You know, I really don't like seeing my threads on the front page/main board of the site, because most of the stuff I write is embarrassing and the only people who read this stuff are the masochistic ones that want to read teen-level of writing, oh well.

Fuck. That's all I got to say. Since my last post, I was able to land two interviews and blew them off due to the first one being tired as spoon and the second being a nervous wreck (I said "yeah" a bajillion times in the interview, durp). Anyway, getting a skill based job really makes you feel bad about yourself at times, it's an annoying process, where people probe you and see if you're some satisfactory tool that they can use. If you don't meet people's quality expectations, you're thrown off to the side like some defective product, got to say, feels bad man.

I think you're probably reading this and saying "well no spoon", but it's something that hits you harder than a truck when it happens.

Anyway, apart from that, found out what my sleep issue was:

*drumroll*

Stress. AHHHH HELL NAW LIKE NO ONE COULD TELL THAT BY MY POSTS.

Seriously, I was checked out by sleep clinics for sleep apnea and other sleep disorders, came up negative in all of them. Then I just took a retrospective look at myself and started to question my intentions almost half of the time. I have really unrealistic expectations of myself, having to succeed, spoon like that, and being surrounded by people day in and day out about their success has almost drove me to insanity as to what I _need_ to achieve in living my life.

Set your own damn goals and fudge what people think of you I say. I've started getting back into gaming recently and I've found it helped a lot with relieving stress throughout the annoying parts of the day. Maybe I was having withdrawal issues? (I haven't played any video games in a year, other than the occasional tf2 and dota2 when friends ask to.) I've started playing persona 3 portable on my long donkey 2 hour rides to school and I have to say; I HAVE FRIENDS NOW!

Anyway, gonna wrap this post up, it's 5:00 am here and I need to get some studying done, if there's anything I'd want to say in one line, it's this: What I've found personally is that when you live your life under such notions of success from others, you stop living for the success of yourself and in the end, you come to wonder why you bothered to push yourself so much in the first place when you weren't enjoying anything at all.

Emofag out!

P.S. Graphics is fun! I'm definitely going to look more into it when this silly term ends, I take way too many damn courses to appreciate any of the content.

(This post was last modified: 23/10/2012 07:09 AM by Tetris999.)

The thing with stress is that most of it is self created. You can be your own worst enemy at times. Don't beat yourself up so much. Humans are never perfect and wee all make mistakes. Worrying about what you did or could've done different will just drive you crazy and lose you lots of sleep.

Yeah you're too self reflective.  But you also seem to think that others don't think too much of you either.
Think about it - the two don't match up.

Improvise more and think less about your actions.  Example in interviews - I have a feeling that you're thinking way too much about how you should appear to the interviewers, what you should say etc.  Don't worry about it - they're people too, so just be yourself and relax.  Perhaps ask the interviewer at the end what they thought and perhaps what their perception of you is.
Don't give up - there's plenty of reasons to be rejected, perhaps the interviewer just didn't like your hairstyle etc.
Don't be afraid to fail - this is where learning occurs.  If you keep thinking that you just have to succeed in the next interview, you won't improve.  Just act yourself and evaluate afterwards, and try to improve incrementally.

I don't know whether you're doing this, but I wouldn't be surprised if so - if you're following stuff like 'interview guides' or generic interview advice that give points on how to sell yourself, I'd suggest against that.  They're probably better for later on when you're looking at more experienced positions and when you have more interview experience and understand how everything fits in, but it's not something for you now.
Just like how imitating a grandmaster won't make you a chess expert.

Sound advice Zinga,

Yeah, my problem in the second interview was giving answers faster than I could think and trying to answer every question (even though I wasn't too sure) correctly. Interviewer said he was totally ok to give an "I don't know" answer.

Anyway, applications are a bitch, have to keep rewriting cover letters, driving me nuts. I'm just going to apply to some tester position or something, I think I just need to get my foot in the door right now instead of making some huge leap into development.

Yeah, I need to start my own personal projects as well, too much school.

Thanks for the reply, I'll try to relax from now on, this blog just captures the worst of me so it's not like I'm a nervous, philosophical wreck 90% of the time.

(04/11/2012 08:30 PM)Assassinator Wrote:  Last year, VERY FIRST interview, at PwC (top tier firm), INTERNSHIP GOTTEN, even though the average applicant is like 2 GPA points above him.  Doesn't matter, his cover letter / answer to selection criteria is 3x better written, he can talk 4x more suavely, and (supposedly) has 5x more work experience / extracurricular than them.  Reference check?  No problem, he has connections in Coles and KFC and student societies willing to bullshit for him.

Arguably these may be the skills they want (assuming the position deals with clients).
Dealing with clients is usually being able to appear that you know everything, are well connected etc.  And probably also being able to manage well cases when things don't turn out so well.

But as you've said, most of things in the world are based on how confident you appear to others.

(04/11/2012 08:30 PM)Assassinator Wrote:  Remember he did all that with a pass average and failing 7 courses.  Normally kids with those scores work as burger flippers in KFC, not as business analysts in top tier firms.

That's pretty damn good.

(04/11/2012 08:30 PM)Assassinator Wrote:  I would argue that if you CAN imitate a grandmaster, you're probably at grandmaster level.  I mean you can only imitate something if you can spot an observable pattern.  Grandmasters playing chess exhibits no such pattern, every move depends on the combination of all prior moves, and if you can regularly pick that same move as the grandmaster with good accuracy, then you're really really fucking good at chess.

Perhaps I should've said "try to imitate", and assume that you aren't at grandmaster level.  Copying cool moves from a grandmaster when you don't understand all the subtleties of the position and the differences won't necessarily work, is what I'm trying to get at.

