CodePath EES2024 BENTLEY SYTEM - Networking on LinkedIn, Handshake & Online Platforms

Hey everyone, welcome to the breakout session. Networking on LinkedIn, Handshake, and online platforms. Hosted by my my favorite recruiter, Weey from Bentley.

I’ll be introducing her shortly, but first wanted to share a few reminders. Please utilize the chat to have conversations and share your thoughts during the session. Please keep your messages relevant to the topic of the session.

And note that the presenters and speakers can see the chat. Our team will be monitoring the chat and questions may be answered live during this session. Following the session, we ask that you complete the brief feedback survey.

Your feedback is very important to us. With the reminders out of the way, I’d like to introduce you to my favorite Bentley recruiter ever way. Welcome to the stage.

So excited to learn from you about LinkedIn and everything else. First of all, I do see a lot of attendees who attended some of the ICP ones. So, I see you, Maya, Agnes.

Goodness, goodness. We actually just met during screening. Nathan.

So, I see a bunch of familiar faces. The first thing I wanted to share with you all is you know, the comment I always get is I’m very personable. I really appreciate just being one of the more outgoing and flexible recruiters.

I funny backstory is I’m currently a grad student at University of Pennsylvania. I’m studying under the umbrella of higher education, but my focus is in information technology and computing and information technology. So, my Tuesday class, funny enough, is a Python and SQL class.

And after this one, we’re now implementing C++. Not my best tech stack, but wish me luck. And then we’re doing some data analytics on my Monday class.

Yay, I see hearts. Good job. So, first things first is I want to share a blurb about Bentley Systems and also for you guys to submit your application to.

I already see a few of you. So, if you already applied to Bentley Systems, ignore. Just know that a few of a few of you will move forward onto the technical interview side.

Let me just share the link. Hey, someone said there MCIT grad, did you attend in person before we go into the LinkedIn? MCIT grad online.

A you should have came in person. So, I’m actually located in our Philadelphia, Pennsylvania office today. And it’s just literally an a subway line, a two-minute subway line to just go right back onto Penn campus, which I wish you came in person.

Classes have my classes are virtual this time. Yes. So for our roles for 2025 grads, we have our software engineering internship, but we also this is within the same application depending on your degree confirmment.

We consider you for the graduate development program. It’s our full-time permanent position for recent grads to join a rotation program. Someone said the LinkedIn network.

Give me one second. Wrong thing before I get my own self in trouble. Let me get the link real quick.

But you guys will be considered for both internship and full-time. Depending on your degree confirmment. So, if you are graduating May 2025, you would be joining the rotation program mid July.

If you graduate this December 2024, you would join our rotation program mid January. Give me one second. I just see a bunch of applications.

I’m getting the link now. Goodness. If you dare tease me in the call today, we’ll talk later.

All right. I put the link. Thank you, Louise.

And as some of you guys know some of our grads on rotation so associate software engineers they will be in chat too because I sent them the link. Let’s answer chat later. So let’s start with what I would love to teach you guys today is pass you my tips and tricks for engaging with employers through LinkedIn, Handshake or any online platforms.

And I’m gonna be real genuine with you guys today. So I’m gonna not only use my knowledge from my current grad experience at Penn, but as an employer as a recruiter at Bentley Systems as well. So all right.

So I have two links today. So I’m going to provide you guys the reading and then I’ll read some with you and then we’re going to do a live demonstration of how you would send an message through LinkedIn. So my first one is through Medium.

It’s called how to approach a recruiter or l literally anyone on LinkedIn with templates. So what is a good way to approach people on LinkedIn where we all have asked ourselves the question here you find a clear idea on what not to do what yes to do with real examples and a couple of templates. So as you’re scrolling through this you’ll see some images but what do these messages have in common?

Why do you think or why do I think they’re are great approaches? So pillars, they aren’t personal. Not only is it clear copy and paste, but some messages clearly show they have haven’t even looked at your profile beforehand.

They’re all about me me. So I need this, I want that, or I have this. They’re demanding right away.

So what I mean here is that they are sending long messages or confusing messages. They have a dead end. So there’s nothing else they can easily add to their message and that makes me reactively reply.

No questions, no nothing. They feel inappropriate. So it can be a cultural differences.

It can be overthinking. Still it can feel just inappropriate sometimes. So having those in mind, I suggest five things to do when you approach someone on LinkedIn.

