Transcription
This is a step-by-step guide on how to get your first office job.
Step one, decide what kind of office job you want. So, before you even start making a resume or spamming quick apply on LinkedIn, you need to figure out what you're applying for. Decide the industry or the role you want. For example, it could be you want to be in admin or finance or marketing, software, HR, legal, etc.
When you're trying to figure out the kind of office job you want, you should consider your interests and then consider other factors that are important to you like the average salary of that job or like whether or not you can work remotely or in person and also stuff like job market demand, which is a fancy way of saying is anyone actually hiring for this job. So answer those questions and try and get like a general idea of the type of job you want or like the type of job you'd like to have.
If you're completely clueless, you can check out this previous video I did which helps you figure out the type of job you want. So go watch that and then come back here assuming you want an office job.
By the way, when I mean office job here, I mean it in like the colloquial sense of white collar job. So like a job where you're most likely going to be sitting on your ass a lot of the time, most likely in front of a computer or a phone and like responding to emails. So that's what I mean.
Also remember, right, as the video title suggests, this is a guide for getting your first office job. So it's going to be like entry-level positions, okay? So if you're wanting to be like, I don't know, like a software engineer at Google, then this video might still apply to you. But like it's very unlikely that's going to be your first job. You know what I mean? Like this video might still be good for you because it's really good in my opinion and I'm based in my opinion, but it's not going to be like as applicable to you as opposed to someone looking for an entry-level basic office job position. It's going to be most applicable to people fresh out of school, fresh out of customer service, something else like that. Young people, or just people in general trying to get their foot into the door of the corporate world of sitting on your ass answering emails.
So, when you're picking your job here, don't be worried about stuff like, "Oh, man, Crystal, but I don't think it's my life's goal to be an HR administrative assistant." That's fine. That's fine. You just need to like figure out the type of entry-level job that you don't hate and it's like most tolerable for you to do while you're paying rent. That's what you want here.
So, after you figured out what job you want, now you're going to research the job requirements of that job. You're going to look on LinkedIn, Indeed, Glass Door, Google the job title you want, and then look at the job description on those job listings. Remember that you can search slight variations of like the job title. So for example, if you're looking at receptionist jobs, then you can also search front desk assistant, office administrator, etc. You can just search for like alternative names for whatever job on Google and then you'll get like a list of them and you can use those.
This shirt is not my color. I feel self-conscious. I look strange today.
Okay, so while you look at these job descriptions, you're going to try and spot a couple of things. You should probably take some actual notes when you do this. So basically what you're trying to do is broadly identify from the job listing similar themes or requirements that are needed in order to get this job. So some of the ones that you can identify are what are some common qualifications that keep popping up in the job description or like required to get this job aka does the job require a degree or are they fine with you just having transferable skills. You can also figure out whether the job requires a lot of experience.
You should also keep a list of the common key words and phrases that the job description uses. So, like if the job description says we're looking for a candidate who's hardworking or adaptable or like flex, you know what I mean? Like keep a list of like those job descriptors. You should also make a note of any technical tools or software that they require you use if the job description says we're looking for someone proficient in blah blah blah blah blah, right? Software and tools that they expect you to just magically know when it's your first day on the job.
So, it's really important you don't skip this part of the process even though it's boring. Actually, the whole process is boring. My point is right this part is really important because it gives you the blueprint for your resume later on. So just make sure you do it properly. Don't skip it.
Okay. So now you should have a list of requirements of things that you need to have in order to get whatever role you want. Right? So the next step is you're going to match the job requirements. So if you did step two and you found out actually wait holy I actually meet all of the requirements already then great you can skip this step. If you don't meet all of the job requirements you're going to have to fill the gaps in. So now I'm going to cover some of the most common gaps that people have on their resume that they need to fill in.
