I'm (High-key) Lost

I'M LOST

Simple Steps to Finding Your Career Path After Graduation

“A must-read … to land the perfect job!”

Professor Allan Howells, Education Consultant, Former Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Executive Headhunter

Copyright © 2023 by Sunway University Sdn Bhd

Published by Dialogy Books

An imprint of Sunway University Sdn Bhd

No. 5, Jalan Universiti

Bandar Sunway

47500 Selangor Darul Ehsan

Malaysia

press.sunway.edu.my

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, now known or hereafter invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN 978-967-5492-82-2

Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Malaysia

ISBN 978-967-5492-82-2

Edited by Nicholas Hoe

Designed and typeset by Rachel Goh

Printed by Vinlin Press Sdn Bhd, Malaysia

All product names, logos, brands, and trademarks are property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this book are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, trademarks, and brands does not imply endorsement.

To my beloved late father, Lean Hee Teh; my mother, Bee Choon Ch’ng; my husband, Peter Heard; my daughters Ann Merlynn Heard and Anyn Bliss Heard.

I could not have completed this book without your understanding and inspiration.

Phoey Lee Teh

Praise for I’m (High-Key) Lost

“A must-read guide for students and graduates seeking to secure their first job. The authors provide practical tips on all aspects of the process, starting with self-analysis through to how to prepare an effective CV and cover letter. Readers will gain a real insight into what employers seek in the selection process, and then how to use this to land the perfect job!”

Professor Allan Howells Education Consultant, Former Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Executive Headhunter

“This book provides clear guidance for students, graduates, and anyone looking to find a job or get back to work after a career break. Essential elements for finding the right job have been covered and each chapter has questions to think about and reflect on skills, experiences, personal strengths values, and motivation as part of the job search. The book also covers the importance of networking, how to search for the right company that will support your professional growth, effective CV and cover letter writing, preparing for interviews, and guidance on how to deal with difficult or unexpected interview questions. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is on a journey to find the right job.”

Dr Deborah Ebenezer, PhD, FHEA Lecturer and Programme Leader of Human Resource Management, Wrexham Glyndwr University

Welcome to the proverbial rat race! Your first foray into the workforce is a significant milestone. For many, this is the threshold to cross into adulthood and cement your independence.

However, while the journey of your childhood may have ended, a new journey is beginning. Your career path plays a big part of how you live the rest of your life. You will have to start thinking about long-term life goals you may not have had to before, and you may have personal obligations and commitments to meet to achieve them.

This book will help guide you through the early stages of your career exploration and hopefully to kickstart it.

Part 1 is all about understanding yourself: helping you find out what motivates you, what interests you, and what values you have; the various strengths and weaknesses that you have; and your social network as well as how to leverage it. Knowing and

understanding these core elements of yourself will help you recognise what kinds of career paths, roles, and employers might make you happy.

Part 2 explores the types of company cultures and values there are and the ways to identify them, as well as seeing how they align with your values. It introduces you to the concept of soft and hard skills, how you can determine the types of skills you have, and which you can use for your job applications. It will also guide you through the process of matching your skills with the kinds of jobs that you may be interested in, and ultimately help narrow down the types of companies and jobs that you apply for.

Part 3 walks you through the preparation of documents for the job application process, including the content and structure of your CV, how to write a cover letter, obtaining references, and the application submission.

Finally, Part 4 is all about the interview. You will be introduced to the steps that should be taken prior to the interview, including tips like developing an

elevator pitch to quickly and succinctly deliver your key talking points alongside various other preparations to present yourself. You will also be walked through the actual interview itself and the things that you will have to do in it, before wrapping up with what comes after it, regardless of whether the interview is successful.

Finding the right career path is not easy. Do not be disheartened if you struggle to find your dream job, as it is a struggle that many others also go through! Each failure is a potential learning experience, and every interview is an opportunity to network.

Together with this book, you will be armed with the right questions to ask, the right mindset to take, and the confidence that you are headed in the right direction despite whatever ups and downs you may face.

PART 1 Knowing Yourself

CHAPTER 1

Your Motivations and Values

Thefirst step to your career exploration is knowing yourself. Ultimately, all potential would-be employers are hiring you, so the best place to start should be with yourself: learning and understanding what makes you you. What drives you? What are your values? What characteristics do you have that make you stand out?

