Biggest Weakness
I feel that being an (almost) recent college graduate is my biggest weakness. It’s early December of my senior year, final exams and projects are consuming me, but so is the job hunt. I know what I want in a job and the phrase that has lowered my confidence in the past is “Minimum of 1-4 years’ experience in the area of _____.” I experienced this first hand last summer. I was lucky enough to get to a third round interview for an iHeartMedia digital/marketing part-time position. I left school in the middle of the week to go home for an in person interview with the company. I traveled three hours for a 20 minute- long interview. At the end of the interview I was given the impression that everything went smoothly and I felt more than confident that I landed the job. A week later I received a rejection email. I was in awe, I replied back, “Thank you for your time, I really enjoyed coming up to meet you and your team, just curious as to what the other candidates may have had that I did not? What can I work on?” The manager that interviewed me, emailed me back very nicely, “We just thought you were too young for the position, we encourage you to apply again at a later time.” It really hurt me at the time and I was confused for a while, but I ended up getting another job that summer that had similar qualifications when it came to experience level. This taught me that it’s okay to set the bar really high, don’t settle for something if you think you’re capable of much more.