And the five things are basically opposite of what I just listed. These suggestions are based on our relationship relational approach to business regardless of the outcome. We’re building relations.

The relational approach works for everyone. This is the same as how people engage during you know just a screening call or an interview. It’s always recommend recommended to be conversational.

Lastly, these five things aren’t a must. You don’t have to do all of them at once. You don’t even need to do any of them.

You will get replies regardless of your approach. That’s why we still see so many transactional recruiting agencies out there. So, the five pillars, make it personal.

Make it about them. Make it concise and clear. End with a call to action and be appropriate.

So, let’s dig in. Make it personal. Look at their profile.

It will take you about 10 seconds to look at someone’s LinkedIn profile, Handshake profile, Indeed profile. At least try to understand their current employment situation, where they’re working, and what they’re focused on. So, when approaching recruiters, usually it’s easy to find the types of jobs they’re hiring for.

So, for myself, I’m an early career program specialist here at Family Systems. I oversee our internship program and our rotation program. So, if you’re coming to me asking me about a sales development representative role, I mean, of course, I’ll still help you guys.

Hello, you met me through CodePath. But realistically, you shouldn’t talk to me about a sales development role. I manage and oversee our internship program.

I have more oversight with that knowledge. So the first thing, it’s always nice to add something a personal touch to your message, too. So like for me I’ve doing some things in Quebec so I do utilize French Canadian or I have done some hiring in Brazil.

So there’s a little bit of Portuguese there. So I’ll say like oy hola bombia all that. So it’s really nice to get a personal touch with your messages because you can connect with them and you want to connect with people.

Want to build that connection and rapport, especially as you guys have known. Oh, Jon is here and Jay Jay Jung Jay, it’s nice to meet you here. But again, going back to how you message people, you want to build that rapport and connection with them because that’s going to allow them to remember you.

And of course, if any value is being exchanged, they can speak up or back you up. See Narin here too. Narin is actually our associate software engineer at Bentley Systems in the rotation program.

He actually volunteers to mentor people and he actually mentored Jay who is from CodePath here today. Awesome. So make it about them.

That’s my next tip. So use the word you yours or yours. My example here is you want to connect with them.

So that could be something that they’ve done that is on LinkedIn. A lot of people regardless of nationality or ethnicity, they have done something for the community. For me, I really love the Philadelphia ovarian cancer walk.

A lot of my best friends mother died over cancer, so I always contributed to the walk. There’s one over the weekend. Or it could be something as small as, you know, a first generation student club.

You don’t need to be first generation, but you’re an advocate. You’re a supporter. So you maybe wonder about that.

So, the reason why I brought that up because if someone is say part of NESBY or a first generation club, don’t auto assume that it’s because you know they’re affiliated through whatever circumstance. Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that.

You want to engage with them in a sense of I see that you’re affiliated with NES or Sweet First generation student club. That’s something that aspires me as a you know first generation incoming or incoming firstgen software developer for my family representing my family or something along those lines and we’ll create a message together. But you do want to relate to the person you’re talking to and again it doesn’t need to be the recruiter.

It could simply be that director, the manager, that person that you just found on LinkedIn and you’re like, I connect with them because you know, you connect with people differently on a virtual platform because it’s just like unfortunately like a dating application. You’re just you connected with that person. We connect with people differently.

All right. The next point of or clause is make it concise and clear. Your first initial initial message to that person should not be more than three to five sentences.

It should be a quick snapshot of yourself about them and why you’re engaging with them. So, we’re going to work on that message together, but it should be like, "Hi, Jane. My name is Wayey.

I’m a senior at University of Pennsylvania. I see that you volunteer at so and so food drive. I would really like to get to know you more and I see you know let’s connect.

Have a call a clear call to action. That’s the last point here. So a CDA which is a call to action is something that will always make them reply to you.

The most well-known CTA is in the network world is a question. So ask one clear simple question, something they can answer right away and connect with you. So the example is from Gabriella.

She said, "I found your profile while researching tech recruiters in Ottawa. I wanted to find out your source of candidates abroad or is this just locally?" This is a fantastic question because as you guys heard from me, I oversee the internship program across Canada, US, and Brazil. Be appropriate.

So, whatever this means to them. So, this can be very subjective and sensitive, but it has to be considered. Just because you don’t mind getting a certain type of message doesn’t mean that everyone thinks like you.

And this goes right back to when I said you see them volunteering or they’re affiliated with certain social groups or affiliations out there. You don’t want to assume that it’s based upon their nationality or an ethnicity. You want to base it on good intent because that person is affiliated with Nesbians because they care about diversity.