One of the first ones is stuff like actual certifications or qualifications. So like if you need formal education for this job. If your job requires a university degree, I assume that you already knew that before you watch this video because otherwise you need to get a degree. So go do that and then finish this video in 3 years. I assume most people either you have the degree already or like you know you need to get the degree or like you're looking for jobs that don't need a degree. We're going to continue onward.
Okay. Another common job gap is if the job requires like actual past experience to get this job, you love these, right? Because when the job title is like entry-level position, which implies you don't need any experience. And then it also says in the job listing, we need entry-level position but two years of experience to get the job. Then yeah, no, it's noting entry-level then, is it mother? Anyway, anyway, I'm calm. I'm calm. This this is not upsetting to me.
So, in my opinion, if you see these inaccurate job descriptions, you can still apply to the role, right? It doesn't you it's still free. You can still try. What I think this means when it says 2 years of job experience is that it means you just need like more apt experience in the field and you can't just like spin something creatively about how you were like a member of your high school's cycling club and so you have management skills. Like that's not going to fly here.
There's going to be two primary ways of getting experience if the job requires experience. So the first one is through volunteer work, freelance work to show your practical experience. So I'm going to be honest with you, right? When I say volunteer work, this is just like a nice code name way of saying you're going to have to work for free. Okay? You're going to have to do an internship, you're going to have to volunteer with a charity or something where like someone is going to be willing to give you something to do with no actual experience. And while it's nice, it's nice that someone would be willing to let you prove yourself with your skills um without any experience, most likely the motivating factor that they're going to have for giving you anything to do is the fact that you're going to work for free. Okay? You're probably not going to get paid because that's the main incentive for people to like let you answer a couple phone calls for them while sitting in the office. You're not going to be paid. It's going to be free labor and in return, you can write it on your CV. I'm not passing judgment on whether or not I agree with this, but like that's that's kind of how it is. I'm really sorry.
Another option you can have for if you don't want to do that or if you can't find someone to let you work for free. You would think that it would be really easy to get that, but actually it's not. Another thing you can do is to do a micro internship or like a work experience online. Basically, you're going to go on this platform called Forge where they have virtual job simulations and they're free, but they're actually like recognized. So, like if you do that and you like finish the course, you can actually say that you did like a virtual work experience somewhere and like employers will recognize that.
Obviously, if you're able to like reach out to local offices or small businesses for like a week of like shadowing. Shadowing basically means you kind of just like stand and like sit awkwardly while other people don't trust you to do anything. And then after you do that, you're going to fill in your resume and you're going to be like completed work experience at blah blah blah company. I gained hands-on experience in admin tasks and customer communication. You don't actually need to do anything in the job. Like if they didn't let you do anything, that's fine. You should just like fill it in anyway.
Another way to get experience is to do an online course. This lends itself really well into another common job requirement gap, which is to get qualifications. And while you can get a qualification from a school or like night school, another gigkept little fact that you probably didn't know is that you can actually get a qualification for free or really really cheap on a bunch of online platforms. That being said, here is a list of the best cheap platforms where you can get a qualification that is recognized. EdX, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Khan Academy, Google Career Certificates, Free Code Camp.
So basically what you need to do on these platforms is you just make an account and then you watch all of the videos on that whatever course it is and then you do the little exercises or like the online assessments if the class has it. Some of these courses will take longer than others but the idea is after you complete the whole program, right? The platform is going to give you like a little online verification that says that you completed the course or like if you pay them a little bit of money it'll give you like an accredited qualification. So this is actually fully something that you can put on your resume. You don't even have to feel guilty about it. Hiring managers do see this as like a legit way to get learning experience. So, it's not you saying, "I have IT skills because I helped my brother reboot his laptop one time." Okay, it's not like that. This is like an actual certified thing that people believe and you did it for free/s super cheap.
Depending on the type of role you're going for, you're either going to focus on picking online courses that satisfy like an actual certification requirement of the job, or you can just use it as a good way to kind of just bump out your completely naked resume and make yourself seem more legitimate.
