Yes, at the end of May, I still not getting any job, I have done several company to do interview and some of them has the positive outcome that is passed to the next stage and I didn't think that the job seeking is very fascinating, as before I feared this much, meeting with other candidates, talked to the interviewer, work with test and discussion. I even set the job seeking as the top priority, and my yoga classes to be second. Its weird right? suddenly I feel in love with the job seeking process and if there is an interview tomorrow, I could not wait to be there. I could say that beating the interviewer questions is such an accomplishment for me.

Back at my first job interview, the process was easy as the company is my dad's friend, so no challenge there, I just met my dad's friend and have a talk for an hour, later he put me to the finance division. It was no challenge at all since I know the end result, and I don't need to be prepared.

But this time, different. As I have a clear sight in my mindset, after getting knock by the top cigarettes company, I sworn I should work with them, and be one of them. Work in reputable company, as I will proudly introduced myself to my friends about my new company, is known as qualified for the best candidates. I want to know how far I could be.

My schedule compared to last month is same, polished my interview skills, and attending job fair. Day by day, my confidence boast up as I know how to appear professional during interview, the tricks, and the courtesy before and after doing an interview. There was a job fair in one good university, as they are looking for journalist and the selection process was creative, the candidates need to be in stage, pretending as they are reporting to the media. I am up to that challenge and present myself confidently, I never felt myself can be this confident.

Until this time, I have done more than 5 interviews and all of them I refuse to sign to the end process. First of all, if you are the interviewer/ human resource guy, please forgive me to taking your time. Now back to the answer, you know why ? Because I don't want to be employed with them. I set my standard high, but I also put my CV to the small and medium company, as an exercise. The more acceptance email/ letter, the more confidence I will get. I believe the real interview process has ten times value compared to the interview preparation.

Before I doing interview, I always come up with this mindset, you have nothing to lose, you failed, you will learn but if you passed, you can take this as accomplishment. The other mentality that keep myself confidence; you are getting called, there is no turn back, so it's time to give it all. Third, success is success, even you failed thousand times before. With this mentality, I can easily push myself to the limit, without having a hard feeling.

Next post would be the job searching tips with detailed information.

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I can't believe it, after two weeks with no job offering finally God has answered my pray. I get a chance to do a psycho test on Wednesday morning in one of the biggest tobacco players in my country. The test will begin at 8 am so I am preparing myself to be wake up at 5, then prepare everything and going there before six, just to make sure I will not be late.

I reached there at 7 and there is only one guy in a waiting room. Later we talked out and realized we are in the same purpose, to apply for a job. He looks polished, as an ex-banker with 3 years experience managing a small team try to seize this opportunity to be a field supervisor. He shares his experience when working in his previous company, and talked a lot about the current banking condition in my country.

People start gathering and in half hour, the room suddenly filled with many candidates, as I could count, is around 50 people there and finally, the company delegate shows up and tell us to move into a hall room. I sitting near windows and joining others table. There were 4 persons there including me, was introduced each other. One worked in the local bank, try to get opportunities here, same with a guy who works in stock exchange. The most surprising are one of us, I don't know if it's true, but he claims he is a manager in news station as a broadcaster. By talking with some of the people in this room, I understand the standard in this job is higher than other places.

Time has reached 8:30 and still, the interviewer did not show up, and the room is quite noisy as people just wait and has no other thing to do until 9, finally the examiner come up and said, today we will do a psycho test and will use rank system, for those who is falling behind, half of us must leave this place.

The first test is the combination of calculation and logic, which test your detail and creativity which is my strong point. I didn't see any problem since the exam just tests those two things. I passed on the first exam and the next step I need to bring a short presentation in next week, with three given topics: What is your best accomplishment? How you ever made a big mistake and how you fix it? When you have given the task to leading people and how you make them work for you?. I have lunch with those who passed at the burger joint and then bid farewell.

Well, this is my first time competing with many competitors, as 200 people were collected in that room and I passed even just in the first step is something I could be proud of.  I went back home cheerfully and then focused on my job seeking role. Since I didn't sleep last night, when I arrived home, I am overslept till night.

I use this whole week to study about FGD and panel interview, since I never done before, I opened youtube & search on google how to passed this test, I try to imagine myself be in the place. While it still in next week, I was busy job searching and prepare myself with interview question. Then, one week passed.