They want to have more people from various backgrounds breakthrough in engineering. So, oh, I see Ben Binla. We always message.

Why? Why is so cool? Thank you so much, Ben.

I just talked with Ben and Ben, I didn’t know you were a part of CodePath, but Ben is actually a student at Drexel, so feel free to connect with Ben. What was I saying? Reche my thoughts.

You want to be appropriate. You want to be kind of like that little very demir quote, you know, very mindful, very approachable, very demir. You want to approach your message in a way that it’s with positive intent, but you’re genuine.

You’re real about it. All right. So, I gave you this reading.

I also want to give you this reading on LinkedIn directly. So, it’s the same similar stance, but it comes with like more direct messages. So, I’m going to drop that in the chat below.

Since I see that more people are coming in, I did want to attach the the link to apply. Again, if you’re looking to for entry-level rotation program or 2025 software engineering internship, I will paste the link below. However, just keep in mind that if you’re interested in product management, cyber security, I think there was another focus area.

Feel free to message me directly on LinkedIn or someone from the search and screen committee. So, some of you guys saw Narin. Narin’s on the search and screen committee here.

Giwan, she’s a CodePath ICP alumna and she’s part of the search and screen committee. Just let them know your interest is particular in cyber security or product management and so we’ll have a different type of conversation with you because I went recently went to Temple University’s career fair and you know we’re not expecting product manager product management interns or cyber security interns to be able to full on code so just a heads up there I did drop the link so now let’s do a live message So, is there anyone in chat who would like me to talk to someone? It could be Microsoft because you know Microsoft is here today.

It could be Google. What do you guys write in chat right now? Who do you want me to talk to?

Well, I graduated from Temple University this May. Jimmy, did you come to the career fair on Friday? I was at the CST fair with my manager, Lisa, and we had some grads come.

Dualingo. Okay. Pinterest.

Microsoft. Let’s do Pinterest. Okay, let’s give it three more seconds.

JP Morgan, talk to wherever I can get a job. Cre, you’re so funny. All right, it seems like it’s Microsoft, Netflix.

Oh, Netflix. Nice. Let’s do Dolingo.

So, let’s search in Dolingo. Depending on the type of role you want, you want to look for someone that’s similar in it. It could be Dolingo, it could be early careers.

Let’s just do that. If unless you want to talk to like a current software developer and then you want to go to people. Sometimes if you notice university recruiters, they have so many different names.

It could be campus recruiter, university recruiter, future talent, emerging talent, which is something CodePath uses, emerging talent. So I like it. It could be early careers, a whole bunch of things.

So sometimes you’ll find something like this global head of talent. I don’t see that there’s like someone that’s more early careers. Some of them you know hiring for internships.

I didn’t know it’s right now. Okay. So we still want to keep going.

For people keep on scrolling. So as you see we don’t see anyone senior director graduate outcomes. So, you can do university recruiter.

Let’s do that. I hope you guys like that I’m doing it live and on the fly with you guys. Look at that.

We found a university recruiter at Duolingo. Let’s check the other people that are there. So, there’s Michelle Alvarez, Jaylen Jones, Teresa.

Oh, and she has premium. Keep that in mind. Premium LinkedIn right there.

So, and then this person’s around greater Pittsburgh area. Dualingo is there. We love live and on the fly.

I like this person. Kelsey, senior manager. You’re amazing, too.

This is such important work. Thank you. Let’s go to Cararissa Conable.

She has premium. And you could do connect or message. Message is because they have LinkedIn premium, but I’m just going to go ahead and click connect.

And I am going to add a note. So, oh, I already messed up. Did you guys notice that?

I messed up already. So, I didn’t look at Carissa’s profile. I want to look at her profile.

Let’s see if she’s done anything. Oh, her pronouns is she. Yep.

Let’s see if she’s done anything that I could relate to or that I’m passionate about. So, BA and recommendations. Oh, look.

Tesla. Let’s use that as an example. I love Tesla.

I always I always am really happy when I can get into one when I take an Uber home. So let’s add one there. So let’s add note.

So, hi Teresa. My name is Wayey and I’m a current grad student at UPEN. I saw that you received a recommendation at from a colleague.

I messed up. Let’s control arr c because I forgot if that person that gave them a recommendation. Oh, they were on different teams.

So, she was at Tesla at one point. Okay. Add a note.