The final job gap that I'm going to talk about is if you're applying for roles that require you to show evidence of your previous work. So, for example, if you want like a copywriting job, then a part of the application might be that they ask you to like submit a portfolio of some of your past work. Or if you're looking to do something in coding, then you might have to show your your GitHub or like your past coding projects.
If you need to build your portfolio, just remember you don't actually need to like have someone hire you to do a project in order to build a portfolio for that thing. Cuz spoiler alert, you can just do these projects on your own or like solo it. And then you can also just like pretend that someone hired you to do that project because basically the goal of the portfolio is that it's really just meant to demonstrate that you can do the task. This is going to take a little bit of time to build up. But basically you just need to create like a fake portfolio of sample work. So for example, if you're trying to get a job in marketing or like social media writing, then you can make like a fake social media plan for a brand or like a brand that doesn't exist or like you know just like pick one and just make one anyway. You could write like a fake blog post or like product description. You could also make like a calendar for hypothetical events. Like do you do you see what I'm trying to say? Like just like fantasize the type of brand that would hire you if you were in this job and then just like make the product itself. It's just to like showcase your skills and your work.
You're going to collect all your fake sample work and you're going to make a Google Drive folder and then you're going to put all of it in it and you're just going to link it to your resume like sample portfolio and then put the link of the Google Drive folder. This is really good because it shows initiative and like the goal again is to help the hiring manager. imagine you actually doing the job. So, it just makes it easier for them to want to hire you.
Now, you might be watching this video, right? You might be thinking, Crystal, that is like a lot of work that I have to put in to like build up my work experience to like fill these gaps for this entry-level job. That is a lot of work. This is going to take way longer than I thought it was going to do. I need money now. What the am I going to do?
Don't worry, because now I'm going to tell you the most important tip in filling a job gap, which is to just be very clever in linking your past experience, which seems completely unrelated, into fitting into the job description of the type of roles that you're trying to apply for. If you've ever been a waiter at a diner, if you've ever built a paper mâché dragon for a high school play, then good news, you have experience which is relevant and you can use in your resume. I'm I'm going to teach you how. You basically just need to put all of this random unrelated stuff that you've done before and then just I'm going to teach you how to like directly skew it into fitting into the job requirement.
If you've worked in customer service, retail, cafes, you do have experience. In my opinion, the most noble type of experience. I don't trust mothers who go into office jobs without doing lackey customer service work and getting spit on. But that's a video for another time. The point is, don't worry. You just need to lie a little bit more creatively. Okay? Not lie, actually. You just need to like fit the experience in so it makes sense. Like Tetris, you can probably Google better guides on like how to do this or like find specific ways of doing it. But basically the goal is that you're going to make it sound like you were running the company of like whatever the random little lackey job that you were doing. Okay? So for example, if you took customer orders and you delivered drinks at your previous job, then now you didn't do that. You now managed multiple client requests under pressure with high attention to detail. You see how that's the same thing, but like one just sounds more corporate and professional and like legit. But like you did technically do that. Okay, that's basically what you need to do. I'll give you some other examples. If you previously stocked shelves at the supermarket, you didn't do that. You handled inventory and maintained orderly stock room conditions. If you worked at the lemonade stand, you didn't smile at rude people while they were rude to you. You actually provided excellent customer service and conflict resolution skills.
And you might be thinking, right, this is kind of Crystal. Like, I'm like, I don't think this is going to work. And I know a lot of people feel imposter syndrome when they do this. They're like, I feel like I'm bullshitting. Like, I don't feel comfortable doing that. I'm going to be honest with you, right? Your job experience counts. Because I'm telling you, if you feel some type of imposter syndrome about the type of skills that you have from customer service jobs or like other types of experience, you absolutely should not feel that way because that is how everyone does it. Some people's experience might seem more relevant if they did like an internship in an office for a week, but I guarantee you that person did absolutely all during the internship. They most definitely sat on their ass for like 4 hours a day and like maybe helped color code a couple of folders. Do not let that person who got a internship over you, but they did it in like a big firm. Don't let that person intimidate you. you who actually did work for months scrubbing dishes at the restaurant, you did actual work while they did fall. Don't let that person intimidate you into thinking you're not qualified because you're definitely most likely more qualified than that person because unlike that person who's just better at blowing hot air up someone's ass, you actually have meaty, relevant, and tangible skills even if they don't look directly relevant on paper.
