Back to your resume and cover letter you’ve been working on: What other next steps do you want to take to make these two components stronger?
As of now, my cover letter is designed with a specific job in mind. I think I would like to make a little bit more of a generic one, to deploy to multiple jobs. I will no doubt be using heavy influence from the one I previously created. I was also wondering, as I stated in the previous PD, should I make an "eye catching" cover letter for more UX/UI or design jobs? Or should this, in general, be pretty straight forward, and "professional" to the person I am reching out to?
Outreach Brainstorming: Either explore the company you wrote a cover letter for or find a new company to explore this week; Go to their company LinkedIn page and start to explore the employees. Who are a couple people you could reach out to? Why?
The company I chose to write a cover letter for was Microsoft. I currently have a firend who works there, who has recommended I apply. This friend also mentioned they would give me a recommendation upon application. I don't know if I'm quite ready to apply for this job, but perhaps after getting a few more projects under my belt (an finishing mod 3) I will feel I am able to aply to such a high profile job.
Finalize Your Plan: Who have you decided to reach out to? Why that person? How will you contact them? What do you want to talk to them about? How will you follow up?
As I mentioned above, I already have a friend who works for this company. They will most likely be my main point of contact. Should I try to reach out to multiple of their employees? How many of them should I reference on an application? Some of the things I talked to with my friend were, work culture, job expectations, and over all happiness at the company. There responses were generally positive, however it did seem (as expected) that a bit of personality is lost when working for a larger company such as Microsoft, as opposed to a smaller company/startup.
Execute your plan: Reach out to your contact THIS WEEK. If possible, reach out to more than one person OR find a meetup to attend also. What happened? What did you learn about the company? What other next steps should you take for pursuing this company? Be sure to update this in Huntr.
So I reached out to my contact, and they gave me feedback mentioned above. I would still like to talk to maybe another person who works for microsoft, perhaps closer to the position that I am interested in.I've heard that applying to some of these larger companies can be intimidating, so I think I would like to do some more interview prep beforeI actually drop in an application.
I think it doesn't hurt to connect with others within the company, but maybe leverage warmer connections to get further connected. This plan looks good overall!