Rolling the dice can sometimes pay off.
Wow, I haven’t written a blog post in a very long time. Well, in the meantime, I’m very lucky to say side my last update I’ve been living the dream. Back in May of last year I graduated college after four long and hard years of study. The start of the global financial crisis was a tough time to decide to enter college but I’ve never been one to shy away from a tough decision and those tough decisions became frequent as state funding for third level education was cut across the board. However difficult the road the commitment to enter college once again was one that changed the course of my life for the better in many ways.
I rolled the dice once more when I left college and moved to Dublin. Having seen that so many tech jobs were now opening Irish offices in the city I knew I’d have a much better chance of getting the type of employment I had trained for if based here. To walk away from my hometown Cork, a city I love dearly, as well as my Family and Friends was probably the hardest thing I have ever done and something I could previously had not have considered being an option. Yet I had grown so much over the last few years this now seemed positively natural to me, when all is said and done the move wasn’t a difficult one.
That dice roll paid off because just over a month later I was offered my job at Squarespace becoming a founder member of the Irish office. Since that day quite a few people have asked me what the secret was to getting a job so soon after leaving college generally I answer with one word “luck” but perhaps that’s selling myself a little short. I like to think that the dedication I show to the job, my past experience and just being a nice guy helped land me a position in that first eight too.
So maybe I should change the story as I tell it when next asked to give tips on how to "Land That Job”.
1, No amount of academic experience can prepare you for every job out there. You need to have a base knowledge of the working world and your chosen field before you start. If you don’t have this experience yet don’t worry. You may not immediately be the vice president of the company but you can certainly move upwards, you need to be humble and learn the ropes. If you have enough drive, determination and the ability to do your job well you’ll also do well in the working world.
2, Likewise you may not have any academic experience and have worked in the field but perhaps the experience you have isn’t an exact match. After all if you’ve worked in a shop most of your life you can’t immediately become a doctor. I’m being flippant there but this applies just as much to any other field. You’ll need to train long and hard but you can achieve your goals once you are truly dedicated.
3, If you’ve passed the first two hurdles you need to be a nice hard working person who the interviewer could imagine working side by side with in order to get that job and most importantly this needs to show during the interview. Things are a little different nowadays but I’ve seen so many people who aren’t actually interested in doing the job they are interviewing for. I can't comprehend why you would even attend an interview if you aren’t interested in doing the job you’ve applied for? Personally, If I choose to apply for a job I can certainly see myself giving my all should I be lucky enough to be hired.
Sometimes you can have all those qualities and still not get the job and in these cases I urge people not to be disheartened. My own nephew has recently made a much larger move than mine going to Australia to seek work despite trying for quite some time to get something.. anything, here in Ireland. It’s a brave move and one I admire him greatly for.
With so many factors at play it’s no wonder I say "luck" got me the job because the truth is so very much of this was completely beyond my control. In the here and now, one thing I am very thankful for however is that I am the right fit for Squarespace and likewise it's the right fit for me.