This is such a common pitfall and it makes me legitimately sad to see when people think they're not qualified when a lot of applicants or like the people that win actually way more incompetent than you. But they either just got lucky with their past experiences they had or their dad worked at the company so they got to sit at the company. But I guarantee you are likely very much just as qualified as that other person or unqualified, however you want to interpret it.
Hi, my hair looks disgusting. I haven't washed a day.
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Okay, so at this point, you know what type of job you want to get. You have the skills, you have the experience, you have all of the correct ingredients. So now we're going to throw all of these ingredients together and we're going to make the stew. This stew full of sweat and desperation. Aka, we're now going to make your resume.
So resume general guidelines. Keep it clean. keep it readable because a lot of the time these things go through automated systems and if your resume is in I don't know like some weird incomprehensible font you're going to get automatically tossed out. Also it looks unprofessional. The more boring your resume looks the more likely it is that you're going to get hired unless you're applying for like social media or something in which case I don't know. But a general rule of thumb if you're not sure just keep it simple. You can just use Google Docs or like a Word document. You could use like Canva. No, don't use Canva. I take it back. Don't use Canva.
Some of the sections to include in your resume. Number one, your name and contact information at the very top should be very clear. There should be an education section of your resume if that's relevant to you. There should be a work experience part of your resume. Again, if that's relevant for you, start with the most recent and then work backward. There should be a skills section of your resume. And because you had made a list of all the key words from previous job listings, guess what? We're going to take those keywords that you found in those job descriptions and we're going to put them in your skill section, preferably with supporting evidence of how you use that skill. If you did any of the Forge, EdX, Coursera, LinkedIn certifications, blah blah blah, if you did any of those, we're also going to put them in. So like certifications part, projects, awards, put all of that in.
We're going to keep the resume at one page. You might think, actually, Crystal, now that I've done all of this, I actually have way more information. I could definitely put two pages. No, no, no, no. Entry-level position, keep it one page. If you think that you have enough to like keep it two pages, you're definitely not being like succinct enough. Dilute it down to like the very best cream of the crop, okay? And then you're going to save that as a PDF and you're going to have that as your resume.
When you're describing your work experience or your skills in your resume, here are some tips to keep in mind for how to make it more, you know, like how to make it has the like give your resume sauce. So, when you're writing out the skills or like the work experience part of your resume, I'm going to give you some tips for how to give it that, you know, like the the special sauce, you know, like the the the come see. Okay.
So, first tip is when you're discussing your work experience or like the skills that you learned, you should always have a result and like an action in every line. So, for example, if you wanted to say that you were like a hard worker or reliable, then you could just put that on your resume, right? But it's even better if you gave an example of how you were a hard worker and reliable. For example, if you were like a restaurant runner, then you could say that you ensured smooth restaurant operations. That's the result. And then give an example of how through an action. The action you took here would be let's say you served customers per shift. So here it's better to be specific and to use numbers because that really just like just just adds to it. It just like adds to the to the to the sauce. It just makes it more legit. So you would say something like ensured smooth restaurant operations by delivering food and drinks to an average of 150 customers per shift and in doing so you maintained the efficiency of the restaurant and you increased customer satisfaction.
Okay. So now that your resume is like chef's kiss like really really good. You're now going to have to do the other thing which is my least favorite part but you have to write a cover letter.