I was there one hour earlier, and many people were there, more than I expected since the first test has cut many candidates off. I talked with some candidates and what makes me surprise is they seems experienced and prepared with this kind of test, there is no fact about it because I know their body language shows confidence and most of the people has it.

Later we are grouped in one hall, there were around 100 persons in this room, and we get announcement from the interviewer to divide our group into 4 persons. My team was ex business consultant, one marketing agent and one fresh graduate. With this division, we are expected to be prepared to answer question in group. Everyone in this group seems has different way of thinking, as we are not talking much and more focused on what is ahead.

We moved to the meeting room, there was another team there that consist of 4 persons, one human resource, and 2 persons is the person who will be our investor in this game. This discussion is about business decision with two choices, to facing competitor directly or to hit the new market our competitor hasn't play. The company model we use is an FMCG industry, specialized in food and beverages. There was 3 questions in this game:
1. The strength of our company compared to competitor
2. The strategy to outperform competitor
3. How many we spend for this new product campaign?

We were given two sheets of data, filled with numbers and charts. Then one person initiatively want us to read about it for 5 minutes and discuss for 5 minutes, before discussing to other team and hand it to our investor.In 5 minutes I was focused more with the numbers and charts and make a conclusion related to it, other teammate seems following through. In the whole discussion, I remember the 3 moments when I gained the highest exposure in this discussiogn, there are;
1. Showing the key facts of competitor strength, and our position if we clash with that number
2. Giving suggestion that is not relevant to the investor question, which I regret it much. I was dead when the investor replying my suggestion and no one in my team, including me could answer it
3. Showing a forecast that empowering my teammate suggestion, however, I didn't consider this as good move since I am not the one who initiate the discussion

And this 15 minutes seems like forever, I never felt this tense during discussion, even the topic was not that serious, as most of us just giving the answer by their sense.

The interviewer then back to us, and told us congratulation for the name on this letter, and be prepared for the next round. It come first name, those who are very talkative in this room, then the second one, who also being talkative and the last one, surprisingly, the fresh graduates. I admit her as she comes up with two solutions, no one in this room ever think of and I believe she worth to be move to the next step. Only three was qualified and the rest, will have another chance next year.

I think this is the good experience for me even I failed, and I congratulates them then congratulating myself, as I went down this far by walking around the building. I feel extremely sad but one side, I want to be working with them, and be one of them.

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So be it. I only have less than a month left to work here, before I am going to be totally unemployed. With the list I've been writing so far, combined with the expected workplace I dreamed for, I am ready to move on.

Day I spent in the office has changed, no more watching Youtube channel or e-news update, playing games on the phone but focused on the job searching. This time, I know the specification company I will be looking for. It should be well known, or at least some people know the name publicly, the job offers rotation for certain time, and most importantly, lot of challenges.

At the first week, I began to throw my CV through online and read job interview tricks, since I should know the update in the job test. I could say everyday I threw 5 to 10 CV through online channel. I make it personalized since it automatically enhance my professional writing skills and I believe there is different appreciation from the company if the letter was made personalized, depending on the job I prefer.

In the job seeking, I use three different way to put my CV and I could say this is the most effective yet efficient way to do it: First, through online job portal, search the dedicated one, as you can see the company listing is well known, or infamous. Filter down to arrange your working experience and job you want. Second, top level companies never show up on the job portal since we are the one who need them. The best place to find them is through their web portal, to get information of their activity, what is the career fair they will be (university or convention center), and the intake schedule. Next step I will see the selection process and absorb the information so when the information is sufficient, I hunt them in job fair. Job fair is taking much time, and energy as well since you will spend time in transportation, and also many people there. The best thing in job fair is the company delegates sometimes show up and you could have a kick start interview with them. Fair enough right?

The last thing is to bombard them through company email, and this is the only method I use, if the company is big, but has little to none online presence in search of new worker. I have experienced some companies offering the job by fill in your application through their website. To save time, I put the questions of my application and put it into one template, so any question I just need to do copy and paste.

There is many method you can try, as pay a head hunter to search a job for you or by leaving your CV through university website, since it has a slight chance for a company to look into your CV. But for me, three strategies is enough as I received at least one follow up letter in a week. I put extra effort for preparation as I aimed for the good company, the application process is also different from the normal company, for example presentation using Chinese language or focus group discussion.

I think that's enough for today and in the next post, I will post my first time experience attending the job interview in the one of the best tobacco company in the world, which left many impressions for me and such an encouraging experience to work in top level. See you.

