What Makes You Different?
How I differentiated myself in the job market to get accepted to a company with less than 1% acceptance rate
(This is a translated version of a previous article I’ve written)
It seems that it’s already become a stigma that the ideal place to work for millennials are startups, where the majority provides benefits such as no dress code, flexible work hours, open office setups, etc.
Personally, I’m also drawn in to work in a startup, but not primarily for the reasons stated above; instead for the nature of a startup’s business that is dynamic and uncertain.
“A startup is a human institution designed to bring something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” — Eric Ries (The Lean Startup)
I’m speaking from personal experience of working in a traditional corporation, where every job that I did felt identical, and sometimes not even having any job to do for a full working day.
Although some people might see this as a blessing (cause essentially you’re being paid to do nothing), I see it as a curse, because I feel my time is wasted and I’m not getting opportunities to grow here (Seth Godin’s book “The Dip” mentioned this type of job as a cul-de-sac).
Longing to find a workplace that’s more dynamic in the hopes of professional development, I decided to not extend my contract at my current workplace and instead started applying to numerous startups. Out of them all, I’ve prioritized one “startup”, a startup which products have permeated to our everyday lives; a startup whose partners are visible wherever we go; a startup that is expanding internationally; a startup whose mission ignites my nationalism spirit — That startup is Gojek.
But, I know the process will be like climbing a mountain because:
“Gojek processes around 200 thousand job applications with an approval rate of less than 1%”
At first, the minuscule acceptance rate deterred me; but after seeing it from a different perspective, this can actually inform me of my current “level” in the job industry.
This perspective is the main driver that pushed me to continuously apply to Gojek.
First Failure
I’ve actually applied to Gojek as an intern previously before starting my corporate job. Although I felt confident with my application, long story short I failed to pass to the next stage.
This failure brought me back to the real world. I saw that my “level” in the job industry is still lacking, so I have to improve myself significantly and try to apply again in the next opening.
Training to Reach the Next Level
The way to improve myself that I had in mind was by expanding my knowledge around startups and the components inside it. Going from that focus, I utilized 3 methods of learning:
- Reading books around startups/entrepreneurship
Books are really underrated in my opinion, and it’s sad to see that Indonesians have low interests to read. Some books that I read in this period are zero to one, the lean startup, running lean, and the innovators. - Enrolling in startup competitions
The advantage of competitions is that they are a mean to practice our theoretical knowledge. During this period, I enrolled in Startup Weekend Jakarta, which is a competition to “build a startup” in 54 hours. This competition gave me direct exposure around a startup’s dynamic and uncertain business conditions. Although each day ends with burnouts and stress, I felt proud when I reflected on the progress the team had made for each day, and I’m also enthusiastic to face whatever challenges may come the day after. (In the end, my team won 2nd place, which was awesome!) - Attending seminars/workshops about startups:
My own purpose of attending seminars/workshops is to get relevant knowledge to create/work in a startup directly from the source (practitioners in the field), and also to expand my network which brings potential business opportunities in the future.
Unintentionally Finding a “Life-Changing” Seminar
At a job fair that I was attending, the organizers also held a seminar at the same time with a generic name like “CV Writing 101”. I wasn’t actually interested to attend, but I decided to go because I have some spare time.
During the seminar, the speaker said this:
“When applying to a company, rather than just submitting your CV, try to also exhibit what you can provide to the company if you got accepted”
Those words made me think…
I realized that all this time there wasn’t a lot of room for job applicants to differentiate themselves with each other. Each applicant will usually try to submit their best CV + cover letter, but this could just depend on how beautiful they design their CV right? Or their competence in crafting their words for their cover letter?
It totally makes sense that giving the company a piece of work showing the applicant’s capability before they’re hired can be a strong differentiator, because it shows the company that the applicant really wants this position because of the time and effort they’ve spent.
Coupled with this knowledge, I applied it to my next job applications to various companies — One of them, Gojek.
Second Try
The second try at Gojek was in the form of me applying as a business research intern.
The application format was similar to the previous one, but the closing question piqued my interest:
“Please tell us, why should we give this opportunity to you?”
The first thing that came in mind was that this question could only be answered by showing the value I could bring to the company if I got accepted, instead of writing long paragraphs claiming of the values I could bring.
Because the position I applied to was in research, I thought to start an independent research project that was related to Gojek. After a few days of brainstorming, I finally decided to start a research on “how Gojek could be the pioneer to push the adoption of electric vehicles in Indonesia”.
The research was in the form of a feasibility study, which was concluded in around 2 weeks, and consisted of 18 pages.
After I finished the research, I returned to the job application page. Scrolling to the last question, I confidently answered:
“I could explain in lengthy detail about my strengths, but I’m more comfortable to show what value I can give to the company if I got accepted. Please follow this URL to access a small research project I did for Gojek.”
…And hit “Submit Application”.
Second Failure(?)
Back to my (by then) current corporate job, I was p̶l̶a̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶o̶b̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶l̶e̶g̶e̶n̶d̶s working, when I received a call from an unknown number. I picked up and turns out it was someone from Gojek’s HR division. She called me to inform that my job application was accepted, and I passed through to the interview stage.
Long story short, the interview went smoothly, and there were a few questions that I was able to relate with my knowledge around startups that I had gained from the books and seminars I attended, which gave added weight to my answers.
A few weeks later, I got another call saying I was accepted, and I’ve been working at Gojek ever since.
After working for a few months in this company, I’m quite happy to say that I’ve found what I was looking for; the dynamic and uncertain business environment, , the increased workload; and the multitude of learning opportunities. I’ve also learned a lot during my internship period (which is a spoiler for the next article).
