Fresh Graduates Starter Kits

23:05 rafi 6 Comments

Hello guys!

First of all, I would like to congrats all of my friends that just graduated from ITB this October. I would definitely say "Welcome to the real world!" because, it is! You're no longer having that "Student" title, which means, it's you with your knowledge, skills, and goals that decided what kind of career you would pursue.

Graduation Photo (Personal Documentation)

Why'd bother overthinking that?

First of all, I was born from Entrepreneur family, my father, grand father, and grand-grand father are Businessman. As a businessman, they lead and worked for not only themselves, but also for their employees. I ever considered to take my father's role, to continue our business further ..... I knew everything, from how much he got, how big its potential tho. But my footstep stopped because my father didn't want me to. He wants me to work at BUMN such as Pertamina, in which, he considered as the best job that guarantee my life prosperous.

I took that choice, by considering several things, from my father's advice, also from my family's condition, that I couldn't tell you further

Second of all, master degree. As you already knew, I am obviously love with Meteorology. I love seeing skies, feel the wind, even breaking down equation for approaching real condition of phenomenon. I am feeling that "I could be Scientist" tho. And then, the reality faced me up, I realized my father has been 64 years old, I still have 2 brothers, one of them would take bachelor degree, while one of them still in Junior High School. Since my big brothers can't even help themselves, my sister been married, and my father is old, yups ..... I should help him now, at least, take some of his burden for sure. And I decided, this master degree won't go anywhere, it could wait me for the next few years lah.

I took another shoot, leaving it behind, facing down reality, and let's take professional career!

Oke.

Third of all, to be professional workers. Which path I should take? I am creating plan A, B, and C for sure. Plan A, starting my intern @ Pertamina, and pursuing my career in this field further. I applied internship in HSE Pertamina. It took 3 month for the process to be honest, and while waiting for this role. I set my plan B and C. Plan B is getting another Job, I prefer took any Business or Data Analyst role, since I have experienced in Business, and I interested with analyzing data to get the best insights and actionable recommendation. I kept applying and getting called from several companies, which I believed, they're quite interest with my CV and experienced at the same time.

Plan C? Well, I opened with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) role actually. I used to work with local society, teach them, empower them, making them smarter from several Project I have taken. Since being Disaster Creative Mapping and Education (DCME) project leader, also Youth for Climate Agent (YFCA) co-founder, I found my eternal peace, whenever I served myself to the others. Saving the earth while empowering society, what's the biggest achievement you could give back then? SO YEAH, I'm oke with pursuing career in here. Even if started salary won't be so big.

So, what next? Here's the thing. In these void phase, what you're doing is really important! Somehow, it could determine which career you're going to get. And here I listed what I'm doing, such as:

1. Prepare several kind of CV

You might know I have much working and organization experiences. Everything might valuable, but there's no point to write all of them for sure. While applying Pertamina, mostly I mixed up my professional, academic, and organization experience. Basically, I want they knew what I'm capable of. I want to give exposure that I'm professionally and academically capable, while balancing my activity with extra curricular activities. I'm not talking about being a member or staff ya, but most likely talked about achievements of my organization whenever I lead specific roles.

And then, for Data or Business Analyst, I am definitely highlight my working experiences as Data Analyst in ESDM, followed by my experienced as Assistant Lecturer of Weather and Climate Data Analysis also Numerical Weather Forecast, to assure that I'm interested enough with Data, and told them it's not so different with what I was doing back then.

Last but not least, for CSR, I prepare my CV to highlighted my experiences in working with Local Communities. Any related experiences would be written down, followed by my achievements in doing social projects etc. I do apply lots of CSR jobs, unfortunately, there's no NGO that accepted my capabilities tho. Idk why, but there's nothing to lose lah haha

2. Don't let your time, wasted !

For f sake, don't ever waste your time a dime loh! I literally took any opportunities for being Intern in ESDM as soon as I graduated from ITB (Unofficially). Yups, unofficially, I already  get my bachelor degree since December 2017. After that, I told myself, there's no time to celebrate and waste of my money and time, because I knew I'm officially jobless now. I called my friend, to introduce me with ESDM scientist, and being part-time data analyst with them. I managed to get 2 projects done, in which, so valuable enriching my CV. Being Intern is not really taking my focus to get the real job, since I just give 2 - 3 hours a day for doing my Job. What next? I have 16 hours a day, 3 hours for Intern, and then? Yups, every morning, I saw linkedin, read articles about Data Analysis, Leadership, Management, Business, anything. I could spend 1 hour reading them. I want to make myself informed well with what's happening in this world. Since the development is extremely fast.

And ..... Don't forget, I used to apply for 6 jobs minimum.

What next? I learned German, French, and Dutch. Getting 50 exp a day for each of them. Haha, I know it sounds BS, but, I have dreamed job working on United Nations, and knowing lots of Language especially French would be an advantages tho. It's interesting loh how these language, somehow influence bahasa also. Yups, not only Dutch, but also German, and French, some of Bahasa's word came from these.

Oke, what next? I used to write in my blog, Tunza Eco Generation, and etc. Writing my ideas to solving earth's problem, isn't it interesting? Haha. I took FREE online training/workshop, which could get me certificate. I learned from UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research), to enrich my knowledge about Climate Change and how the diplomatic's work. It's a piece of cake for sure, since I have taken Climate Policy course in ITB. I took Datacamp, codecademy, etc to learn SQL, Python, and R languages.

Watching movie is oke, but just not too often ya, to relax your day mah oke.

3. Rehearse, It's your future Job for f sake

Hmmmmm, I guess it's the most important thing to do. No matter how easy this job for you, do not forget to rehearse! Yups, for any jobs, I would prepare anything. From psychology test, till interview, anything should be prepared well. I remembered, when I was applying on 08 AM morning, I got called on 10 AM and interviewed on 18 PM. What the hell, if I'm pessimistic person, I might give it a  go without rehearsing myself, but no, I'm taking a chance, and rehearse for my Interview.

What I did is pretty simple, I checked the Job description, try to understand what's the role could be, and learn it. If it mention about Business Process, then I would googling everything about Business Process, if the title about Data Management, I would googling everything regarding Data Management END to END. Yups, somehow, it helped me a lot during FGD, and Interview, because you already prepare it so well. If the output didn't come as you expected, then evaluated, "Have you prepared this enough?" "What do I miss?" "What's wrong with me?" etc.

This is your future job, by defining what you're going to do, it'll help go through any test loh. Trust me, it works :)

In the end, what happened then? While I'm waiting for Pertamina, I got offered from Elevenia to be apprentice. I took it, since it's "Take it or leave it" situation. And no regret till now, learning new things from zero, and Alhamdulillah been promoted as permanent employee in here.

And last, here comes the end of this article, once again, I congratulate all of new fresh graduate, my advice, do not forget to plan your future job ya, you'll have this title for the next 2 years, so make sure you choose the right career path,  sist! For the next 2 years, you may change your job, till you find the right one. How come it's right? Probably I'm going to share it in the next article haha

PS. If you have any comment or thought or questions, do not hesitate to write it on comment section ya, I used to check my blog gradually, so I hope I could answer all of these questions or comments in the future!

Thanks in advance and see you gaes :))