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Top 10 Tips on Getting an Internship & Job

Firstly some updates from me: I know I have been writing about job hunting/networking a lot these days, but coming up next~~~ a post on writing new year objectives for young professionals, and then another post on some exciting advancement in my own career and how I managed to get there!

Also if you like what you see, you might want to consider “subscribing” to my blog via RSS or email, see top right on this web page! And help me to share or tweet the posts you enjoyed reading!

 

Now back to job-hunting~~~

It’s about the time of the year that college students start to get super worried about their “future”, and I feel obliged to write another article on job hunting. A few ladies recently reached out to me for more advice on getting an internship or full-time job (thanks again for complimenting on my blog btw, I am glad if my posts did help you in any way). And before you reach out directly to me again, READ THIS POST!

Please go directly to No.3 on the list if you are in a hurry.

 

A Good NAME for your Internship; A Good TEAM for your Job

I was at this Womensphere Summit on Emerging Global Leaders this past Saturday and the beautiful lady sitting beside me is a junior at Brown University majoring in International Relations (no surprise), and she is freaking out about what she is going to do for the rest of her life, especially when everyone starts talking about passion and building a solid career path.

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This may be the stage you are at in your life and you are thinking about the same issues and you may be freaking out too, and if I were right, you actually go to a great school with top programs and your grades are decent. But you are still freaking out. Why? I know. I’ve been there before: There are simply too many options, and you could potentially do anything and everything. But you have no clue what you really want and how you should make such decisions.

Ok so here are some well-tested advices (by my own experience and by many others) on how to figure out your passion and make decisions on your junior internship and more importantly, your first full-time job. Bear with me.

 

Find a good NAME for your internship

Tips on effective networking for women

I had the opportunity to be involved in a couple of women initiatives recently, and I realized how frustrating and confusing the whole experience of networking may be to some women. Today I’d like to write about how to effectively network as a woman, and as a young professional, especially in industries most likely still dominated by men.

 

Forget about emotional connection for a second

One of the most important difference between how men and women network which I recently discovered is that men connect with each other instantly from a networking perspective, while women tend to connect first from an emotional angle, which could be a powerful thing in a longer-term oriented relationship, but not necessarily effective in a social setting. Many times after a conference or gathering event, men will walk away with business cards, and a list of names he can contact for his new business idea or who will help to advance his career or to land his next job; while women might walk away only to discover she spent most of her time talking about food, clothes, recent movies, or even kids, and she still doesn’t know too much about the other person she just spent 20 minutes with!

There’s a recent article on BNET on the right mindset of networking: to perceive networking as a skill not a task, which means you should develop your networking skills quite consciously. Given that mindset, it will be easier to talk to a total stranger in a more efficient and effective way (and not feeling awkward) when you start asking questions about his/her career, ambitions, recent development, long-term plans, suggestions, how to get there, etc. Most importantly, try to walk away with “how you can help them do better in what they do” as well as “how they can help you do better in what you do.”

Good ways to spend your Monday Holiday

My New Year was off to a rocky start. I lost my phone; my new phone didn’t arrive one week after I lost my old one; and I was sick for more than a week. But then I realized it’s probably a good time to say to yourself: things will only get better. It was like how I entered the financial industry. It was great timing as a matter of fact, it was 2 months before Lehman went down. Yes, things will only get better. They always do.

 

And my turnaround came yesterday when I felt much better both physically and mentally. And it was a Monday and a holiday, so what did I do?

 

 

Read something new, or finish up your old book

My friend suggested me a good cafe close to where I live. It was a cozy place, has its own library and serves amazing almond tea. I have been reading this book on “difficult conversations” by people who live and breathe difficult conversations both in a business context and a personal context at HBS. It was a good read, it provided a good learning opportunity to me and although I’m still half way through the book, I can see myself applying some of the strategies and perceptions to my day-to-day work which very much involves challenging communications one way or another. I was quite efficient with my reading that afternoon and my friend also finished up his reading on Russian history (the collapse of Soviet Union and the people involved). Just a few hours digging into the pages and the very scent of words and stories can make a huge difference on how fulfilled you feel about your day. Try it. Try it again.

 

我羡慕那些时光流逝却未能改变他们的人

Another periodic Chinese blog of mine, in response to a movie based on my very generation, emotionally deep; excuse me if you don’t read Chinese.