These are just a few of the many questions that you can ask to develop a better understanding of yourself, which will then make it easier for you to present your best self to potential employers.

I’m (High-Key) Lost

As a fresh graduate, filling out a job application form may feel like a struggle. You may have your educational qualification, usually a bachelor’s degree, and perhaps some internship or part-time work experience. What else is there that differentiates you from everyone else with similar (or better) qualifications and experience?

If I were interviewing you, I will always ask you to tell me about yourself. It shows me how well you can present yourself, whether you can give more than just what is in your application. Pitch yourself, use story-telling elements to describe you as a person, your motivations, your habits, and your interests.

Anne, Recruiter and Organisational Consultant

To recruiters and employers, that difference is usually found in you, the person. Your personality, your values, your skills, and any other intangibles beyond qualifications and experience. Thus, it is important for you to know and understand these parts of yourself first.

The Pursuit of Happiness

It is a common truism among employers that happy and motivated employees are more productive employees, and studies regularly back this up. For example, a Forbes article in 2019 revealed that:

• Highly engaged teams are 21% more profitable, with those that score in the top 20% showing a 41% reduction in absenteeism and 59% less employee turnover

• Disengaged employees cost US companies up to 550 billion USD a year

On a more personal level, being happy at work is known to be beneficial for your physical and mental health. If you are happy at work, you are also less likely to want to leave, which means you avoid having to worry about your prospects, meeting financial obligations, and repeating the job-seeking process, among other potential causes for concern.

So how do you maximise the possibility that you will be a happy future employee? An easy starting point is to examine and identify your motivations and

I’m (High-Key) Lost values, beginning with a few of the questions below that you can contemplate on your own and discuss with others:

• What excites you?

• What is important to you?

• What gives you a sense of purpose?

• What can you see yourself doing in the next one, five, ten, twenty years?

• Do you have any goals that you wish to achieve in life?

• Do you have any pressing financial obligations or other commitments that need to be met?

The first three questions are a guide to establishing what interests you may have, what you like, and to explore what drives you to potentially perform well at work.

The next two questions are about looking at the bigger picture and examining your intentions over a longer span of time, and whether your interests can be a sufficiently sustainable motivation for the near future.

Finally, you should also consider your real-life circumstances.

Some of you may have student loans, pressing needs for your family, or otherwise other significant financial goals (such as starting a business or buying property) that may also inform your motivations, and determine the kind of careers you explore. The greater and more urgent the financial obligation, the less likely you will be able to experiment with your career paths, as you will need to consider and take jobs that address your more immediate needs.

Some others among you may have greater financial stability, or a scholarship that also guarantees you a job, or a return offer from a previous internship. Such circumstances may provide you with greater flexibility and less urgency to make career decisions immediately, allowing you to take your time to explore and experiment, such as taking on additional internships instead of full-time positions right away, or consider pursuing postgraduate degrees or other kinds of certifications.

Once you have a clearer picture about your values and motivations, you will be in a better position to identify what roles and positions will make you happy.

Next, consider your personal tendencies with questions such as the following:

• Are you a natural leader? Do you tend to like to take charge of groups and make decisions? How well do you work with teammates of different personalities, and to get them to work with each other?

• Are you a risk taker? Do you tend to be more adventurous, adaptable, and willing to take a chance on things? To what extent are you able to properly assess risk, and are you able to bear responsibility if it fails?

• Do you have the temperament and personality to work in a formal office setting? Do you prefer to get hands on and to be out and about instead?

These types of questions can further guide you to figuring out what type of work and opportunities would most suit you.

While targeted at fresh graduates and those who are looking to secure their first job, these guiding questions are still useful even if you do not belong to this group. Whether you are already currently employed and looking to move on to a newer or better opportunity, or if you are unemployed but with experience and qualifications looking to return to the labour force, you can still use these questions to help define yourself against your competition, and to shape how you present yourself to recruiters.

Re-examining yourself can help you learn about how you have changed, if your motivations and values have evolved, whether your strengths and weaknesses are still the same, and how you have grown over time.

