This opens the Career & Job Readiness track. It assumes twelve months before you need a job, and works backwards.
Most final-year students start applying in month ten. The ones who do well start building in month one, because two of the three things that get you hired cannot be produced quickly.
The three assets
1. Evidence
Something you made that a stranger can look at. A repository, a portfolio, a published piece of analysis, a society you actually ran. Evidence beats claims, and it is the only part of an application that cannot be written in an evening.
2. People who know your work
Not a network of contacts — people who have seen you do something and would say so. A supervisor, a manager from an internship, someone you collaborated with. These produce referrals and references, and both take months to earn.
3. A clear story
Two sentences on what you do and what you are looking for, that a person could repeat to someone else. Most graduates cannot produce this, which is why they get forwarded to nobody.
The twelve months
Months 1 to 3: Build evidence
Pick one substantial project in the direction you want to go and finish it. Finished and modest beats ambitious and abandoned. Document what you did and why as you go — you will not remember in month nine.
Also: work out your CGPA accurately now, with the CGPA calculator, so you know whether grade cut-offs are a factor. If you are close to one, the target CGPA planner tells you what the remaining semesters need to look like — and that is only actionable this early.
Months 4 to 6: Research and talk to people
List thirty organisations that do work you find interesting. For each, find one person doing the job you want and read what they have written or built.
Then send fifteen short, specific messages asking for twenty minutes. Not for a job — for their view of the field. Two or three will say yes, and those conversations will tell you more about what the work actually involves than any amount of reading.
Months 7 to 9: Prepare the materials
Now write the CV, because now you have something to put on it. One page, specific bullets with numbers. Write three cover letter paragraphs you can adapt rather than starting each one fresh.
Prepare six stories from your own experience, each covering a situation, what you did and what happened. Almost every behavioural interview question is answerable from a set of six if you choose them well.
Months 10 to 12: Apply, in volume and in batches
Apply in batches of ten rather than one at a time. Batching lets you spot patterns — if ten applications produce no response, the problem is the CV or the targeting, and you find that out in a week instead of two months.
Track every application: date, role, source, outcome. The tracking is what turns rejection into information.
Interviews
Three things carry most of the weight.
- Know why this company. Specifically. One genuine reason drawn from something they made or published beats five generic compliments.
- Have questions of your own. Ask what the first ninety days look like, and what makes someone successful in the role. Both are useful to you and both signal seriousness.
- Answer the question asked. Under pressure, people deliver the answer they prepared rather than the one requested. Pause, then answer.
If you are reading this in month eleven
Compress it. Two weeks on one small finished project, one week of ten specific messages, one week on materials, then apply in batches. It is not ideal and it is much better than applying with nothing to show. The sequence matters more than the timeline.
Next in this track
Part 2 covers the behavioural interview in detail. Part 3 covers negotiating a first offer, including what is actually negotiable.