Control V from a prior colleague when you were at Tesla. I am passionate. Nope.

Let’s go. Give her the zinger. I want to do something.

I want to impact the world through sustainable I don’t get that much messages too through technology. Oh, that’s still too much. All right.

So, let’s see where we can cut. So, now we said, "Hi, Cararissa." Let’s go and do this. Maybe we don’t do the spaces.

Hi, Carissa. I know you guys are judging me. Go ahead.

Hi, Chissa. My name is Pan. Congrats to you, Pan.

I saw that you received Oh, let’s shorten up this area. I see that you received a recommendation from a colleague. Let’s just cut prior out there.

We’ll do that. And you hit send. That took me a minute.

So, I do apologize, but they do have premium and sent my connection through. So, how did you guys like that? Live on the fly.

I was able to retract that I made mistakes. Very dear work. I love it.

Drier. Maybe she never worked at Tesla. Oh, nope.

She definitely did. It says it right here. So, Lance worked with Cararissa, but on different teams.

I sure did. Send it. Kelsey and I’m a grad student at UPEN, so why not use it?

Very mindful. Very zir. This is smart.

Awesome. Did you guys want another example or you want to start talking about our internships and or our rotation programs? Love the hearts.

Another example. Okay. Hey, you want anam another example?

Let’s Okay. Pick a company. It can’t be automotive or language.

Netflix. See Netflix. Pinterest.

Oh, you guys love Pinterest. You know what? Let’s do a Pinterest.

Pinterest. Let’s do campus recruiter this time. Actually, well, let’s try it.

Meta, Amazon. Just a heads up with résé templates, if you’re targeting the big four, please look up resume templates for that organization because some organization, they actually do prefer that your resume looks a certain way I love it. Bentley system, if it’s Bentley Systems, you guys can just message me or someone in the search and screen committee.

So, there’s a bunch of us here today. Or just messaging myself. Just a heads up, if you guys fumble or feel like you didn’t do a good job on the OA through Codel, let let me know and I will most likely let you take the OA again.

It is language agnostic. All right. Oh, look, Lindsay.

She’s in Philadelphia. I’m in Philadelphia and she’s a campus recruiter. Let’s look at what she’s doing.

She is currently not at Pinterest. Did we not hit the mark with the whole Pinterest thing? I see.

Yes, we university recruiter, Gabrielle Zakaro, and she is a live university recruiter at Pinterest. And she said, "LinkedIn helped me get this job." Hey, there’s some funny details already. I don’t know how to pronounce that university, so I’m just going to avoid.

And I don’t see much. So, this tells me that Gabrielle does not use LinkedIn, but we’re still going to connect with her and ask her because you can see that six days ago she posted Pinterest on CodePath. So, that means she’s here.

Make sure you guys see her. But let’s go ahead and connect with her. And then let’s add a new note.

But before we add a new note, let’s see how we want to engage with her because she hasn’t have much on her LinkedIn profile and we don’t see that there’s referrals or anything. What we’ll do is we’ll utilize that and she’s at CodePath. So what we’re going to say is connect with Gabrielle.

We’re going to add a note and say, "Hello, Gabrielle. My name is Lee and I’m a student at I’m here. Oh, I’m so happy to attend the CodePath ES submit.

It is EES, right? Before I look bad, CodePath. Okay, ES 2024.

And let’s be fun. Be a little fun. Pinterest is all about creativity, originality.

So, let’s hashtag it. And let’s be creative. Let’s pretend we didn’t meet her.

I wasn’t able to connect with you and and I been I let’s think of this as developers now. So if you’re a developer, what would you say? Oh, Ashley, we can do this.

Pinterest development intern text stack because we want to know what Pinterest could maybe like in terms of a text pack. So let’s buy on them. So here we found the position the software engineer intern 2025.

So just like us let’s see will you’ll do ownership. So they utilize a similar template to Bentley system. Are very generic, which means they’re looking for you guys to have a diverse interest and skill set.

Aptitude for JavaScript, CSS, so web development, and go. So, you can point out these. I like to take it exactly what it is for, especially if you’re interested in it.

So, I’m not the best front-end developer, so I’m going to do Python and go. Because that’s my strength. Hey, I’m teaching guys exactly how I would message.

I I am currently taking a Python and SQL course and have been utilizing go on a project. So, you guys see how that works? Right on the live, I looked them up.

