The Art of Getting Hired in Web3 & AI: Job Hunting and Personal Branding | Harsha Abegunasekara

[Music] hello hi guys my name is harisha um I'm the founder and the CEO at metana um a coding school that guarantees you a job um so I started the company two years back at e Denver uh at 2022 e Denver and ever since then we are helping uh people get like upskilled and get their jobs so um I'm going to talk about hiring in web 3 and AI so um just actually just scw the AI and web three part let's let's let's talk about hiring uh like you know getting hired any job uh any field any industry so um so here like you know who you are like you know kind of uh beginners intermediate uh like you know uh you know show me hands like uh are you a beginner uh are you an intermediate or an expert nice cool so a beginner uh we call a beginner like you know if you're exploring uh like you know you have couple projects going on and you are getting things started uh pretty you know pretty exciting like you know uh joining projects uh and stuff like that so if you are an intermediate like you know you are already having a job or an internship um you know kind of you have a couple good projects under your belt uh you are contributing into open source projects and your name is going on you know recruiters are reaching out to you and it's like pretty fun and then you are and like you know expert if you like Master you guys know M right um so he is the founder of Kum Fu U pretty sure you guys have like uh BH kungu Panda if not you guys really need to uh wash kungu Panda so um let's like uh keep the jokes away and then U like you know let's let's all let's get you know get back into business so uh ask honestly like uh are you really happy where you are when it comes to your career growth or where you are in your career right now like uh if you are a beginner you kind of need to have an internship uh you need to like you know uh keep Skilling up grinding and growing so if you are an intermediate you need to have a satisfied paycheck uh that that that you know that suppos your life like uh that suppos that supports your lifestyle and uh you like you know you must be building like really exciting stuff uh that makes you wake up every single morning to do cool cool stuff uh so if you are an expert you are someone who's like leading a team um you know the go to guy to put down fires and stuff like that so if if not there yet if you're not there yet it's just actually fine like you know uh you are on your way there so let's like you know let me let me share you um how to get there so we at metana we are like teaching this as a boot camp and we are cost like you know charging $8,000 but here I'm going to tell everything for free and it is your you know responsibility to follow this stuff and make sure you actually do it it's actually not you know rocket science uh anyone can do it it's it's just common sense is not so common sometimes so yeah let's like start off with carrier Nirvana so what is Carrier Nana carrier Nirvana is like you have a fulfilling barrier that your values your interest and your goals are like you know all aligned together so just just if you are like you know to um think a bit deeper like you know uh thinking a deeper you know deeper level so you know have a have a bit of self uh reflection so sit down take a pen and a paper and like you know understand uh what you really want in life like where do you want to go in like 5 years down the line uh think like you know not not what your parents want not what your partners want or not what your social media audience want what you really want like what do you want like that's the saying in uh The Notebook the movie so and then like you know when you like you know when you know this uh sit down again and do some research like you know let's let's say you want to be a web three engineer five years down the line who's making like 250k again sit down and like kind of ideate a plan uh do some research on like what are the skills that you need what are the roles that you can go to and uh how to reach these goals like you can like you know when your brain knows like the goal you want to go it can like put together like a pathway for you to do it and now it is the most important thing now like you know now you have your goal you know your part way now you need to like make it happen so getting a job predominantly me like uh comes down into networking the people you know the network you like you know your network is your net worth they say um so now comes the networking part so while you are doing the networking part like you need to make sure you skill up as well so now you know your goal you know the pathway you know the skills needed now you need to like skill up so Skilling up like you know make sure like why Skilling up is important is when you're networking you do not want to sound like a noob so make sure you are upskilling and uh so in the next couple slides uh I'll share some key tools and points uh that can really get this going so good developers always like struggle to find jobs because uh they can't Market themselves like you know the the the developers who are actually marketing themselves are the people who are really getting the good jobs um so yeah you need to you need to Market yourself so let's let's get back into networking qu a bit because uh we need to cover this part before going into marketing and stuff so uh when it comes to networking Network might be like you know kind of a common sense as I said again but common sense is not so common always uh so first you need to prepare so when it comes to Preparing you need to like build your ideal character uh think you know think of the ideal character of yourself