Tips for writing a cover letter. There are two schools of thought when it comes to writing cover letters. The first school is that every company wants you to have a tailored cover letter and so you should make it really just really glaze every single company even though 99% of them are not going to respond to you but you're going to waste time doing that. The second school of thought is you're going to use the exact same cover letter for every single company and them all. I would say you should probably find like a good middle ground like somewhere in between those two extremes. I think a good way to do it is to like have a couple samples or like a couple templates of like cover letters that you're going to like flip back and forth with and you're just going to like edit them a little bit each time so that it kind of fits the company, but you don't have to like completely redo everything cuz that's that's not time and cost effective.
The cover letter should only be like three to four paragraphs max. What you need to do in each paragraph, you just have to include like why you're applying for the job, what you bring to the role. So, you're just going to talk about your work experience. basically regurgitate your resume, but like make it a little bit longer and like pat it out a little bit. You should also mention something specific about the company or like show specific interest in the company. This is the glazing part of the resume. So, this is the part that you're probably going to have to tailor a little bit each time you send out your cover letter.
TL;DR, your cover letter should look kind of like this. Paragraph one, I want this job. You want me explain how. Don't use those words, obviously. Number two, this is what I've done. This is why I'm not useless. Paragraph three, hire me and I'll make you look good. Please hire me. Please, please hire me.
Amazing. So now you have your cover letter. The next step is to build an online presence. So what I mean by build an online presence is not link them to your YouTube, but what I mean is to make a LinkedIn. So I'm your LinkedIn, right? You're going to need a good profile picture. So like it doesn't need to be a professional corporate headshot because let's face it, entry-level, you don't have that. Just make sure that it's like a clean nice picture of you, preferably smiling against a clean background or if you're at like school or it's like your graduation or something. Just make it like something corporate appropriate. Okay? Exercise judgment when you're doing this.
Make sure to put all of your work experience and all of the skills, education, certifications that you put into your LinkedIn application if it's seeming like unnecessarily detailed. Honestly, in my opinion, right, I think it's fine because I'm convinced, no one has like verified this. I'm convinced that like the more skills you have, like the SEO will just scrape you a little bit more, right? So, you should give yourself the most opportunities or like advantages to being searchable by like hiring managers by like making sure you have all of the skills in your profile. Again, because in step two, you had taken a list of all the skills relevant to your profile. On LinkedIn, you're going to pick all of those skills out. You're going to list them all. Okay? You're going to list them all in your thing because I'm assuming when people are like looking for people to hire, it'll like kind of scrape your profile for like see if you have those skills.
If you're trying to go to like a creative or like a tech job, then you might also need to have a personal website or a portfolio. If you want like a dev role, you might need a GitHub. If you're going for tech or like development roles for writers or marketers, you might need to open a a Medium or a Substack or a blog. And then just make sure you kind of had those out with the sample work that we had discussed previously.
Another thing you should do is to clean up the rest of your online presence. So, Google your own full name. And if your Twitter is visible or shows up in the search results, then you should clean up your Twitter. Make sure you're not accidentally shooting yourself in the foot because your Twitter is all about unionizing and then the revolution 40 tweets about how I hate work. This is a scam. Just get rid of that. You know, maybe lock that down. Make your Instagram private if you do a lot of thirst traps or like change your username. just make it so that either you're not searchable by your full name by like employers or like just just clean it up.
Okay, so we finally finally gotten to the part of this video where you actually apply for jobs. So the way to do this is you can either manually search for the job that you want on LinkedIn or blah blah blah and then just apply manually. Another thing you can do is to set up job search tools. So this basically like scrapes LinkedIn or like Indeed or whatever for any job listings that pop up that say like, "Oh, we're looking for a receptionist, right?" So it'll like email you every time there's like a new receptionist job listing. These are some places that you can create a profile on. LinkedIn Jobs, Indeed, Glassdoor, Reed, Ota, WellFound. So you're going to set up job alerts for these sites. When you get a relevant email or like a job listing that you want, you're just going to apply to it.