“少年的我们，都是热烈而坚持的，那是一种光芒，引人入胜。我羡慕那些时光流逝却未能改变他们的人”
 
——前两天终于看了80后那部电影。不能说每个情节都感同身受，可是很多细节上了东西却仿佛无缘无故的牵扯了我多年没有调动了的敏感神经。这是一部融入了太多感情在里面的片子，让我流泪，在回忆中不知所措，然后一发不可收拾。
 

 

所以我一直很犹豫要不要写这篇文字。爬格子对我来说有时候是一个很痛苦的过程。要么就不写，如果写就需要在沉静中奔放，在压抑中爆发。我总觉得，爬格子是一项只能在深夜才能进行的活动。夜深人静，才可以看透彻自己的心境，等文字终于自然流淌，才终于得以释怀。所以我才一直觉得，写字让我痛苦，却也因此让我沉迷。
 
记得中学的时候读安妮宝贝，看新概念作文，谈论郭敬明。现在想来真的很奇怪，那些根本从来没有在我身上发生过的事情，为什么只是读过就在自己的身体和精神上刻了那么深的烙印。慢慢学会“一半明媚一半忧伤”或者什么“快乐而孤独的等待”还有“爱情仿佛在她心里开出一朵诡异的花”还有那些一切有关长发，阳光，白球鞋的东西。乐此不疲。
 
我们本来都是快乐而简单的小孩子吧。为什么后来我们的文字里有那么多忧伤？
 

On “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”, and what is wrong about it

Aside from the release of Verizon iPhone 4 and another round of big snow in New York, there is something else that has flooded the internet these days: Ms. Amy Chua’s Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior article on WSJ.

I have to say I like this article. I admire Amy’s honesty and audacity to even talk about things in such controversy that many Chinese are familiar with but may be totally unimaginable to other cultures. I am intrigued and impressed by her witty (at times funny) language and detailed examples, and I mean who would not be?! Especially when you read such a tagline – Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?

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However, as much as I have personally lived through many experiences Amy has explicitly described in her article, and as much as I can only nod through her 3 points that by large have differentiated Chinese parents from other parents, I have sadly come to an conclusion that there are at least two fundamental flaws in the very foundation of her arguments:

1)      Happiness and success do not necessarily correlate to each other, especially when you define success in such a narrow way.

2)      Ending your parenting story when your kids are 15-ish is probably quite pre-mature. What may have worked for a 7-year old does not mean it will work the same for a late teen.

Best of 2010, and Preview of 2011

I have kept blogs in a variety of places before and this is the first and only time the website sent me a stats summary with such details for the bygone year. For the constant thrive to optimize user experience and the degree of dedication, I want to first thank WordPress for offering me, and many other bloggers in this world, an intimate place to pursue our passions, to share our curiosities, and to develop a legacy. 

I also want to take the opportunity to appreciate every one of you who has stopped by my blog over the past year. For those who have commented on my posts, cheered for me on my facebook walls, left a message to me on LinkedIn and Gtalk, followed me on Google Reader, or mentioned my blog to me face-to-face, I want to thank you for being my constant motivation and inspiration. Your encouragement means the world to me.

Started in mid-April 2010, the blog had 70 new posts and was viewed about 21,000 times over the course of 2010. Not bad for the first year I have to say. Thanks for sharing this with me.

Here are my Top Posts of the Year:

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10. This is the kind of email I WILL respond to!

This was an introduction email on career opportunity that I have been waiting for. As I know most people are still struggling on how to effectively network and communicate, I figured it was a good idea to share the email and my interpretation with you. 

Get Back On The Horse

I was staying late for a regional call with Asia and before I left the office I walked around the floor to see who else is there at this hour. I saw one of my colleagues on another team who was just promoted to VP. I walked into his office and said, what’s going on? 

And then I noticed a book on his desk The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw (the collection of mini-bios from the generation of WWII), and I asked him, do you enjoy reading bios?

He said, “yes, I’m just starting this one, but my latest read and my all time favorite was Winston Churchill’s biography”, his eyes lightened up, “and actually I still remember very clearly the 5 things about him and his life.”

I was intrigued, and he started writing on the whiteboard hanging next to the wall. 

1. Aim high (you know what this means)
2. No substitute for hard working (you know what this means but focus on whether you are doing it)
3. Get back on the horse (meaning no matter how many times you fail or fall off the horse, you stand up, be strong, and get back on the horse)
4. Never be revengeful (Don’t spend even a second on thinking how to get back to those who may have hurt you or sabotaged you, this is politics, but you have more important things to focus on)
5. Help others (again, probably easier said than done)

And then I asked a critical question which landed my writing here today. I asked, if you are to rank the importance of these 5 things which one will come on top?

Top 8 Things I learned in 2010 (Part II)

5. The easiest thing in the world is to say good things about other people.

Without even seriously meaning it. But it’s so easy, and you see the results. It doesn’t cost you anything, but it makes everybody happy. It really should be something natural to you, because everyone else is doing it too.

