Lessons from 80 job rejections | Erica Burett | TEDxFrankfurt

foreigner 2012 1 am the plane had just arrived on the runway and there I was at Hamburg airport after a 12 hour flight from Kenya 14 hours earlier my family and some members of my village had traveled hundreds of kilometers to say goodbye to me in the Nairobi airport. I remember looking out the plane window and I will never forget that feeling: it was the feeling of Awareness mixed with uncertainty and paralyzing fear running through my skin. I sat there wondering if I had really made the right decision to travel to a country I didn't know anyone, barely spoke the language to work as a nanny or au pair.

I headed towards the exit doors. I was a woman welcomed by a modern au pair family and as we headed to her house, the only thoughts in the back of my head, I hope this decision is worth it, so why Germany? True, that is the first Christian. People often ask me. It's very simple. I learned Germany in high school and it made sense to travel to this country where I learned so many wonderful things. about, for example, the Four Seasons, the great castles and what was so fascinating to me, furthermore, the fairy tale of local life.

I really wanted to see if the place really existed in real life. My goal was to use the au pair program to come and improve my German to learn about the culture and study. Afterwards during the program I quickly realized that there were not many history or geography

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that would have prepared me for the culture shock. I'm talking about the right mindset, the food, especially sauerkraut, the people. everything was so different at some point that I even doubted my decision to come now, despite all my certainties, one thing was very clear and that was that my trip to Germany was a great advance for me and my family because it symbolized hope and inspiration, it meant access to better opportunities and that one day I will be able to support my family financially and contribute to my community.

A year later, in Germany, the au pair program had ended and my German was improving significantly. I applied to several universities and gained admission to the Frankfurt Appliances University. He was also studying international business administration. Now this was another big breakthrough and it seemed like all the efforts my family had made to send me abroad were starting to work. pay uh my goal at university was to graduate and work in a big company in the fifth semester of the course we had something called the internship semester, which meant that in order to graduate, even in the first place, I needed to have successfully gained work experience. at a certain company, so I set out to apply for my first real corporate job in Germany.

The job application process turned out to be one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life, the first time I faced it. Which is not just being a woman, but a young black woman pursuing a corporate career in Germany. What I discovered was eye-opening and challenged every believer I had about what it takes to become a top candidate and went outside of that. Journey in which I made three great discoveries that I want to share with you today. The first discovery I made was that people hire people they know and I know that may seem unfair but studies have shown that where there is a human element in any decision making process the result is never based the result is never completely based on merits now this experience takes me back to a conversation uh between here I between a conversation here between some German students one of them saying that he had landed an internship at the largest airline in Germany, now, mind you, until I heard that conversation , the only type of jobs I had been doing were house cleaning jobs, maybe sitting, so you can imagine this shock on my face with an open heart because I never imagined as a student, you could work in such a big company, it was a wake up call and out of fear of missing out or probably having been left behind, I started sending applications and applications to different companies in Germany, 80 successful applications and 80

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later, it was crystal clear that absolutely not, I had no chance and I had to change the strategy.

I had observed that all the German students working at these large corporations had one thing in common, they all had connections at those specific companies and they had all gotten their jobs through referrals and it was in that case that it occurred to me that the connections were definitely something that I didn't have and that could be the missing puzzle to solve my work problems, so I decided to apply to this event management agency. and we made a deal that I will only do, even I will only provide catering services at large company events. My goal was to use that informal setting to make a good impression and establish connections with my target employees. companies that would hopefully recommend me if they liked my coffee services.

Then I would use that opportunity to also give them my CV and they would also give me their business cards in their turn and guess how I got my first internship in an Investment Bank now, this experience taught me that your career success is He attributes a lot of it to the type of professional connections he maintains knowing how important it is. I founded the Career Lounge, which has become the fastest growing mentoring platform for international students and graduates in Germany, where we help them make a successful transition from university to the workplace by pairing them with mentors from their target industries and some of them even learn jobs in their dream companies.

Thank you. The second discovery I made was that grades do not necessarily determine someone's performance. In the work you see, a common misconception is that perfect grades are relatively necessary for future success, but studies have shown that, in fact, personality predicts success much more accurately than pre-earning rates. that I got my job at this investment bank many times. Companies have rejected me because of my imperfect qualifications and honestly my qualifications were not good but I guess I would make up for it with other high quality qualities and skills I had, for example I can currently speak four different languages. including German.

I had previous relevant work experience in the international industry in Kenya and thirdly, and most importantly obviously, my very motivated attitude and willingness to learn, but surprisingly, for all the companies I had applied to, none of that It mattered, so it was necessary. One person namely my internship manager saw beyond my perfect grades and gave me an opportunity based on how I performed during the interview which changed my career path till today and guess what I performed so well like the other interns who looked perfect. On paper, this experience led me to conclude that if companies really want to win over good quality candidates, they need to take a more open approach that includes weeding out their resume buyers because a resume buyer basically assumes that automatically.

Know how someone will perform at work based solely on the facts presented to you on this single piece of paper, ignoring all other relevant qualities that are not easily demonstrated on paper, for example, the motivation grid. The willingness to learn or even the ability to recover. setbacks, on the other hand, this will require candidates to take that initial risk and apply for jobs that they think might be underqualified and that are just fine and imperfect on paper because, in essence, the perfect candidate does not and never will exist. This brings me to my third and final show of hands discovery, how many of you feel like you are a 100 percent authentic version of yourself at work?

Oh okay, that's less than I expected, although the discovery I made was that authenticity is a key ingredient to achieving your goals and it begins when you choose to tell your story, this takes me back to the days when I was applying for my quick full-time job at the same investment bank where I did my internship. He had gone through a rigorous selection process for his training program. and their awards in the assessment center full of other candidates who have master's degrees attended some of the top Elite schools and on paper they really seemed much more qualified than me, in fact that day I was the only person in the room who had a degree from In the small talk it was very clear that the only differentiating factor between the other 15 candidates and me was obviously gender, of course, and at least something that I would be neglecting for a long time and that was my story and I was in At that moment I decided I would face my biggest fear and tell my true story for the first time in a job interview.

I knew that the only way I would really build that initial connection with hiring managers was not only how I answer the interview questions, but also tell them what it really took for me to sit at the same table with everyone else who was president at that room that day. Later, after the interview, one of the hiring managers told me that my story motivated them. in what I gave, it showed my determination to achieve my goals and guess what was one of the three types of days I came in second for the position that day. I use the concept, the same concept to transition to one of the largest technology consulting firms. where I can work as a consultant and advise some of the largest banks in Europe to drive digitalization and innovation.

This experience taught me that being authentic means knowing who you are and showing up as an unapologetic person in all aspects of your life. It requires being clear about what you want to stand for and represent now, as I look back on my journey today. I am honestly very grateful for all the challenges I went through because I have learned to have great resilience even in times of uncertainty. I have also learned that sometimes it takes one person to believe in you to be successful, that can sometimes change your entire life for the better, so I challenge each and every one of you here today to do something outside of your zone. comfort if they are a The hiring manager maybe give that imperfect candidate a chance and if they are a candidate, apply for the jobs you think you are not qualified for because or even start that business you always wanted to do or even Request your talk Foster like me because the people who succeed those who really leave the life they want are the ones who can get out of their comfort zone face their fears head on and stand firm against them are strong because they know that without fear there is no courage and without courage there was no success thank you very much