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I walked in to the front of my boss room, I knock the door and opened it. He was there, sitting while working with his computer. He asked, whats up dude? what can I help you in a very friendly voice. I knew it once I spit it out, his face would shocked.

(Last night, before that moment)

Finally, I decided to quit now. My current place has no career track and I think I still capable to find more challenging place, with a chance of making my life better. I have write everything in this resignation paper and prepare for the upcoming question, if he wants me to stay longer or question related to this decision. It's 4 am in the morning an I could not sleep comfortably, knowing that something is going to happen tomorrow.

So boss..

Yeah ?

Sorry if it's too sudden but I would like to say that I will quitting soon.

Are you sure? Why? 

I consider working in this company is such a worthy experience, that contributes to my skill and experience. However, I think now it's my time to go, I will consider to take a higher education or else which can support my career progression.

If that so then..

Then we were talking like a close friend for about 10 minutes, the job, the next thing I want to pursue, and his advice as he always say "don't keep it personally". So be it. I will stay in this company till the end of month, due to the company regulation. While at the moment I will be busy preparing for the job seeking.

If you guys were asking what am I doing in this place, well I could say that 90% administrative (controlling) and 10% auditing, which I love the most. The reason why first I came to this place is because I have nothing left after I graduate, no job, no income, the willingness to be independent from my parent is the main reason of why I apply anywhere and take any kind of job that is paying well. Later I found out that this job is a dead end since the company only hire those who can work in a certain position, so there is no career progression and once I learn about anything, I began to lose interest.

But over is over and no need to talk about it, time to prepare with my job seeking!

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It's been a long day I am not writing this blog anymore, since April last year if I could remember. The reason underlying of it might be obvious, I get the new job and I am quite enjoy it until today. Mid April last year would be my last turn point since I made a huge decision, by moving from the old company, which have been habitual since the workload and the responsibility was not as big as today, and I could spent most of my time staying at home, while currently I regret being like that since I didn't make the most of my life challenging.

During my leave, I have reached to the certain point when I hit the ground many times, and hoping to turn back my decision but deep inside my heart, I knew I am growing mentally in this tough situation. I am sorry if this story confusing from the beginning since I knew I had changed from last year, and many things happen that shaped me to what I have become right now.

I would like to start from the beginning, when I make a huge decision last year. I still remember at that moment, I stand in zero point, nothing good, nothing bad, but I realized one thing that I lose if I stay, which is time. There is a lot of plan in my head, but zero execution. Going for master degree? I still didn't know which/ the specific program I want to take, to enhance my further career or life. Becoming a yoga teacher? I have had teaching for donation and I felt this couldn't be monetize, as I keep my yoga practice as it is. Start a business? I just love to start, especially create a business plan but please never ask how it is going after a week since I easily get bored. My current job at that time has only take my time to be more productive and make my brain works.

Many of my friends, have their career progression. Some of them already promoted into supervisor, even my childhood friend, which I never met him personally, I had heard from my friend he already been a manager in a well known company. In my company, most of the worker has been married, so you can imagine they have their own life. They will work as long as it could make their little circle, or what people say a family, has fulfilled.

This situation indirectly lead me to an empty life. Some of them have been detached from our circle, since the job requires them to still busy until night in order to have it done. My circle is filled with self-entrepreneur or family business type of friend, while I didn't see any positive side from them during our gathering since they also felt bored with what they are doing. I knew it, the income is greater than working in corporate, since the business system already robust and just need an administrative task to keep everything under situation.

I even didn't know what makes me stay, to wake up in the morning, work, come back home during evening (before 5 pm) to avoid traffic, and yoga session. I only remember my short escape just doing what I love, which is yoga. My emotional life also getting worse since I could not find any girl to hang out, even just a conversation. There is two or three moment of went out with a girl but there is no second meeting. I knew, I speak too serious and poorly make a joke is the main turnoff for most of the women. Any topic always lead to my life and I know my life is such a boring.

I feel nothing with my life

I just want to die peacefully

This word is perfect to describe of how I am so depressed at that moment.

Until,

I realized one thing that I lack of, which is lead me to this life. That is "I am not getting challenged by anyone".

Which, I need a challenge right to getting me to the next step of my life? If that so, how do I create a challenge since no one asked me a challenge? Even my current job is not a challenge anymore. Well, how if I turn this down, get a new job that is full of challenge? and at that moment when I think of it, I felt such an energy, to start this now.

