Network to Get Work

Field Sales Engineer/ Field Applications Engineer? Maybe 80% travel. Huge amount of customer interactions. Pretty high level solutions in engineering. Constant meetings with big business partners, leading the company in innovation and overall just having fun. That kinda sounds like me, to most people that really sounds like me. Eventually I started telling myself that should just be me but I eventually I did some self reflection and had some wonderful conversations and decided it definitely is not me (at least not now) but one thing I knew for sure is it is perfect for my friend! I felt a lot like one of the girls just begging for the shoes to fit in Cinderella…

http://blog.brilliance.com/weddings/if-the-shoe-fits

Alright, I guess i need to give a little more background. I was recently in the midst of an interview process with a company that originally presented an applications engineering position which sounded like it would be about an 80/20 split of engineering and customer interactions. The people at the company are really nice and really cool. I felt like a great fit for the community they have over there. After meeting so many different representatives and having great conversations, the role became more of a 20/80 split this time with the customer interactions being the main focus and the engineering being more of a pseudo code, high level block diagram, interface designer type job. The goal of this job is to really use my interpersonal skills. I was super flattered to meet so many people who valued my personality so much but I know that for now I really just want to focus on hardware and getting my hands dirty.

However, I just wasn’t ready to part ways with the job. Something in my head said I must do whatever I can to get this company to interview my friend since he would love a role like that. A few emails later, the first of 3 interviews came up for my friend. 3 interviews later, my friend received wonderful news and can’t stop smiling.

So many people say you have to network with people inside of a company in order to make things run smoothly but I think it is wonderful to be able to find a job, interview for it and be able to make really good referrals for your friends. So the next time you go into an interview and someone says something that makes you feel the job isn’t a good fit for you, don’t shut down, instead open up and really think about your friends who might enjoy that position.

I hope that puts a new spin on networking for you guys!
Please read the other blogs for other awesome tales and advice

Thanks for stoppin’ by
-Sam