and just just imagine it and then once you know it you need to make a elevator pitch what is elevator pitch a elevator pitch is like you know what you're going to tell someone uh explain someone while you're going on the elevator upstairs like you know 40 seconds 30 seconds something like that so that is elevator pitch so you need to put this together and then once you have this elevated pitch and all you need to put in the action like now now now like you know you need to meet people you need to initiate uh conversations and in these conversations ask questions like what brings here like you know you here today and what does your company do and then complement a bit about themselves and build a Rao and build a very human connection with like you know the people you network with and ask what you like you know what they need from you and like you know understand what like they need from you and you need from them and then uh like you know you elevate and then you know when you are networking come into an agreement like this is this is what you need this is what you want so we are going to connect on LinkedIn and make sure you always connect on LinkedIn get the number uh Telegram and stuff like that so one thing about LinkedIn is LinkedIn telegram uh is every year I like you know you know this is my third e then so I really recommend you guys to stick with LinkedIn the you know the reason is keyword research the people who are in your network you need to be able to search their keywords and find these people like 2 years 3 years down the line if you connect with them on telegram uh or even Twitter you really can't like search these people like you know let's say someone works at chains safe and now you have a job interview lined up at chainsa you need to know like you know you need to have a way of like searching the people in chain safe and then uh reaching out to these people like to build a nice rapper so to do this LinkedIn is important telegram doesn't I love you to do that uh I mean you kind of can but it's it's it's not the most ideal uh Twitter also it is it is a bit uh challenging so once you are connected with someone on it like you know at this point it can be like telegram LinkedIn or anything you need to follow up you need to keep following up build a Rao build a nice conversation talk to these people like you know they are human at the end of the day so be very human be very normal and don't try to get something always try to give value this way it is like you know a very natural human connection so uh like you know kind of use this like simple strategy to make uh your you know uh make contacts at e Denver because this is like um the place to network uh I started my company two years back at e because I was networking um and then this this networking will always open doors to you like really really freaking amazing doors so let's let's talk about LinkedIn a bit like why you actually LinkedIn because LinkedIn has like 900 million users and 57 companies uh sorry 57 million companies are active right now or like you know it's it's it's it's it's like growing every single day and the crazy part is like eight hours sry eight hires are being made every single minute on LinkedIn that's that's Bonkers that's that's nuts like you know when I saw these numbers I was like oh this is like really Bonkers so it is like the literally the biggest professional platform on the world and like in the next slide I will explain like key aspects that you need to focus on increase your chances uh Landing interviews using LinkedIn so going deep into LinkedIn like uh always like uh study job descriptions and find them and keywords like you know add these keywords to your profile so let's say you are now in the job market looking for jobs so you need to like browse these uh job job articles like you know on job boards and Linkedin and make sure like there are you know certain keywords these keywords needs to go on your description and then like take a nice head shot make it like look professional like smile a bit like be again be very human don't don't look too professional be professional as well as like uh human like you know these are the things that we've been doing for like 2 years and uh now we know these things work uh so yes and and uh if you are a aspiring developer or a beginner please don't mention it like don't put like you are aspiring developer uh or a beginner stuff like that if you have like couple years of experience bit like uh X years of experience as a uh as a senior smart contract engineer working with these this these projects something like that in the lines like that but do not mention or do not put as an aspiring developer a beginner like you know just just places like that because that immediately signals like recruiters and uh if you apply to a job like you're not good enough you're not confident enough so do not put that and then when like sending connection request if you take time to craft a personalized invite the chances of getting accepted is like really really high so uh stick to quality over quantity but in the beginning quantity is important so if you are a total beginner coming into the market go for quantity then slowly shift into quality over quantity that is you know that is that is very important and being active on LinkedIn plays a major role uh you know your profile showing up on top and stuff like that so comment on other people's post like like and then share like very um you know be a thought leader in the industry even if you're a beginner if you do not know jack just talk about stuff like you know you can use CH GPT but make sure it is like your authentic stuff uh you can use chity to like you know uh research and all