We all have been there, through the struggles of job hunting. From creating jaw-dropping CVs and cover letters, and upskilling to nailing difficult interviews with no ray of hope. With email box pooling with rejection emails and stacks of bills piling, our confidence starts to dwindle. We start to question if this is an obstacle or a stumbling block. And feel like stuck in a nut! Rejection is a company's way of telling you to keep striving. We have all heard of many persistence tales. This Yale and Ivy League graduate shared his job search persistence in a LinkedIn post ‘The story of how I got my World Bank job’. This post has garnered 17,508 reactions and is still counting. Although he shudders to recall his arduous job search, it is enough to calm the job seeker's nerves.
23-year-old Vatsal Nahata’s job search began during the COVID-19 catastrophe. During the pandemic, companies were on a firing spree. Vatsal was about to graduate from World’s most prestigious Yale University in April 2020. Though excited about graduating, employment uncertainty kept lurking around him. Former US President Donald Trump’s stance on immigration prompted companies to hire US citizens.
Nahata thought to himself,
‘What is the point of coming to Yale when I can’t secure a job in the US? It became harder for him to talk to his parents with false bravado.
“It became harder to sound strong to my parents when they called and asked me how I was doing.”
Finding a company to sponsor his visa became a task. He would reach the final rounds of an interview but would be later rejected as the companies couldn’t sponsor his visa.
TURNING POINT-
Vatsal decided to stop applying to jobs and start ‘NETWORKING.’ He started sending cold emails and odd cold calls. In the span of 2 months, he had already sent 1500 connection requests, and 600 cold emails and made 80 odd cold calls in pursuit of opportunities.
The lines in his post read,
“………..and faced the highest number of rejections I've ever gone through. I developed thick skin by necessity. And I was getting nowhere. You could wake me up at 4 am in the morning and I could smoothly network and sell my skills to the most seasoned American executive, all while knowing that this call is probably going nowhere. Things became so desperate that I would often cold-call people in my dreams.”
The networking and cold mail strategy finally paid off for Vatsal. He finally got 4 job offers towards the end of May and chose the World Bank.
The white spaces in his insightful post also read,
“They were willing to sponsor my Visa after my OPT and my manager offered me co-authorship on a Machine Learning paper with the World Bank's current Director of Research (something unheard of for a 23 year old).
This whole journey taught me a few things:
1. It showed me the true power of networking, and it became my second nature.
2. It gave me the confidence that I could survive in any situation and figure out my way as an immigrant in the United States
3. My Ivy League degree could only take me so far
4. Times of crisis (COVID-19 and Trump's immigration policies) were ideal grounds to metamorphose into a more evolved person.
SHOOT FOR STARS, AIM FOR THE MOON is what Vatsal is trying to tell job searchers. It can be interpreted that if you try to attain stars and still fail to accomplish you will learn other things while trying to achieve first. Vatsal understood the importance of networking and sending cold emails while seeking job. There is sheer scope in cold mailing and the reward of networking is scalable, Today NETWORK IS YOUR NETWORTH.
If you're going through something similar where the world seems to be collapsing on you: carry on - do not go gentle into that good night!
Better days will come if you're learning from your mistakes and if you knock on enough doors.
Before we digress from from this anecdotal lessons, with eHealth, teleHealth opening possibilities for doctors. Healthcare professionals should fill the gap in telehealth miscommunication. They should use media to eradicate rhetorical and factual health claims and provide evidence-based health information. Health graduates should learn 'THE ART OF NETWORKING' and make meaningful interactions. Reach out to professionals and invest in professional relationships. Keep Vatsal Nahata's advice in back pockets to accomplish your goals.
(Inputs from media sources)
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