Sub tip is you're going to ask for references. Good references are worth their weight in gold. Even if it's just people from like university or like the cafe that you worked at, good references just make the people hiring you reassured in the fact that like you're normal and you can show up on time and you don't scream at others and also on the fact that like for safety, you're not some freak who will like cut someone's skin off and wear it as a hat, you know? So, people that you can ask for references from, um, ask old managers. Even if you worked at like a bar or something, teachers, professors, volunteer supervisors, if you have a family friend who owns a business, they're a great person to do it because as long as you own a business, you just seem legit, okay? That's just how it works.
So, after you have all of that, you're going to now apply strategically to job listings. General rule of thumb, again, there's a lot of debate on how much you should be applying. In my opinion, just based on my own deteriorating mental health when I did this, I think you can apply to like maybe 10 to 20 roles per week. Any more than that and it makes you feel like you're profering yourself. It kind of feels like that in my opinion. Any less than that, you're probably not going to get anything because there's just a million people applying. So, it's it's a numbers game, you know? It's like dating. It's like a numbers game.
You're going to switch between your tailored resumes and cover letters. So, you know how I said there's like little templates for each one? you're going to like switch them out, switch out key phrases, switch out the glazing part of the company cover letter that you did. If you have more emotional stamina, then by all means, apply to more jobs per week. But just make sure the quality of each job application is not like severely deteriorating. Like I think it's going to deteriorate a little bit. Also, as you go along, you're going to be more and more despondent. Um, I'm really sorry. That's just how it is. Just make sure it's not like completely diving off the cliff like completely unreadable, unrecognizable. Then that's really bad.
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When you're picking which job listings to apply to, here are some top tips on how to actually read a job posting and what it means. If the job posting says this is a fast-paced environment, that's corporate code name for this job is chaos and you will be overworked. But if you're willing to bootlick for us, then you know do it. If the job listing says this is a job where you'll need to be flexible, you need to wear many hats, basically that means you're going to be one person doing the job of three people. If the job says entry-level must have two years of work experience, then you should lie anyway and still apply to the job because you did the thing that I told you to do. And so now you have two years of work experience.
So if you did all of those tips, amazing. Hopefully you will have someone that's willing to interview you. And if you made it to the interview stage, then congratulations. It is literally Oh my god.
Okay, so now you're going to prepare for the interview, right? You need to make sure that you're not going to mess it up, okay? Because you made it this far. You're not going to mess up this interview. Don't worry. You're going to prepare incredibly for this interview and you're going to land this job. Okay?
Before your interview, you're going to practice what you're going to say in the interview. You're going to practice what they're going to ask you. You're going to practice all of this. Okay? Common things that you should definitely have a template answer for in your head. Obviously, don't say it like a robot so that they know that you completely rehearsed this. Just pretend like, oh, like um I think you know, okay, these are some questions you should prepare for. Tell me about yourself. Why do you want to go into this role?
So I've seen a lot of people online say that you should use the STAR format when you prepare for interviews. So that means situation, task, action, result. So if you're preparing your answer before this interview, right, and like the interviewer asks you like the exact question that you wanted them to answer, then obviously you can prepare your answer through the STAR format and then just do it.
So before your interview, right, you should definitely study the company a little bit. Look at the company website. Like do a little bit of research, okay? Because there's nothing worse than being asked in an interview like, "Oh, so like why do you want to work at this company?" And you like know jack about the company. It looks really bad. It looks really embarrassing.
If you're nervous or if you're shy or like generally if you're just inexperienced, you should definitely practice the interview with someone beforehand. So you can do a mock interview with friends or like through YouTube roleplay videos. Yes, those actually exist. Just YouTube like mock interview questions. You're going to watch them like they're reality TV and it's going to completely up your YouTube algorithm. That is the sacrifice that you're going to make for nailing this interview. Your watch page before this interview should literally just be people doing mock interview questions and also me on your downtime when you're relaxing during your downtime. Okay, don't forget about me.