But you must be stupid if you don’t know WHY other people are doing it, especially if you are the “target” of the praise. Some people might seriously mean it, and I have every respect for those being honest and genuine with their compliments, but even if you are 10 times better than the compliments, why should they? Because you are a boss? You are a girlfriend? You are his date in this dance club? You are a customer browsing shoes? You are a competition?

Top 8 Things I learned in 2010 (Part I)

IT WAS QUIET IN THE OFFICE for the past two weeks, so I took the opportunity to strategize my plan for the next year and I took the initiative to talk to a few senior managers to understand opportunities, direction of the business and the team, and to ask for advice on where I should be headed with my career going forward. In the mean time, I spent a great deal of time contemplating on the bygone year, and here are a few thoughts I’d like to share with you.

1. The best conversations happen in the ladies’ room

Well I am not sure what’s going on in the men’s room I don’t typically spend a lot of time there, but I would imagine talking in the men’s room to be quite awkward and embarrassing. It’s surprisingly not the case in the ladies’ room. In fact, many of the most important conversations I ever had throughout the year all happened in this seemingly constraint space, including how to get onto the women network events committee, who to talk to for international travel visa arrangement, which MD is going to be out for how long so I should schedule my meetings early, and etc.

I guess one of the reasons is some of the days people are honestly that busy so the only time they have slightly some freedom to take a breeze is when they go to the bathroom. And I’m not sure if it happened to you too, but a lot of times I feel I keep bumping into the same person once I run into her once in the bathroom. At actually the line I’ve used the most was: “hey I’ve seen you around on the floor, but my name is D, which group are you in again?”

Be Vulnerable, Be Seen

THIS IS THE BEST TALK I’ve seen for years, and I wish these were the kind of things that could be taught at school. But no, most people are still seeking and struggling. I am hoping to share this with you because I believe this talk really gets to the core of how we are human, how we reflect our own values and worthiness through communications with each other, and provides a new perspective on how we love and live.

To resonate with Professor Brown’s insight on the fact that the people with the most sense of love and belonging are usually those who embrace their vulnerability and view vulnerability as nothing else but a necessity, I do want to say from my own experience and my friends’ stories, I came to realize something surprising and fundamental, yet so true: you are happier if you say I love you first, you are happier if you initiate a conversation first, you are happier if you are the one who have the courage to commit and contribute without even thinking about whether or not this will work out.

Exactly through these efforts that may or may not work out, you see your value and worthiness. You love first and then you find a place for your heart in this world.

5 Unexpected Things I Learned About Life Through TED

This is the best article I ever read. Seriously.

1. We don’t know what we want. 

2. If you tell someone your goal, you’re less likely to accomplish it. 

3. Small details are more important than big ones. 

4. How we think about time determines how well we do. 

5. One pig can be used in 185 different products. 

Yes, if you just spare 2 minutes, read this one.

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“I don’t worry about anything”

I HAD MY 8-HOUR LONG training on presentation skills yesterday. It was dreadful. They video tape you, and then tear you apart. But then they teach you how to improve with your voice, tone, gesture, posture, notes, slides, how to address hop topics or answer “I don’t know” questions, and even how to stand, where to look, how to raise your arm and point with your hand, and much more.

At the end of the day, everyone was super exhausted, but everyone was happy. Everyone saw significant improvement from one taping to another, and everyone got much more comfortable with the key message they are trying to convey and how to make it as effective as possible. And secretly I was especially happy because my friend at another finance firm told me his training on presentation skills was a disaster, which apparently involved jumping around and almost making a fool of himself in front of 20 some people, while for our training/taping sessions, we only had 3 participants.

But I came in to the training session, expecting it was going to be the most embarrassing and dreadful day of my career. Yes I am a client-facing person to start with, but still, if Presentation/Public Speaking is on TOP of the “10 things people are most afraid of” list (FYI, Snake and Spider are also on the list), this should be of no surprise and I’m sure I was not the only one who wish I was not there that morning, in the beginning at least.

You would have booked the tickets already

I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO TRAVEL, to Europe especially, then Latin America. I secretly wished I were a guy when I was in middle school because I know some of my guy friends would just leave a note to their parents and then go off to another far faraway place for mountain climbing. I THOUGHT I couldn’t do that as a girl.

Then I was at college, I was on financial aid. The money from my part-time job went to food, books, clothing, paying back some loans, and buying tickets to go back home every now and then. Then the summer came, I wanted to go to Europe and maybe study aboard in Paris, but then I’ll have to pay more. Hum, so I would think to myself: maybe I should just stay on campus and find some internship around town so I can earn more money first.

Before I realized it, I was one of the proud alumni already. The good news is I finally make some money now. The bad news is I simply have no time. And for the rare cases when I do have both, I worry about who else I should be traveling with.