So, not only did I just looked up what Gabrielle was doing, but I also looked up the role where I actually understands the college experience. Of course, I’m currently a grad student and I like to share all my tips. So, hello Gabrielle.

My name is Wayne and I’m a grad student at U10. I’m so happy to attend the CodePath creativity Pinterest loves that ES2024. I’m currently taking a Python Google course because I am and have been utilizing go on a project smile face short to the point concise.

I stayed within the confinement of the characters I can use and I set my connection. Even though she most likely will say, "I know you attended as an employer," she’ll understand. And Pinterest is a great company, too.

All right, so we did the second example. I’m really loving it. How amazing We is.

Thanks for doing this for us. Of course, as you guys can see, you want to really find something to connect with them or connect with something they could be overseeing. As you saw, she was a university recruiter.

So, I pulled up the role that they’re looking for. And in the prior person, I looked at something that they were doing. And I use a little bit of Gabrielle, like Gabrielle was here today.

Yes, I am definitely teaching the game. Now, let’s talk about Bentley Systems. I’m reading the chat now, but Bentley Systems is currently recruiting for 2025 software engineering interns.

You would be based in the US. I know that CodePath has opened up a program. So, if you’re located in aa so in our EU region or in Apac, say in Pune, India, it’s okay.

What will happen is I’ll forward your application to an equivalent colleague of myself who’s overseeing our European region and our Asia region. So heads up there. I am very collaborative.

Ashley, my European colleague, she’s actually sending out the OA for me. So any full-time roles for 2025 new grad? Yes.

So the same application link depending on your degree confirmment. I will consider you for our entry level rotation program. We call it the graduate development program but it’s for recent grads to rotate up on a team.

So you can rotate up to four teams. Every six months what will happen is you’ll passively or actively participate in team presentations. We had 25 in our program and 34 mentors presented to them.

They’ll do something like what role they play at Bentley Systems, texts and language they utilize, current grads on rotation, who graduated on their team, where their team are located, what role they play at Bentley Systems, and so you’ll see these presentations. You’ll ask them questions, too. But you’ll select one, two, three, four, five.

One being your top priority. Say if you are joining the rotation program though, don’t put a one on top of a peer that is on fourth or third rotation because you probably won’t get a rotation. But what I’m saying to you though is that you have choice and say on the team you rotate on to and the team you graduate on to.

So I like our rotation program. However, if you’re looking for just general full-time roles, I don’t specifically oversee that, but I’m going to drop our careers page down in the chat below for you guys. We have so many roles.

Data science, software engineering, product management. So I’m going to drop that just to confirm. New grads can apply through the internship building.

Yes, because I will see and view your degree confirmment date. So like if you say like May 2025 or like December 2024, I know you will be a candidate for our rotation program. Super interesting.

General once you do tech also for our internship program it work I we do do something a little bit different for our internship program so once you submit your application and you take the OA again if you flambo or you feel like you did a didn’t do so good just let me know I’ll let you retake it but once you get to the screening portion we do assess your current skill set whether that’s on a holistic level personal professional academic But we do look at your interests. So just because your current skill set is say like myself C, TypeScript, Python but you want to be exposed to mobile development doing Java and Spring Boot. Mention that during the screening time.

So we do not just look at your current holistic skill set. We look at what you’re interested in because your technical interview will be a team that most likely align with your current skill set and your interest. How to proceed and utilize the opportunity to fullest after the recruiters accept your connection request.

I love that. So followup. So when that person accepts your connection request, what happens is does someone want to connect with me now on LinkedIn?

And I’ll show you. Oh, I have 26 connections. Let’s do Anthony Ramirez.

Accept. So, what happens now is since I accepted Anthony, why didn’t his message pop up? Did I mess up?

Let me go back to LinkedIn. Give me one second. Oh, I have too many tabs up.

So, Anthony right here, once you set up them, make sure you only have one tab up of LinkedIn. Clearly, I messed up there. But Ramier said, "Hello.

I had a great time attending your event at ES and applied to the software development. I look forward to connecting with you. Of course, we got to use our generative AI responses.

And then just always be kind. Always respond to your LinkedIn messages. Find an hour in your day to do so.

Especially if it’s something that you want. Again, professional development, you have to embed it in your life somewhere. So, I will say, "Hi, Anthony." myself or someone in the search end screen committee.

Oops. Well, oh, one thing I recommend you guys do, I don’t know if you see this, but this is a Grammarly extension. If you use Google Chrome, I recommend you guys use it, too.