Now you're sufficiently prepared for your interview, right? You're gassed up. You're like, I'm going to this Amazing. So now you're going to ace this interview. Number one, remember you need to dress appropriately. Even if the interview is on Zoom or like Microsoft Teams, make sure you dress the part. If you're going in person, be 5 to 10 minutes early. Factor in travel times. Factor in the fact that you will get lost on Google Maps, okay? Just make sure you're not late because that looks awful.
So during the interview, you're going to apply all the skills that I just taught you about preparing your interview and you're going to do them and you're going to do amazing. Okay? Another tip, if this is an online interview, before your interview, make sure you declutter your email and your desktop. Okay? So, you never think that you'll have to screen share in an interview, but if you do, you want to make sure you're not So, make sure your desktop doesn't have like 57 random screenshots. There's no tabs open to TikTok or like weird fanfiction, okay? Like, don't accidentally put yourself in an incriminating spot in an interview because you forgot you were reading AO3 last night, okay? Like, you made it this far. Like, don't get docked by something dumb like that.
Another tip in your interview, do not say that this is like your first job. Like, oh, this is my first job. Like, they know that okay? Like, they have your resume. Like, they know, but like what you should be doing in this interview is like applying all of the other the work experience in your life up to this point. Spoiler alert, you've done the as I've said before, you know, customer service, group projects, okay? You're going to bring those into this job. Okay? So, make sure you've practiced how you're going to talk about your past experience and like how it makes you right for this role. What you want to do is be like, "Oh, this is a skill I learned in this past experience." And if it's not like directly relevant or you can't like your brain is not able to like mental gymnastics it into actually being relevant in this role, you're basically going to be like, "Oh, I'm really excited to transition into a professional office environment where I can grow these skills that I developed in this previous job." Good ones you can talk about for basically any job. Communication, teamwork, flexibility, reliability, you know, stuff like that. Pull one or a couple of these out of your ass during the interview. Make sure you know what you're going to say. You'll be fine.
At the end of the interview, they are almost 100% going to ask you, "So, do you have any questions for us?" And because you watch this video, you're not going to be awkward and stare and be like, "Uh, um, um, no, no, I don't have any questions." Okay, you're not going to do that, okay? You're going to have prepared one or two questions at the end that you're just going to throw out for like any interview that you get. A good one is, "What is success look like in this role?" And then that just lets like the interviewer just like yab on and on. And then if you're able to after they give you the answer of like what success looks like in the role, if you're able to then fit in how your skills match that role, oh, you're golden. Okay. Point is, you're going to have a couple generic lines prepared for questions at the end. You're going to throw that out.
So, by this point, you finished your interview. Amazing. Well done. I'm really proud of you. You're now going to follow up on that interview by emailing the company a thank you email within 24 hours of your interview. The email is basically just going to be like a way to like glaze and like thank the interviewer for their time. Reiterate you're very enthusiastic about this job and then reference something specific that you mentioned or that you've talked about with the interviewer in your interview. Okay?
You will be shocked by how much of a difference it makes if you send a thank you follow-up email. You would think that this is like arbitrarily blowing hot air up an employer's ass. And like yeah, it is, but like it isn't because the sheer volume of people that like interviewers see it's shocking. the fact that like almost no one will ever send a follow-up thank you. And if you're like one in a million of the same exact desperate mother who wants a office job, please hire me. Something as simple as sending an email like this will actually distinguish you from everyone else and it'll like keep you in their mind. I swear to God, you might think it's like a really little thing and it's really annoying, but it actually really works. You just have to trust me.
The email doesn't even have to be complex, right? Just keep it like really brief and simple. say something like thank you for their time and it was a real pleasure to talk to you. Mention something about the conversation if you can or if you remember because you didn't just black out and then finish the interview. It just shows you were genuinely paying attention and just tell them you're excited and that's it. It literally won't take you that long in the grand scheme of things and it makes a huge difference.
