My First Job

Searching job with excitement after graduation starts with enthusiasm and continues hardly. It is a tough period that the pressure increases as the months pass. The period should be spent as pleasant and efficient as possible. Because 2 or 6 months which pass when searching job will not occur one more in the normal under conditions until retirement. You can do what you delay in your life in this period. The saying is easy but I know that implementation is hard in job searching psychology. I wish good lucks everybody who search job.

I will give some humble advice if I talk from “How to search a job?” After that, I will tell my own duration. There was a mistake of students who had attended the university entrance exams: Making the university preference list like Civil Eng./Boğaziçi Uni., Mechanical Eng./ITU, Medicine/Osmangazi Uni., Architecture/Dokuz Eylül University… Your job for a lifetime mustn’t be determined with luck in a way. Making the list after searching well and deciding which job you will have is the correct. List can be like Civil Eng./Boğaziçi Uni., Civil Eng./ITU, Civil Eng./Osmangazi Uni., Civil Eng./Dokuz Eylül University…

We can make this mistake in our high school times due to our little age but we shouldn’t make this mistake after university. We shouldn’t apply to Planning Eng./A Co., Logistics Eng./B Co., Production Eng./C Co., and IT Eng./D Co. in the same time after graduation from industrial engineering. We should firstly decide to branch we will specialize in. Then, we should just apply to the relevant job advertisements. If we can decide also to which sector we want to work, it is better. Working in desired position in a good company is better than working in the position which you don’t want so much in your country’s best company.

I always had wanted being production engineer in automobile sector when I was a university student. I didn’t know that there is a job as process engineer. I learnt the process engineering in last times of university after I did my production internship in the Continuous Improvement Department. I just applied to job advertisements of production engineering and process engineering after graduation. I improved myself about lean manufacturing and I wanted to work in this field. I didn’t apply any advertisement which does not contain “lean manufacturing” word. The number of advertisements decreases when there are a lot of constraints like that. The searching job period gets longer but waiting 3-4 months mustn’t be a problem for a job which you will have maybe 30-40 years.

My dream was working in Toyota. Because Toyota is the place which lean manufacturing was born. It is the best place for learning the lean manufacturing, my desired specialized area. I firstly applied Toyota and a few big companies after graduation and I waited. I was interested with my personal affairs in that period. Managing the duration is hard in this respect: It is not clear that your desired company(ies) will call you and you can be invited from another companies in the same time. If another companies offer a good job opportunity, how do you reject? How do you continue to wait? You can miss a good opportunity for your desired company. This is the chance more than your determination.

Career workshop is organized every year by ITU(Istanbul Technical University). Companies attend and introduce themselves. They gather internship and job applications. I attended this workshop before graduation. A human resource expert who works in a big automobile company gave advice to me like that: “Choosing chance from thousands of application is hard. Send messages to department managers and human resources managers on Linkedin. This messages show person’s willingness and we call them.” I asked her whether this situation is uncomfortable for managers. She said that this messages don’t seem like that and this is the new trend. After this conversation, I planned my duration like that: My personal affairs already take 3-4 months. I apply to Toyota and another some big automobile companies and I wait. I don’t apply another companies for managing the duration easily. If Toyota calls, my desire occurs, if not I start to write managers on Linkedin on June. The purpose of writing on Linkedin is to be called only for job interview. There are thousands of application for one job advertisement. Human resources employees filter compulsorily for managing. You don’t have any chance if you can’t pass the filters. I was trusting myself. I just applied to jobs about lean manufacturing and I had information about that topic. My English was good. I was not a person who would be excited or be stressed in the interviews. There was only one problem, going to interview after passed the filters. I am sure that there are many applicant like that.

I didn’t take any reply to my applications until June(4 months). I started to write to production and human resources managers of companies which I want to work on Linkedin. I sent friendship request with a short introduction of myself to relevant managers of all big automobile companies in Turkey. Most of them are not accepted. I sent a longer introduction of myself to managers who accept and I only said that I want to come to job interview. A small part of them helped and sent my CV to related departments. They sometimes wanted to invite to interview for another positions. I stayed determined and I said that I just want to work in production engineering or process engineering positions. I sent friendship request to hundreds of people, I introduced myself to dozens of people, and I got to this result: 1 phone call, 1 skype interview, 2 face to face interviews. One of the face to face interviews was with one of Turkey’s the biggest automobile companies. I passed to all phases and I proceeded to panel interviews. The duration of starting to job was so fast after panel interviews. I couldn’t proceed for that there was not a position related with lean manufacturing. I didn’t say that I am in the last phase and let’s start in a big, global company but in a different position I desired.