Intrinsic, Core Values

Intrinsic values are the intangible factors that give you meaning and purpose at work. They are internal and reflect who you really are. Some may call it their personal morals; others may think it is the principles of life that they should always live by.

If your intrinsic values align with the work you are doing, then you are more likely to be driven and satisfied by it, and more likely to be happy and to feel fulfilled by work. Having a career that aligns with your intrinsic values can help you:

• Achieve longer-term goals, as you will be more motivated and committed to engage and stay with your current job and career.

• Learn, as you will be more interested in and excited by new or difficult subjects and tasks.

• Be less distracted, since you find the work interesting and engaging, you will stay motivated to keep doing the work as it is something you enjoy, even if other aspects of the job may not be to your liking, such as the workplace unexpectedly relocating, or the introduction of a disruptive new company policy.

• Avoid burnout and be happier, because enjoying what you do and being engaged with it would make work feel less tedious and less like a chore, while you will also feel greater satisfaction and accomplishment from achievements.

For the above reasons and more, it is important to be able to self-examine yourself to establish what your intrinsic values are.

The previous section provided you with broadly framed questions to think about. Now, consider the following few words and see how they relate to you:

• Autonomy: Is it important to you to have the leeway and freedom to decide how you work? Some people want to be able to fully decide how they complete their tasks, while others would be okay or even prefer to have standard procedures and follow step-by-step guides in their daily routine. How much tolerance and patience do you have for micromanagement? Consider whether you would be okay with a manager or team leader who constantly checks in with you and requires regular updates. On the other end of the spectrum, what about hands-off leadership that allows you to do as you please, so long as the deadlines are met?

• Challenge: Can you imagine yourself spending your daily routine solving challenging problems and overcoming difficult obstacles? Some people may prefer an easier day at work as it may be less stressful for them, while others might feel that an easy workday is a boring workday.

• Collaboration: Some people prefer working in teams, while others feel uncomfortable when they must rely on others to complete tasks. How

collaborative do you think you are, taking into account your ability to work with others, or whether you prefer to do things on your own.

These are examples of intrinsic values, and merely form a starting point to help you think about them. Below is a non-exhaustive list of other common values for further consideration:

Achievement

Adventure

Altruism

Ambition

Appreciation

Authenticity

Beauty

Belonging

Care

Clarity

Compassion

Continuity

Control

Courtesy

Creativity

Curiosity

Dignity

Discipline

Duty

Empathy

Equality

Excellence

Excitement

Fairness

Family

Flexibility

Freedom

Frugality

Fun

Generosity

Genuineness

Harmony

Honesty

Humility

Independence

Inspiring

Integrity

Internationality

Justice

Kindness

Leadership

Logic

Loyalty

Meaning

Mindfulness

Moderation

Obedience

Openness

Order Organisation

Patience

Perfection

Persistence

Popularity

Positivity

Power

Privacy

Productivity

Proficiency

Quality Recognition

Respect

Responsibility

Results

Rigour

Security

Sincerity

Spirituality

Spontaneity

Stability

Structure

Success

Trust

Truth

Understanding

Unity

Vitality

Wealth

Wisdom

Pick out the words that you feel most accurately reflect your intrinsic values from the list, or if you feel none of them really relate to you, feel free to look through a dictionary for more relatable options or browse the Internet for more comprehensive lists. Not all of these values are the same; some are more personal and individual in nature such as ambition, fun, and logic; others are more social, such as kindness, loyalty, and reliability. You may have an even mix of individual and social values, or more of either one than the other, and that is normal as everyone is different.

Once you have your list of intrinsic values, write it down and let it sink in. Consider what this means for yourself, as different values may mean different things to different people. Regardless, these intrinsic values are your core traits and qualities that represent you.

These core, intrinsic values are what you will bring to your job, and what will help define your career.

Extrinsic, Work Values

Extrinsic values are about the external factors that come from work: the reward, bonus, or recognition that come to you over the course of your career. These values are distinct from your intrinsic values because they are more tangible and usually a direct result of workplace achievements and what you get out of work, such as consistently good performance or completing projects ahead of schedule and under budget.