So, if you've done all of those, you figured out the job you want, you filled in your resume, you filled in the gaps, you prepared for the interview, you did the interview, you did the follow-up email, if you do all of that, then hopefully they've offered you a job now. Oh, thank Hell yes. Amazing. So, now you have a job offer. Congratulations. Jesus Christ. I know it took a eight. Oh, I'm tired from like filming this video, but also just thinking about this process. Hopefully, by now you have a job offer, preferably several job offers, congratulations.
If one of those job offers tickles your fancy, if you've negotiated that offer, they paid you a little bit more. You're now going to accept the offer and you're going to prepare to start. Okay? You're going to submit paperwork. You're going to do background checks of any. You're going to ask about the onboarding process or like the training process and you're going to show up. Congratulations. You are now officially a cog in the machine.
Now, you might be thinking, right, you made it to the end of this video. You have your job. Your first day is like next week, next Thursday. You're going to be like, "What the Crystal? I have a job now." And you're just going to toss me to the wolves. You're going to be like, "All right, now." No, of course not. I got you because we're friends. Here are some tips for your first day at your new office job.
Okay, so first thing, a few days or like the night before your first day, right? There are a couple things you should familiarize yourself with so you don't humiliate yourself because it's like there are a couple of things that people will just assume you know how to do or like how to use and they're probably not going to teach you. So you should learn it first. These are some things that you should Google/YouTube and figure out how to use beforehand. Number one, how to use Outlook email and calendar. How to book a meeting room on Google Calendar. Beginner's guide to Slack. If you don't know what Slack is, it's just corporate Discord. It's just Discord for work. How to navigate the hellhole that is Microsoft Outlook, which is unusable and I hate it. Why does it sort emails where it's like most recent from today and then the second little section after that it'll be like emails from last week and then below the section of emails from last week, it'll be like emails from yesterday. What the What the What the is going on at Microsoft? What the is wrong with Outlook? And then it'll tell you to like rate the new Outlook. And holy Holy hate Microsoft Outlook.
Another thing you should learn is some basic office etiquette. So, these are probably things that you already know or instinctively know. A lot of them are common sense, but I'm going to give you a little reminder anyway. Always remember to ask, is now a good time before calling someone. Don't just suddenly call someone on Slack or Teams, etc., etc. They will get pissed off. Remember to always mute yourself on Zoom or Team Meetings. Always. I'm pretty sure there's a way to set it up so like it mutes you on default and then you can just like unmute yourself when you need to talk. You don't want to run into any accidents. It's really humiliating. Make sure you're always on mute. Do not take the last biscuit or snack or sandwich in the kitchen unless you offer it around. So, you have to do that like peacock thing that people do when they're eating Chinese food like, "Oh, does anyone want the last dumpling?" No. No. No. Are you sure? Are you sure? You sure? Okay, I guess I'll have it. Okay. Also, reverse applies if someone's doing that to you. So, like if someone's doing that little weird thing where like you know that they want it but like they don't they don't want to like outwardly eat it unless they offer it to someone like don't actually take it. Okay, this is like Irish versus German etiquette. Okay, like if you get the reference unless you work in Germany in which case ignore this tip and that's it. You made it. You did all the tasks. You did the little monkey dance. You have your first job. Well done. Well done. I'm giving you a little clap.
Optional. Maybe you won't want to do this. Maybe it's good you don't do it. But you might cry on your first day silently in the bathroom. And that's okay. Don't worry. Just wipe your eyes, have a drink of water, go back in there, go do it. You're okay. You're It's going to be fine. You survived your first day and now you're going to survive another day. Rinse and repeat. Hopefully at your office you actually like the people you work with or they're like chill as. And then you're just going to keep doing that unless you get like a better job or like you get promoted or you jump into a field you're more passionate about, get a job with co-workers you like. You're just going to keep pushing around till you find a better spot, find your calling in life. You know, hopefully you do find that calling. You do find something you like and you'll just keep doing that until retirement or until your YouTube channel takes off.