In the next post, I will write my experience of moving to the new job.

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Day passed by and it's already Thursday again. I spent my day on nothing and I don't know why I become self-absorbed right now, zero mood in creatively thinking about my plan or even make a short term goal, I just not in the mood. My further test will begin in 3 days more where I supposed to cover 45 minutes classes, with the same sequence like last week, just with an addition to inversion and back bending sequences.

I consider to have a group study with my friend, so I can practice my sequence and have a better preparation. Well, I am even not making any sequence right now and what is on my mind about the next test I should find the connection from arm balance to inversion pose. What is on my mind that have the best possibility to link the pose from crane pose is going to tripod headstand but its too advanced for the basic class.

So what we have for arm balance that we could connect to the inversion? As long as I remember because I am too lazy to read on my text book which is on my home, we have crane pose, side plank, and lateral plane (this pose looks like bridge pose just without bend to the knee). This inversion would be leg to the wall, or the real pose, shoulder stand, and headstand.

I would like to give shoulder stand or leg to the wall so the transition from arm balance would be lateral plane as this is the counter pose of that inversion. And the shoulder stand is an easy gateway to do most of back bending pose, wheel pose and so on. That is what I could think right now and the pose might change depending on my improvisation during the test later.

So this is what I will be giving in the next 45 minutes test, hope I could finish it all on time because last time I was 8 minutes late.

Opening > Pranayama > Sun breathing > Surya Namaskar Series > 5 Standing poses > 3 Standing balance poses > 1 Arm Balance poses > ? Inversion pose > ? Back bend pose.

In 5 Standing pose, the best possibility is start by chair pose/ Utkattasana since this is the easiest pose to execute and help to reserve my energy for the next challenging pose, then I begin with W1, W2, Trikonasana, and end it with Parsvakonasana, do the different side then move to standing balance, starting from Tadasana, Tree pose, Padangustasana A, and finish it with Natarajasana, do the relaxation to the feet and do the different leg. Just to be careful on the mirror teaching on what leg should be lifted up.

Now we are move to arm balance, make a sequence to downward facing dog, make it a side plank (because I find it hard making a smooth transition with front lateral to inversion) and after that back to down dog and do the different side, in the end, finish this pose with down dog. Well, after I browse around 1 hour my search was wander to some random stuff and here I declare temporarily, I could not find any suitable transition to inversion.

My next plan is to talk to my friend and lets see if I could find an inspiration. For me it is not possible from any arm balance position given except from crane to tripod headstand. However that pose is not going to appear in basic yoga and the possibility is just you start from down dog and get into child pose. Since child pose is the reset pose, you could start again with all body on the mat then you could play with shoulder stand.

I am going to make the list for the material that I ever collected in one of my game so I will continue to talk about my life later and I will be having a yoga class today on 6 pm, hope I also could talk with my yoga teacher about this.

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Before graduated from this yoga teacher training, I need to pass 5 different test of leading a simulation class which requires mirror teaching and Asana alignment and today is the third test of it. The test comes in five phases which I already finish two of five, starting from the presentation of Sun Salutation Classic with two types of instruction, by breathing execution and the name of the pose in English or preferably in Sanskrit. On the last week, I need to perform 15 minutes class of the sequence from the opening to the Sun Salutation B. For today, I need to do all those 15 minutes with 3 different types of poses; 5 from standing pose, 3 from standing balance pose, and 1 from arm balance pose.

I have no preparation on this week, and I only had one time to perform Sun Salutation with my friend, even that is not really fluent at all. In the last night, I really want to study but my procrastination power win above my necessity and I did not touch the book, which I supposed to study for the test today. What more, I could not sleep yesterday and I only get 4 hours sleep which is inadequate to study in an intense training program which last for 10 hours consecutively.

I feel less energy today as I wake up, but I made a promise with my gym mate to go to the place with her so I need to stay in the decided place to wait her pick me up. Later we arrived on 7:20 and the class are not really crowded, there was around 5 to 6 persons in it. Because my body is too tired as yesterday I went to a yoga festival and take one class with some challenging poses afterward, I take a short nap. It was a nice sleep as I can feel the energy level a bit rising and I realized that I had not taken much breakfast but I don't want to eat it because we are going to warming up at 8 am.