Will send you an email to take an assessment online assessment through codility. Now, you always want to add some form of culture regardless of the role you play. So, I will say this, get ready, you guys.

It’s language agnost agnostic. I know I probably messed up. Select the language you feel most comfortable in.

And it’s fine. Let me know if you need to take the assessment again. Awesome.

All right. Suppose your only response was excellent. What is required of Anthony?

If that person sent a oneworded response, I would keep your same message to 100 to 200 characters and message them once a week. So that’s something even I recommend or I had done myself is when someone is not responsive and I know that they’re in a very busy time frame, I will message them once a week but with something new. So I don’t say the same exact thing.

So I don’t say, "Hey, I’m reaching out because I fumbled on the online assessment." I would say, "Hi Way, I know you’re busy. But I would like to take the online assessment again. This will be my second try.

Even though my first message was, I’d like to take the online assessment again. I always change the verbiage up so they know that I’m customizing how I’m engaging with them. So, it one shows effort and two that you’re giving initiative and you want to be offered that opportunity.

My graduation date is flexible between December 2024 and June 2025. Do you have a recommend recommendation for which grad date to apply with? So, I love this question.

This is my favorite question for candidates and their resumes. I always put it out to what you feel you would like to graduate on to. So some people although they can graduate early, they know inside their heart that the organization or themselves would prefer that they graduate June 2025.

So you would use June 2025. If you have more information where you can identify, you know, what’s the preference of graduation and then combine it to your realistic expectation of when you graduate, that’s the date you want to use. So for me, I’m graduating May 2025 at UPD.

That’s the date I’m going to use, May 2025. But say that I’m in your circumstance and you may be potentially pursuing a master’s degree, which is why I see a year difference because you could be going through like a five-year program getting your masters early. I would actually put December 2024 if you know that that’s when your undergrad degree is going to be conferred and you know that June 2025 your master’s degree is going to be conferred.

So, it really depends on the circumstance and situation, which is why you want two resumes. Sometimes three because you got to think about the target roles that you want. So, if I’m not sure, is it okay just to put the year I intend to graduate?

I would put month and year. Thank you so much for the session, Way. I really appreciate it.

Okay, any other questions? Keep them coming. I will let’s give up the time up until like 3:15 or 3:20.

Can I apply for both January and mid July start date? Yes, Rohan. So, Bentley system is pretty flexible.

We actually have someone that’s currently hourly and not salaried in the rotation program and that’s because their degree is going to be conferred at a later date. The rotation per wait the Whoa, there’s so many questions there questions in the Q&A. Do we have to pass the OA 100%.

This is a great question. What is the biggest mistake you’ve seen on resumes and then how much percentage? So the benchmark that my system is looking for is efficiency.

So I wish I could share a screen and show you how I look at a credibility assessment. Unfortunately that would land me in trouble. But what I can see on the back end and I’ll be fully transparent with you is how you’re going about your code structure string.

What I want to see that you have put in thought to your coding. You can tab off and this is something you want to know inside information too. You can tab off and use Google to search something to clarify, but I do not want to see you copy and pasting.

I don’t want to see you looking up the answer because Codility or our assessment platform will flag me and tell me that you looked up the answer. And therefore, it would prompt me to not to give you the red flag. So, don’t do that one.

But it is fine for you to tab off to look something up. All right. Guess what?

I have lots of questions for you. Yes, you do. Can I read them out to you?

Yes, you definitely can. Awesome. When will applications for grad development open?

They’re open right now. Woohoo. All right.

What do I do? One thing I want to share though, is, as of this past summer, 90% of our interns, converted into our graduate development program. What that means though is that we seldomly need to do external hires, but when we did, they were from Cop specifically.

Giwan is here today. Julio, you’re here today. But that’s what I love about family system is that we really do show culture and I hope that you see that in my tone of voice and how I engage with you guys today.

But I’m ready for next question. All right. What do I do when I never get responses from recruiters on LinkedIn even after following instructions from CodePath?

Don’t be disheartened. So, one of the things that comes up is that you know the market is in a stage where most of you guys going into application have come from that COVID time 2020. Right now it’s 2024.

So what you have to do is you have to try to stand out and be consistent in how you’re engaging with people. Yes, you’re not getting the responses that you are getting. So you want to try something new.

Strategize around it. Maybe it’s meeting that person through LinkedIn. Maybe it’s doing joining their coffee chat, their virtual chat and let them see.