While fulfilled intrinsic values may lead to personal satisfaction and happiness at work, extrinsic values

being met are manifested in more measurable ways, such as money, praise, and fame. Some ways that you may be impacted by extrinsic values include:

• Workplace productivity: You will probably be more motivated to go the extra mile if you know there is a bonus or sales commission at the end of it, or you may be more willing to work overtime if you know there is generous overtime pay or a good replacement leave scheme, than if there was insufficient compensation for your effort.

• Team cohesion and satisfaction: If there is uneven recognition or remuneration among team members of equal standing, it may adversely affect work relations; on the other hand, a cohesive team with great relations would more likely produce better quality work.

Knowing your extrinsic values means you will also know better what you want from your future employer; combined with your intrinsic values, it might mean the employer is a large multinational corporation, a small independent business, a government organisation, a partnership with friends and family, or even just yourself!

As with intrinsic values in the previous section, consider the following examples of extrinsic values and how they relate to you:

• Career advancement opportunities: Is it important to you that there is a lot of potential for upward mobility? Some people prefer the idea of working in a traditionally hierarchical organisation and to climb the proverbial ladder (e.g. from associate to senior associate, to assistant manager, manager, etc.), which will be difficult to achieve if you are employed in a company that has a flat organisational structure, where there are few levels between entry-level positions and senior management.

• Job security: How important is stability to you? Some employers have a higher turnover rate than others or may have a preference for hiring fixedcontract staff or freelancers instead of offering full-time positions. Depending on your appetite for risk, you may struggle to find the right level of security and stability, which will impact your satisfaction and performance.

• Compensation and benefits: Do you have pressing financial needs that override most other concerns? Or are you simply not motivated by the idea of

working a job that you do not like no matter how well it pays? Some people can work for less at what they think is their “dream job”, while others may have second thoughts if a job offer did not come with good pay and comprehensive benefits.

These are broad examples of extrinsic values and form a starting point for you to consider. Below are some more guiding questions to help you determine what other extrinsic values you possess:

• Can I help make people’s lives better? Is the work I am doing socially impactful, and does it make a difference?

• Do I have room to experiment and exercise my creative side?

• Am I required to spend most of my time in an office environment? Do I prefer to spend most of my time out in various locations instead?

• How important is it for me to have a pleasant working environment? Do I have any preferences with regards to my workplace, such as accessibility to public transportation, the variety of nearby nice and affordable eateries, or the availability of convenient parking spaces?

• Am I able to get ahead and progress in this career path? Will there be many opportunities for promotion within the industry that my potential employer is in?

• How prestigious and recognisable would my position and experience at work be? Do I value having great respect and social status from my career?

To help you to explore your extrinsic values further, think about what else might be important to you in a job. If you have worked in the past, no matter the capacity or role, think back to that experience and recall what it was that you liked and disliked in that job.

If you have no prior work experience (even internships and part-time jobs count), reflect instead on your studies. What motivated you to do well in school, and what gave you the most satisfaction when you did well? It may usually be achieving good scores in exams and projects, but there may be more than just that.

Look back on times like when you learned or solved a mathematical problem that you had been struggling to deal with; or the conclusion of a group project that might not have yielded the best result but was a great bonding experience with your team members and provided you with a memorable experience.

As with before, write down what you think are the extrinsic values that most clearly represent you. Together with your intrinsic values, having this on paper will help you be able to review both types of values together and how they might combine. Writing this down will also make this a record, so that it will be handy for you to refer back to again in the future.

Combining Intrinsic and Extrinsic Values

Once you have nailed down your intrinsic and extrinsic values, you will have a much better idea of what career paths would suit you. Importantly, you should be able to distinguish which of your

Lost motivations are actually yours, as opposed to those that are imposed on you by external parties like your family and friends.

For example, you might have thought you pursued an intensive degree at a prestigious university due to intrinsic values of ambition, proficiency, and results, and motivated by extrinsic values of high status and earnings. However, this might have just been imposed upon you by your parents and you may not share the same values.

Doing a deep dive into determining your own values might make you realise that you share none of what was imposed upon you, and that instead you would rather pursue a career that allowed you to exercise your creative mind, with a flexible and less rigorous working schedule that pays you decently but not extravagantly.

It is possible to still pursue a career that is not aligned with your own values. In fact, the reality is that you will not find something that perfectly fits you, especially when you are in an early stage of your