PWiC Silicon Valley: Conversation over Coffee with Sadia Saif
On Sunday, April 26th PWiC SV kicked off their first virtual mentoring session with Sadia Saif, an experienced technical recruiter who has helped build culturally diverse teams for companies like Salesforce and Facebook. The session was focused around resume building and the recruiter phone screens and how to successfully screen at this stage.
About the Mentor
Sadia is an emerging entrepreneur as a certified Health & Life Coach and founder of “Seek Your Zeal”. She believes in helping people seek their full potential and empower them to chase their dreams fearlessly! She is passionate about professional & personal growth.
She has technical Recruiting experience including a full recruitment cycle, conducting interviews, and help in resume building. She has helped build a culturally diverse team and for big tech companies like Salesforce and Facebook. Previously she worked as an HR Analyst and HR Coordinator in Islamabad & California respectively.
Sadia is a proud single parent of two adorable kids and in her free time she volunteers at Pre-K, Elementary, and Middle schools. She is also working on her personal blog “Of life and its many colors” and provides counseling & mentoring to those in need of a direction.
Session Overview
The virtual session was Q&A based and we went around the room and gave everyone a chance to ask their recruiting-related questions. Sadia gave some valuable advice to the attendees and we are sharing it here for the broader community.
Resume Tips
- Keep it clean and simple. Do not overdo the resume with excess design — it will hinder readability and is not eye-catching. Try to keep your resume to one page only (especially for entry-level jobs).
- Always have a professional summary. Always have the most relevant experience and relevant skills at the top. Recruiters and hiring managers usually may more attention to the start of the resume.
- Focus on readability. Use bullet points, not long, run-on sentences. Suppose you have more than five job experiences to add: use three bullet points each. Use five to six bullets if you have only one or two experiences.
- Be honest. Don’t lie on your resume or copy and paste things you have not done. It’s very obvious when a person is faking it.
- Tailor your resume for the job. Yes, it’s difficult to update the resume for each job, but it’s generally good to do that. There are two schools of thought — apply to 100 jobs with one resume and get one job offer, or consider quality over quantity. Apply to five jobs a week, and really tailor your efforts for each company. For each job description, there are keywords that you should add to your resume if they apply. Automated softwares are looking for keywords in your resume, so tailoring your resume helps.
Recruiter Phone Call Tips
Sadia began by emphasizing how important first impressions are in the recruitment process. Her quick tip for those initial 10-minute screens with recruiters? Make the first few minutes of the conversation count. In her experience, recruiters must filter through resumes then do phone screens based on resumes that stood out. The initial call can last 10 to 15 minutes. But according to Sadia, she does not always require the full 10 minutes; she usually knows very quickly whether a person is a right fit for the role. Here are some key points to focus on:
- Be confident — How do you portray yourself? How do you talk and sell yourself throughout the interview? How are your soft skills? Don’t ever say you are nervous or blanking out.
- Own your work — Are you able to discuss things in your resume and elaborate? It is very easy to tell if you are lying on your resume, so only put down things that you are comfortable explaining in detail.
- Sell your personality and try your best to stand out. For entry-level roles — highlight any volunteering experience, online courses, projects, and accomplishments from the university.
Career Break
There are lots of cases where women take breaks in their career — Do not apologize for this, do not feel like it was a waste of time. Sadia recommends to be confident in your approach and say ‘I was a homemaker and I was raising my kids’. In Pakistan, we are raised to be very humble and apologetic. But this is not something we should be sorry for. Raising kids and being a homemaker is a job as well.
If you have been out of the market for a while, consider going back to school for a higher degree or a certification. Add filters for entry-level jobs only when searching — the postings will still say one to two years of experience. But you should apply anyway because recruiters know to set different expectations for applicants who are new or have been out of the job market for some time.
Effective job hunting and Networking
LinkedIn is a very good platform for getting noticed and seen by recruiters. You can adjust your settings to show that you are available or open to new jobs. Add people who are 1st or 2nd connections — even 3rd is okay. If a recruiter reaches out, be friendly. You may not be interested in the job they present, but you can let them know what you are interested in and they can help you out.
Look up companies on LinkedIn and see if you have any connections working there. Even if you don’t have connections there, try introducing yourself to someone there with direct messages. Be precise in your introduction and the description of the jobs you are interested in. Ask for their help, or ask to get connected with someone who can help you.
Sometimes for entry-level positions, or for people returning to work after a long time, college professors can help a lot too. Their recommendations are considered very highly because they have connections in the industry too. Don’t forget: if you use anyone as a reference, let them know beforehand so that they have time to prepare in case anyone reaches out to them.
Hiring Agencies vs. Direct Hiring
Agencies do take a certain amount (5–10% of your salary) because they have contracts with the companies they help recruit for. Getting hired through agencies results in a contract role; you’re an employee of that agency, so all your benefits are through that agency too. Try to get hired directly, since company perks can be different for permanent, full-time employees. But hiring agencies are good for people who are new to the market, or need a job ASAP and are struggling.
There’s no harm in going through an agency to get some work experience on your resume. Sometimes if the contract is for one year, you can get your contract extended or even be hired permanently based on your performance as a contractor. Because hiring takes a lot of time and effort if a company has already seen your stellar performance they may offer to convert you to a permanent employee. They would rather hire someone they already know and have worked with.
Dealing with Rejection
Rejections are a normal part of the hiring process. When entering the industry, get used to rejection. You cannot get depressed about it or spend too much time mulling over a rejection. There are multiple factors at play, the role itself, the number of applicants for the job, headcount changes in the company, unclear job requirements, so try not to take it personally.
Sometimes, you need to apply to 100 jobs and maybe you’ll get one. This is especially true in the current situation with hiring freezes everywhere. It was tough before, and it will get tougher given the current COVID times.
Summary
We had a very engaging and useful session with Sadia and are very thankful to her for sharing her experience and tips with our community. During the COVID-19 situation and the current job market, these tips are very timely and can help a lot of our community that is struggling to find new roles. We hope to organize and continue the efforts that focus on job hunting and interviewing.
Future Events:
If you would like us to focus on a particular topic for mentoring, please send suggestions to the PWiC SV team at siliconvalley.chapter@pwic.org.
Watch this space for future PWiC events: https://pwic.org/events
Thank you for reading!
About the Author
Kanza Khan is the Growth Lead for PWiC Silicon Valley. She has a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego. Studying Signal and Image Processing during undergraduate studies led Kanza to develop a keen interest in Machine Learning and Computer Vision, which she specialized in during graduate school. As a software engineer early in her career, Kanza aspires to work in applied research in industry. She loves developing creative solutions for challenging problems, especially ones where she can productize her love for ML/Vision research.