Basically, whilst you may think that BSing will win you any job because you've seen other people do it - if you straight up try and do the same, you will likely fail.  It's about learning how to bullchocolate and that you must discover yourself.
But for Tetris, his first priority is just to be more confident, not take things too seriously and try to learn from experiences (eg "it doesn't really matter if I'm unsuccessful in the next interview - I'll use it as an opportunity to see how well I can present my xxx skills to them").  BSing comes later.

(04/11/2012 10:44 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  

(04/11/2012 08:30 PM)Assassinator Wrote:  Remember he did all that with a pass average and failing 7 courses.  Normally kids with those scores work as burger flippers in KFC, not as business analysts in top tier firms.

That's pretty damn good.

Well, he probably tried harder at the job application process than anything else in his life.  He must have realised, "oh shit, I'm pretty fucked, my scores totally suck donkey, this is like the only remaining chance to win".  The alternative is like McDonalds anyway, so not like there's much for him to loose.

(04/11/2012 10:44 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  But for Tetris, his first priority is just to be more confident, not take things too seriously and try to learn from experiences (eg "it doesn't really matter if I'm unsuccessful in the next interview - I'll use it as an opportunity to see how well I can present my xxx skills to them").  BSing comes later.

Yeah, pretty much.

Just apply for lots of stuff, gives you more chances statistically if nothing else.

(This post was last modified: 04/11/2012 10:56 PM by Assassinator.)

(04/11/2012 10:53 PM)Assassinator Wrote:  Well, he probably tried harder at the job application process than anything else in his life.  He must have realised, "oh shit, I'm pretty fucked, my scores totally suck donkey, this is like the only remaining chance to win".  The alternative is like McDonalds anyway, so not like there's much for him to loose.

Well actually, western society in general doesn't place too much of a focus on education and achieving well academically.  So I'd say it's more about getting priorities right (but I'll never guess one's intent).

As far as society sees things, only suckers get good grades.

(04/11/2012 11:56 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  As far as society sees things, only suckers get good grades.

Nah, you actually do have people out there who get like HD average while still doing part time jobs and lots of extra curriculars and stuff.  Those guys get investment banking jobs.  

Actually, in terms of top end finance jobs, derivatives trading, quantitative analysis > investment banking.  Investment banking has all the hype and stuff because people can actually get into it (compared to the other shit which are more or less impossible unless you're superhuman).

(04/11/2012 11:56 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  Well actually, western society in general doesn't place too much of a focus on education and achieving well academically.  So I'd say it's more about getting priorities right (but I'll never guess one's intent).

Western society doesn't need you to be the top dog to get a job, but you won't get any jobs if you're like bottom 10%.  I mean there's like 1231413211 credit or above grads out there who can't find jobs, who the fuck wants a baseline pass or a <50 average grad lol.  Most grad positions also have minimum credit cutoff for application, with the good ones (eg. banks, financial corporations) with distinction cutoff, because the positions are so competitive they get way too many applications even with distinction cutoff.

And then you have jobs like this, a cutoff of top 1%.  http://www.webjobz.com/jobs-Statistics,-...12800.html

Quote: Seeking top 1% of graduates from Statistics, Maths, Engineering or Physics to work as an assistant quantitative trader! Sydney location with training provided.

Candidates will be shortlisted on the basis of their academic credentials which must be at a High Distinction level. Anything less will not be considered, therefore only the top 1% of graduates from Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics or Physics will be contacted.

Quant typically pays like 6 digit salary + 6 digit bonus so yeah, there's still going to shitloads of applicants.  Welcome to the world of high end finance I guess.

USD$700,000-1,000,000 holy shit - http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com.au/job...107997.htm
USD$160,000-250,000 + bonus - http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com.au/job...107943.htm
USD$180,000-220,000 + bonus (only requires 2 years experience to apply!!) - http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com.au/job...976584.htm
What makes it even more superior is that quants work normal hours, unlike investment bankers.

(This post was last modified: 05/11/2012 05:08 AM by Assassinator.)

(05/11/2012 04:08 AM)Assassinator Wrote:  Western society doesn't need you to be the top dog to get a job, but you won't get any jobs if you're like bottom 10%.

That's probably a given, but I wouldn't really fret about achieving ~10% percentile.
Considering society, the bottom 10% is probably seriously retarded people anyway (unless the distribution isn't representative of general society, or high failure rates etc).

(05/11/2012 04:08 AM)Assassinator Wrote:  Most grad positions also have minimum credit cutoff for application, with the good ones (eg. banks, financial corporations) with distinction cutoff, because the positions are so competitive they get way too many applications even with distinction cutoff.

And then you have jobs like this, a cutoff of top 1%.  http://www.webjobz.com/jobs-Statistics,-...12800.html

I'm sure there'd be ways to talk around that.  People with 1 year work experience can probably still apply for grad roles, and they can always use their experience as something less measurable to sell themselves.  Assuming of course, that they can even get the chance to display this.  I wouldn't be surprised if they simply get outright rejected many times, but if they try hard enough, they may succeed at least once.

Also, it's not like you have to go for a grad role.

(05/11/2012 04:08 AM)Assassinator Wrote:  Quant typically pays like 6 digit salary + 6 digit bonus so yeah, there's still going to shitloads of applicants.  Welcome to the world of high end finance I guess.

USD$700,000-1,000,000 holy shit - http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com.au/job...107997.htm
USD$160,000-250,000 + bonus - http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com.au/job...107943.htm
USD$180,000-220,000 + bonus (only requires 2 years experience to apply!!) - http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com.au/job...976584.htm
What makes it even more superior is that quants work normal hours, unlike investment bankers.

When those links worked, they looked like international positions?  Interesting that they fall under a .au domain.