There ARE no wrong decisions

Sometimes it’s embarrassing to admit how many stupid decisions I have made. But those are my decisions and they made me who I am today. The most insulting words have taught me how to forgive, the most devastating betrayal has forced me to become stronger, and the most challenging relatoinship has trained me how to respect. If anything, today I can put all these behind me. 

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Tomorrow is another day.  

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すごいですね：Japanese Human Beat Box at Union Square!

Yay, so this is my first iphone video recording, and my first youtube upload!  This Japanese guy was simply amazing, and this was just one of his many astonishing routines. I was lucky to have witnessed this with my own eyes at Union Square and I kept saying to myself, there are so many people out there doing things so interesting and so different from what we’re doing, but most of the cases we are not even aware.

Be curious, because life is still full of surprises.

At some point, you just need to stop trying

It probably happened to you too. I once had a crush on this guy who is from an entirely different background and I knew by my heart that there is no way this would ever work out in the long run. But I was very attracted. He was into me as well, for a while I guess. But I am sure he went through the same thinking process and decided “he likes me, but he does not love me”, which is a very powerful rejection to me and I was really sad for a good period of time.

I probably did something crazy, or at least I cried and I couldn’t let go. But eventually it doesn’t bother me anymore. Life goes on and then one day I realized: it is great that he was so straightforward with me that he simply was never in love with me. I was lucky in a sense that I didn’t waste my time, and it would have been even harder to let him go should I not knew I was not that special to him in the first place.

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But there are many people who are much more subtle than that. You never get a straightforward or honest rejection but you don’t exactly feel he’s that into you either. So you kept trying and kept your hope high, until maybe one day you saw him at a dessert shop with another girl feeding each other ice cream. The realization is hard but if that’s a sign convincing enough to let you stop trying, perhaps it would well worth it.

This is the kind of email I WILL respond to!

Dear Danye,

I came across your profile on linkedIn while going through the ‘Business & Jobs New York’ group, and you came across as a great person to connect with. I am writing to you because I am really interested in joining the XXX Group at XXX Firm and would really appreciate getting some insights from your end. I have been making online applications to this group and nothing has come up so far.

To give you a brief overview of my background; I graduated from XXX College with a bachelors in Economics/computer science, joined XXX Bank prime brokerage group for over a year then XXX’s wealth management as a Client Service analyst for a couple of months. Thereafter I went to graduate school at XXX University where I received my masters in Financial Economics.

I would like to forward you my resume for critique and directives. Kindly let me know if you will be willing to assist me. Your advice and time would be invaluable.

Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.

ABC

Of course, this is a very articulate and well-written letter. Now, why do I have an incentive to write back to this person, among all others? Because he/she perfectly answered three big questions in my little head whenever I am reading such letters.

不如乖乖做一只小绵羊吧

I am going to write in Chinese periodically and I hope that you won’t mind. Sorry if you don’t really read Chinese, maybe you can use google translate? I promise this will not happen often, but sometimes I just REALLY want to write in Chinese! 🙂 Today is one of those days, apparently.

我很多年想不清楚一个问题

如果你是一个有些强势的女人，那似乎很容易让男人觉得有吸引力，不过然后交往起来男人又觉得有压力； 再之后开始矛盾重重，这个怎么办呢？ 

后来我的一个好朋友一语道破天机：是么？你为什么不能乖乖做你的小绵羊呢？ 

是啊。如果说强势是一种性格，倒不如说是一种姿态。没有谁会一直强势的（我不相信有完全不会温柔的女人），也没有那个必要。可是一个姿态做久了，容易变成习惯，习惯了之后就变得麻痹。所以你以为你根本没有强势的时候别人也觉得你很强势了。 

Can we just have a normal conversation?

A few days ago I updated my facebook status to “Sometimes I don’t understand why people just can’t carry on some normal conversation”, and I got the following comments from my lovely friends: 

• Because normal conversation is boring. (Really? Why I thought this is the best and ONLY way to really get to know anybody at all?)
• How normal are you talking about, define normal? (Right, nowadays everyone needs a definition to be on the same page about almost everything)
• I don’t know what a normal conversation is. I just can’t comprehend! (Knowing the person who wrote this, that totally makes sense! Kidding, I like people who can make fun of themselves. Not being too serious about yourself is the only way you can be serious about WHAT YOU DO)
• Because there is a shadow in everybody’s mind. Or they are just not that into you (Good point, and probably true)

But since when do you need to be into someone at all to simply start a conversation? Is this really about the post-dating age where attraction is not identified by being asked on a dinner + movie date, but hided in multiple incidents of “do you want to come along to this happy hour thing?” or “my friend is having a birthday you’re welcome to join?”