but be a thought leader you are the guy like the guru like you know you might like feel kind of the imposer syndrome and all sometimes but it's fine like you know just just put stuff out there and if people like it they like you know you will you will get some engagement and if you do not get an some engagement what's it like you know it's like nothing to lose right so you need to be a thought in the you know thought leader in your domain and it is very important because like branding comes like in the Forefront of like your job search so uh moving moving forward to um now like you know we you know we we branded our LinkedIn we are now marketing our LinkedIn now is the time to like how to apply for a job so when it comes to applying for jobs quick apply does not work it it rarely Works some you know once in a lifetime it might work but it rarely work it like almost never work do not quick apply a quick apply means like easy apply on LinkedIn just like one click so what you actually need to do is when you are research you know looking for a job you need to research about the job like make sure sure the job is like posted at least 2 weeks back uh 2 weeks into the past and if it's like anything more than that like you can think the job is already filled I mean you can in that case you can do a quick apply or easy apply but at that point it's not worth the effort and then when you are like uh applying always inquire about the company on LinkedIn find their email addresses like use an extension and stuff like that that or like you know apple or IO stuff like this and talk to people in the company connect with uh your peers in the company and talk to them talk about like the company and build a very personal level raer with these people and it'll like help a lot and when it comes to like small companies you can directly talk to the CTO uh if it's a medium Scale Company you can talk to the hiring manager so there's this one uh incident that I remember so one of our students like uh like you know we have this call calling scripts in our the job uh boot camp so one of the students he just uh like you know it's you know it's kind of a big company with 150 plus employees uh he just pick the phone and call the CTO of that company and he landed interview and like you know he did not get the job but he landed a interview that's like crazy it's like you know a big company he just applied he just picked the phone and like you know talk to the CTO and I myself have hired so many people just because they reach out to me just because like after interview they like ask about the like you know how did it go how can I improve and stuff like that you know building a very personal Rao like doing that itself makes the you know the hiring manager or the CTO or the CEO feel like this person has the the energy to like put in to improve and to do something to make a change and do big in the company so you need to always make these people feel it so the key decision makers need to feel it so uh CVS like make sure you up like you know update it from job to job make sure you do a keyword research of like you know keyword uh uh research of the job description and the key like at least 50% of the major keywords needs to be in your CV that's that's very important like you can use softwares like there are so many softwares right now in the market just hack your way around like use these softwares create a CV like you know a a new CV to almost all the new jobs that you are applying it is very important and then the jiub the jiub plays a major role when it comes to hiring in Tech those green dots are like really important like um recruiters are looking at them and there are like you know softwares to kind of analyze all this stuff and uh you know kind of beted the candidate uh so talking about jiub like make sure you have like your read me uh uh post and stuff like that so it's like very nicely structured because at the end of the day a human is also going to look at your jiub and you need to make sure your jth Hub is up to date and when it comes to applying use like job boards LinkedIn but do not easy apply I mean if that's the only option you can easy apply but always put in effort for every single job because it's your job to find a job if you are like getting a job that is paying you like 150k 250k like you are sorted for a good amount of time right so put in the effort you will be really really be satisfied and successful so while you are doing everything the most important thing is like following up after you apply each and every time you need to follow up like make sure you you know you maintain a spreadsheet uh follow up once a week or something up until you get a know follow up once you get a know just just like don't follow so yeah and then like you know we've been doing this like for the past 2 years uh this is like you know what I just explained is exactly what we are making our students do and we have zero uh job guarantee requests like you know we do provide the job guarantee with our boot camp so we have zero uh request for the job guarantee so that actually showcases a lot of like our results so like uh I I like you know I just covered everything that we are actually doing I did not like skip any good parts so uh like you know this is like you know the reason like uh boot camp sex is like uh the road map the accountability the coaching is like very critical to learn a job but if you have the determination you probably can do it yourself uh if you need help like we are there as well so that is my elevat pitch and if you be like 1% better every single day you are like 36 times better and consistency is the key so thank you very much for listening to my speech uh have a good day