering resume, which was 2 pages long. I started applying to jobs in October, got rejected from every single one. I personally thought I was hot shit, but it turns out I was just shit. This is when I started seeking out advice on writing better resumes and honestly started wondering if I’m worth hiring. I texted a Alan on LinkedIn, complete stranger, he worked at Tesla, seemed like a cool guy. We set up the meeting, we talk for 1 hour. He broke it down, how he got the job, how qualified he was and how much work he put it. This guy worked two engineering jobs at the same time. Anyway He asked me if he can be honest, and at this point I knew I was in for a rude awakening. He looked at me said “cut the bullshit”. There was around 2 pages worth of bullshit on my resume (my whole resume). He told me about how many people he texted on linkedIn in order to get that role at Tesla, coffee chats, learning bit by bit while also working on his technical skills. Honestly I haven’t worked as hard as him with the networking.
ANYWAY, He invites me to this talk for that his silicon valley CEO friends are hosting. I said I’ll be there reluctantly. The best well spent 1 of that entire week, they went into depth about technical questions and gave us resources to get jobs in competitive tech. I text the Electrical Engineer that gave the talk, I just say ‘Thank you so much for giving us this information”. He replied 2 weeks later, and I said whatever he's probably not going to respond but whatever. Sent him a text "Can we do a quick call to chat about electrical engineering". He replies within 10 MINUTES, and we set the date for the next day. We talk and he was in car sales too, and there is a bond between people when you both did something so hard, it's hard to capture in words. He probably worked 60-70 hour weeks just like I did, on call all the time, no days off. He was pretty impressed with what I’ve done and said I should talk to his brother, so I get on a call with his brother. I talk to his brother, he’s an electrical engineer and he was the president of the electrical engineering club and I was the first year president at my university, right there we clicked. I talk to him, and he has a software role in mind, guess whose been coding since like 14? ME. He talked more about the technology he used NEXT js, guess what book2you.ca is built on?? NEXT JS. He asked me a question about some UX design thing, guess who did UX design ?? MEEEE. All the stars aligned. The company was great, this guy seemed great, and I would actually be able to do meaningful work, as in this is MY DOMAIN, as in if I was ever good at anything it would be this. He offers me the role, and asks me if I’m Canadian Citizen or US citizen, I say I’m an Indian citizen. And he said he’ll have to talk to his lawyer about hiring me since this is aerospace start up. I waited 2 weeks, I thought it was meant to be, it was like finding a soulmate except its a soul job. Texted me “Unfortunately we won’t be able to hire you because of compliance requirements our customers give us “. I was like AHH. I’ll be honest I was sad, but the silver lining was that. I figured out this exists, I went through the whole process first hand, let's step back a little. I knew none of these people 2 weeks prior. It was literally a stranger -> work friend mutual -> his brother. These guys are from SILICON VALLEY. The process works. Even as I'm writing this I definitely could leverage this more.
I continued to employ everything I listed above, I put more effort into in person career fairs than sending applications. I still sent a good amount every week, but since NO ONE puts effort into in-person meetings, it is really easy to stand out. I went to the career fair with a suit on, resumes on hand, everyone else was wearing T-shirts. I went to the career fair hosted by the ESS. I had some great conversations with the people there. I was trying specifically to talk to engineers, and get to know more about the technical work. Once they start talking, just listen to what they are saying, don’t try replying with remarks that you think are smart. They know you are just a student, do they don’t expect you to know, and ask questions if you don’t get it, be honest. I did this with an Engineer and they shared a lot about the role and who they were as a person. The role sounded a lot like me. Once I knew who they were looking for, if I got the interview all I had to do, was talk about the experiences that they were looking for. This is exactly what I did during the interview. After I finished the interview, I was at peace. I couldn’t have explained who I was in a better fashion, and if they did not accept me for the role. It was because my experience did not align with what they were looking for. Within the next week I got the offer and I accepted. I’m very happy with the company I’m working for, and I’m really excited for this summer.
If anyone needs any help just send me an email at jmanoj@ualberta.ca. I won't be checking instagram
Thanks again Alan I really appreciate it