You know, there’s been a few co-authors, not to put a name, Goodson, but they got rejected prior and look at them now. They’re heading right into the technical interview, prepared to, if I can be more informal, they’re prepared to battle it out in the technical interview. You know, they have more confidence.

So, just because you’re getting rejected doesn’t mean anything. You’re getting your biggest growth and opportunity right now. You’re not going to grow as far as you are without this rejection stage.

You learn how to engage with people. You learn what it means to build that fight fight response in yourself to make sure that when you’re engaging with someone, you know exactly what you want from them and that you’re going for it because you’re talking to other people. I recently met Jay.

Jay, are you still around? Jay is from CodePath and a current student and working at Vavi. When I met Jay, he was like, "I’m nervous." Like, and I met him in person.

I was like, you know, drink Bo. Yeah. Jay said, I’m here.

Jay was a total nervous wreck from CodePath that he was like, I want to be able to do something like this because you know, I really want that person to know I want to join their company because of their mission and values. So just because you get rejected, know that that’s the biggest growth and opportunity you’ll ever have in your entire life. I always think back to my internship days and I’ve learned the most there.

I met the my best friends through that. I can now go back and help those who are going through internship. As you can see, I’m an early career program specialist.

And as you guys have just engaged with me today, I operate a little bit different because I’ve been there. And everybody gets nervous, don’t they? Yes.

Next question. All right. When reach when reaching out to someone for the first time, how do you balance making the message personal and keeping it concise?

Okay, awesome. So, quick question because I know this going to come up too. Does Bentley system have data science or machine learning roles?

Yes, we have an initiative with generative AI being in place. So AI is implemented in all our software development teams and you’re on a real life project. And data science, you’ll actually see some data scientist roles on our general careers page.

I did want to go back to that message of being consistent and concise. So Josie, I guess my tip there, is to find something new to talk about and then have it correlate right back to the wants that you have behind there. So, my tip is like the OA.

If you’re sending me an email and saying you want to take it again, there’s like 3,000 applications. I think actually we just hit 4,500 as of this morning. Just know that I will get to it.

But try to be fun with it. Always show how you are and be genuine to yourself and how you want to engage with others. You can say, you know, the first time you said, hey, I or hi, highway, I didn’t do a great job on the online assessment, or I didn’t feel too confident, but I’d like to have another chance at it.

Your next message could be fun followup. I’ve been practicing on lead codes. I I wasn’t confident when I took the initial assessment, but I’d love to take it again if given the opportunity.

So, it’s very short, concise, but it shows you’ve done either some work, you’re taking initiative, you’re taking leadership and accountability for your own actions, and you’re coming back better. And by the time I see that message, I would be like, "Wow, send them the new OA." And again, just because you failed this year does not mean you will fail again next year. We have some people on in right in our chat that I seen last year who was like, I I met them in screening don’t want to get emotional, but they’re like, "I did not do great last year." And I was like, "I remembered you from last year." And like, and now they’re right on target to go into technical interview.

Dwan, thank you for setting office locations. I would say our target office location is Xenon, PA, which is our headquarters. Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh is closed as of September.

Huntsville, Alabama, the Yes. And it’s actually Thomasson, Connecticut. We do have other offices like Madison, Wisconsin, San Diego, California, but I would say these offices are focus areas, but you don’t have to relocate.

You can do a fully remote internship. We can fully support that capacity, but if you’re interested in any of these four locations, what we’ll do is on a case by case by case basis, we’ll consider you for like relocation. Funny enough, we didn’t offer that in previous years, but we did a Lisa and I, my manager, did a projection to help interns who want to be in office be able to get an experience like that.

Josie, I hope I answered that question and answered some side ones. I’m ready for the next one. You did.

What is the deadline for the internship program? Do not hate me for this, you guys, but I have to be real. You want to submit your application as early as possible.

Who cares if you have some weird thing bolded on your resume. You want your application through the door and as best as you can. Don’t spend more than 30 minutes on your resume or changing it.

Get your applications as early as possible. But for Bentley system specifically we went up our application went up as August 30th but CodePath ICP was our first group of people we targeted I would say our I want to go through our timeline real quick. So what happens is after the date of your application because we do it on a rolling basis you’ll have up to two weeks to take the OA.

Again, think about the time you fumble or whatever the case may be, but I’ll need an additional two weeks and that’s to do a screening with you and then I need an additional two weeks for you to go on to your technical interview because I had to reach back out to the team after your technical interview. That could be your final one. But sometimes multiple teams want you and you’ll have follow 30 minute conversations that are more funner because you can show your skill set.

