My job search in the post 9/11 period

(This post is dedicated to my mother on her birthday, April 22.)

When I started my industrial job search in spring 2002, I knew the odds weren’t on my side.

Like other industries, the chemical space was hit really hard in the post 9/11 period. There were very few job openings. If there was any, it wanted folks in organic or analytical chemistry. My Ph.D. thesis research was in the field of organometallic chemistry, which was never considered “hot”. Whenever a job was posted online, I could imagine hundreds of applications, if not more, would flood in from highly qualified candidates with multiple years of post-doctoral research experiences and numerous publications. But I was merely a fourth-year Ph.D. student with nothing published yet. “Manuscript in preparation” repeated itself for each projected publication on my resume.

I was under the impression that it wouldn’t be cost-effective to surf job boards, submit application and wait for any luck to be picked for an interview. I got to do more to find my way out. To me, the only way was through networking.

During my Ph.D. years, I attended a few conferences. Each time I tried to meet with as many people as possible and talked about all kinds of topics such as weather, food, culture, school life, and of course chemistry. I always made sure to get their contact information and followed up with a “nice meeting you” kind of e-mail. By the time I started my job search, I had already built a small rolodex.

In spring 2002, I went through my contact list and e-mailed each individual asking for an informational interview on the phone. Almost everybody replied and graciously agreed to spend some time with me. Not surprisingly, none of them had any job lead. But I thanked them for whatever advice and information they could share. Then I continued to contact the next person.

Dr. G was one of those industrial contacts whom I wanted to talk to. As a world-class industrial technologist, his early-career innovation in the 1970s made a huge impact on our daily life today. Today he’s the CEO at a profitable renewable energy company in Southern California. When we first met at a conference in Ohio in fall 2000, he was a Senior Research Fellow at a large chemical company in the South. At that time I had no idea how our initial hand-shake evolved into something that transformed career and life.

May 13. I e-mailed Dr. G with a typical can-we-catch-up-over-the-phone sort of request. The message was instantly bounced back, “Dr. G was no longer employed at Company XYZ.” What?! I was quite puzzled, because I would never expect someone like Dr. G to be laid off. So I spent the following days talking to other people and soon found he joined a company called RMFS.

May 30. Nobody had Dr.G’s new contact information. It was probably a dead lead anyway. But I felt I wanted to give it a try. I looked up the website of RMFS and went through its list of global locations. Given his technical role, Dr. G was unlikely to work at a production plant or sales office. And my best guess was he would still be in the US. Voila! There was a RMFS Technical Center outside Philadelphia with a main number listed on its web page. I called the number and asked to speak with Dr. G. Guess what? He was at this RMFS site. 15 seconds later, Dr. G answered my call with the familiar British accent. I was delighted to hear he remembered meeting me! When he learned about my career interest, he told me he just joined RMFS as Chief Scientist and, yes, he was building a team for a multi-million dollar project. In other words, HE WAS HIRING. Because of his busy schedule, we didn’t talk too long, but he said he would get back to me soon.

June7. My Ph.D. advisor came to my lab and told me he got a phone call from Dr. G for reference. I’m positive my advisor must’ve given some glowing words, because only 10 minutes later, Dr. G called to invite me for an on-site interview. I couldn’t believe I would soon have first on-site job interview ever!

June 23. I flew to Philadelphia and checked in at a Double Tree Hotel. By now, I knew I had fully prepared myself for the interview. I had a couple mock interviews. I did a ton of research on the company. I Googled all my interviewers and found many common interests to talk about, whether technical or not. Now that I had a chance for on-site interview, I wanted the job to be mine.

June 24. I have to admit I still felt nervous for my first and only on-site interview. Although I set alarm clock and requested wake-up call, I woke up by myself at 5:30am. It was a long day. My interview went from 7:30am through 5:30pm, which included a one-hour presentation, one-on-one interviews with seven people, lunch and more discussion with Dr. G. I didn’t feel being grilled by anybody. When I flew back to Chicago in the evening, I had a very positive feeling about this career opportunity.

June 25. I sent every interviewer a personalized thank-you note by mail. Then Dr. G called me in the lab, “7 out of 7 people gave thumbs-up!” Yes! Yes! Yes! I was really thrilled.

July 3. If I could get a job offer so easily, it would be too good to be true. Dr. G called me with an update that a management change just took place. The job offer wouldn’t be approved till the new director was appointed. So I restated my appreciation of the potential opportunity and stressed how interested I still was to join the team. Over the following three months, I exchanged e-mails and phone calls with Dr. G once a while. Meanwhile I did more networking calls and found another job lead with GE. (Of course I also had much fun during the summer time including participating in the Cherry Pit Spitting Competition.)

October 7. An e-mail came from Dr. G, "I just signed the offer letter. It is going FedEx and so you should receive it tomorrow morning by 10 or thereabouts." Finally it happened. Within an hour, I had called my parents and friends to share the news. I can’t remember exactly how my friends and I celebrated, but lots of beer was certainly consumed at the student pub that evening.

December 18. My Ph.D. advisor was pleased by my research work and had no problem with my graduation plan. I wrapped up everything and left for Philadelphia to join RMFS. It was my first job. A new chapter of my life started.

In retrospect, I’m so glad for what I did in the job search process. If I got sucked into the job board process, I’m still convinced I wouldn’t have hit any luck. If I gave up at any point during my outreach, I wouldn’t have reconnected with Dr. G for a very exciting opportunity. At some point, Dr. G admitted he was very impressed by the way I reached out to him. He said he never met someone else like me who landed a job with such self-motivation. Later on my drive and value-add certainly proved he made the right decision. :o)

Over the time, Dr. G has become a friend and mentor of mine. We have stayed in touch since we both left RMFS. He has always been supportive of my career pursuit. As of this very moment, we’re chatting on the G-Talk.