The owner of this yoga teacher training is not coming in the morning because he has to attend the yoga festival conference which I went there yesterday so the lesson will be lead by his alumni. The class started on 8:05 and there was 2 persons which are not showed up in the morning, one were one hour late and he got punished for performing Sun Salutation series in front of all student in our batch. It was a good lesson for him though to memorize the sequence before we going through the test which begins after the lunch break. Later, our instructor said that this type of punishment is just to make us keep it professional after we graduated, that the member and the studio owner has put their time and money on it.

Later the instructor picked randomly three persons to try their skill and readiness to perform Sun Salutation. After it, there were 5 persons who have not finished with their 15 minutes test last week in standing poses, so they need to perform it to the class. There is a good feedback from the instructor, said that we had a quick improvement to speak up clearly and lead the class. He said that the most important thing to start your teaching is to move your heart, which is still filled with some nervousness and anxiety that you can lead the class confidently. Some of us show great improvement, and one of the students perform a Sun Salutation with full English instruction.

After all the warming up which takes 2 hours more, we are introduced with balance pose, separated by standing and arm type. These two will be used in our next 30 minutes presentation so everyone need to learn fast and implement it to their sequencing. Some pose which is considered harder for us were just eliminated from the book. My head got dizzy since I did not take much food and I went to the bathroom three times, I know I am not ready to present the 30 minutes but I need to do it in the next 2 hours.

Done with the sequencing in standing and arm balance pose, we are allowed to take a lunch break for one hour and a half. I ate my lunch box which is full of bread (my mom made 6 sandwiches can you imagine) and left two pieces then I went back to the class. I am not in the mood of study, my body need to take a rest so all the remaining time, which most of the student spent for preparing their exam, I spent it on my nap.

It was a beautiful sleep I ever take as my body are fully recharged now. I looked out to the material which we just studied and absorb it all, with my imagination of how I will perform it on the test and then while I was studying, the teacher comes up and divide us into five groups. Three group will be on the different room and the remaining two group with the founder. Well, at this time my luck shines because the person who will examine my test is my instructor in my local gym and all the member of the group is from my local gym, could you believe that.

The first class was lead by my friend, and from what I saw in last week, she shows significant improvement from the last test, as her voice goes stronger and she is more confident. Her performance was great and it makes me more nervous because I had not prepared anything. The second time lead by another class friend whose her husband is my friend brother. She owns her gym and she is certified with Les Mills program, she even had a several year of experience in teaching in the studio so her performance was magnificent.

Then comes to my turn, I open the class with a broken joke and all of them just smiling, turn me more nervous. However, after my test the teacher said that only in my performance, there was an option for the first timer in yoga class. My Sun Salutation went well as far, and I only made two mistakes; In the transition of Sun Salutation B, which I don't need to go to Urdva Hastasana then Uttkatasana but I could go from Utthanasana to Uttkatasana. Another mistake is I did not use the Hatha yoga method of Sun Salutation transition, which I eliminate the part of Tadasana and Samashiti. The teacher told me to reduce the confusion and to prepare my mind with the upcoming sequences.

For the standing pose, I carefully execute what I remembered and it went smooth, yet the problem comes from the standing balance, it was a short break of me getting confused on which feet I need to be grounded while other need to be in the position. My standing balance pose was Warrior 3, Half moon, and finish it with Dancer pose. The teacher told me to smoothen the transition from Half moon by bent my knee from the leg in the air, and slowly give an instruction to shift the hand from my hip to the toe. For my arm balance, the suggestion is just for the real pose, by stacking the feet, not crossed it altogether.

My execution was overtime. The expected time to finish the test was 30 minutes but what I spent it already 36 minutes. Later the teacher gave us the scorecard and the comment, so I compare the time that I took from the class opening to sun breathing took too long, which takes 14 minutes while some just need 8-10 minutes to do it. I went it overly detail so I sacrificed 4 minutes that is useful to be more on time. It was a lesson for me to begin the class and give a brief instruction.

It was raining heavily outside just after we done with the test, so some of the students prefer to stay inside. Well, my body was tired and I am pretty sure that I will get another muscle sore tomorrow so I am not spending more time there, I could spend it next week then I headed home. By the time of walking to my house, I saw my parents car coming up and they noticed me, then they asked if I want to have a dinner with them and I went up with them. Today my experience was good, as I could perform good, just for the lesson on the next week that I need to motivate myself to work on my 45 minutes test which is going on the next week. So, have a nice Sunday guys.

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