Two months passed with a few interviews. I applied to production/process engineering advertisement of a global company which works in automobile sector with lean manufacturing in Istanbul. I was not applying to any company in Istanbul because I didn’t want to live in Istanbul. Not getting a response from any company after 2 months forces to person thinking not preferred alternatives. I applied some advertisements with stress of not finding a job. That company invited me in a couple of days. They gave me an official job request after 2 face to face interviews. Managing this situation is hard. Their offered salary was in my salary range. I would live with my family. Workplace was close to my home. I would not busy with traffic. I would not pay a house rent and there was not a guarantee that I would find a better job but I refused.

After 3 weeks, Toyota Boshoku Turkey(TBT) called me for logistics engineering position. I had written dozens of times to TBT managers on Linkedin before call. There was an Process Engineer advertisement of TBT on kariyer.net(Turkey’s the biggest job searching website) and it was removed a week ago. I had sent messages to managers for that position. I had thought that a proper person was found due to removing advertisement. I stated on the phone that I am not interested with logistics engineering and I tried to connect with them for process engineering position. Person from human resources said to me that interviews continue for that position and he will return after speaking with manager of that position. After a few hours, he called me for English exam and face to face interview on Tuesday, April 22. I leaved with my military bag from Istanbul. Because I have to go to the troop for my military mission on September 3. I attended the English exam at 10 o’clock on Tuesday. There was 50 questions and it lasted 1 hour. The exam was harder than I expected and it was a selective exam. We started to face to face interviews after the exam result had been enough. Firstly, I met with human resources chief and the person who spoke with me on the phone. The chief was so smiling and sincere. He provided me to get used to environment quickly. The meeting was positive. Then, the turn was the chief of department related with process engineering. I had visited TBT with my university thesis advisor’s graduate class before 1.5 years ago. It was a visit for lean manufacturing lecture. The engineer who had showed around before was relevant department’s chief in front of me now. I was happy for this strange coincidence and I shared that with them. The chief said to me that there is also a vacancy except process engineering in Operational Management Development Department and he asked me whether I want or not. You can think this department as Continuous Improvement Department. I said that I can accept working in that position also. The meetings would had ended in that step under normal conditions and I would been called for another meetings. I started to meet with managers. I think the reason of continuing was going to army in a short time and my being willing. I met with relevant department’s manager after a few hours. All meetings lasted 15-20 minutes. All people I met were interested and good. You could feel that all managers and chiefs will help you in the future. There were one hour gaps between meetings. It was normal due to it was not planned. I met with 3 managers and 2 chiefs at the end of the day. Half of all meetings passed with speaking Turkish and other half passed with speaking English. Speaking English in all meetings after the exam with 50 questions show that the company cares speaking. I spoke English with a few people in another companies. After, English was not necessary in the next steps of interviews. I met with totally 5 people in TBT’s interview and everybody wanted to speak English after the half of interview. I recommend you to study for speaking fluently even that your grammar and word knowledge is enough.

Meetings started at 10 am and finished at 6 pm. Interviews maybe were going to last 2 months but it finished in one day and everything was alright. Human resources chief informed me on the phone before going to army about that the interview is positive. I got to official job request on the phone when I was in the army and I accepted. I started to my job at Operational Management Development Department as process development engineer on October 1. I will learn lean manufacturing in the best place of world where lean manufacturing was born. You can be sure that I will write my writings with bearing responsibility of this.

Working in our desired positions at good companies under good working conditions is right of all of us after years of studying. Some of our friends didn’t start in their desired positions in the job searching period. Some of us started in their desired positions but not at their desired companies. And some of us also accepted low salaries for only writing a big, global company’s name in their CVs. Any of them are not big decisions which cannot be changed. Everybody has a chance working in the desired position at the desired company under the good conditions. As long as we are decided, we improve ourselves for realizing our dreams and we try our chance until that we get it without getting tired…