They’ll show you what their expectation is. If it’s a good fit for both of you, then verbal offer but verbal offer will go up up to two weeks. So given all those time frames, two month is our latest.

I would say the sweet spot with return with internship offers is about two and a half as of right now. Oh, let’s give you a little culture. So we would like to have verbal and official offer letters out third week of November.

So it’s Thanksgiving week here in the US. That’s why, you know, tied in within culture. And then our next spot to have official and verbal offers out would be, you know, end of March, third week of March.

So, we have two cycles that we’ll go through. So, just because you didn’t do so great in the fall, you can try again in the spring. I will not dock you for trying in the fall if you want to try again in the spring.

Just a heads up. All right. Go ahead, Josie.

How do we make our resume stand out for the rotational program? I would say think about your target roles. If your target job or application process, I’m going to step back a little bit, is rotation programs, that you want to design your resume to showcase diverse coursework, diverse experience, whether that’s project experience or text stack or language language experience.

You want to give a diverse portfolio. So then you know when you’re going for a rotation program, those employers or people are looking for you to have their diverse interest and diverse skill set because you have you have that and you want to be able to try it out in different teams. So if it’s rotation program, you want to have diverse skill set diverse, you know, affiliations, anything of that sort.

If it’s something targeted, so say you’re targeting data science roles and say you’re not actually a CF major, let’s go with you’re a business analytics major. I like to use non-traditional profiles, too, because Bentley systems hire non-traditional profiles. What you’ll show in your resume is that you’ll actually place your education at the bottom if it didn’t play a significant role in building your technical skills, but you’ll list something else like your technical skills first and then maybe you’ll either switch it from project or professional experience and you’ll start to highlight technical skills or things that are more related to what a data analysis role would do.

So, you’re a data analysis, you know, you want to look for successful outcomes. You want to show that you’re able to work collaboratively with many stakeholders because as a data analysis you’re working with the product team, the operations team and you they want to know that you have transferable skills to be able to engage with different teams and groups. Hopefully I gave you guys enough knowledge there.

I want to move to the next question. Let’s do two more. I’m ready for two more.

What do I do when I run out of LinkedIn personalized invitations? There’s a limit. Yes, five.

I think it’s five. Five a day. Five a month, but I’m not 100% sure.

All right, students. Can I look this up? Can someone put in the chat?

Oh, it’s five a month. Five a month. What I recommend is to put a suggestion in for LinkedIn and say, "LinkedIn, I love your platform, but five a month for the recruiting season is not enough." You know, LinkedIn just like myself, I’m a game moderator on our game.

They do take suggestions. There’s no organization I’ve ever known of that do not take live feedback from a current colleague, past colleague, or a candidate. Let LinkedIn know to uncap that five a month and give a justification behind that.

Your justification is this is a peak recruiting season. There’s many employers are interested in. Your justification is also that you’re a student.

Yes. So my next tip though is since you have five a month is try to engage with them on handshake or contact them through the email on the company website. Let’s try to find someone with a corporation that you guys let’s do Microsoft early career programs.

Microsoft is here today. So let’s do them. Microsoft early career program.

Amy, can we see We’s computer screen again? Oh, sorry. That’s okay.

I just knew everybody program is up. There you go. So, let’s do this.

I looked this up. This is the Microsoft Explorer program. And as you can see, they have program criteria, who can apply, applicant information, and this when you have used up your five LinkedIn connections.

Look, there’s a FAQ. What you’ll do if this is the organization you want to work with or work for since they don’t have like a true contact team oh Microsoft is nice look they have hiring programs you can do handshake I can’t log in handshake because it wouldn’t it would be the employer profile student but look at Microsoft is hosting a virtual career fair what will happen is sometimes they’ll do like live chats or coffee chats and you can reach them there. Although some people may not give you the direct email to contact them, it’s a form of or way to show your commitment to that organization if that’s a target organization.

Family system, we don’t do virtual sessions. We try well I target more like social groups at the university level. For like women in tech.

A form of like NASA, so the national national society for black engineers because there’s like there’s a his Hispanic Latinx group. So I kind of go everywhere. I don’t just restrict myself to that platform.

But you can find so many things online. So say that your explore program is interesting to you. Look, they have hiring tips.

Now look up. So Microsoft preferred resume. Let’s see.

It’s just something should come up on Git. Have you ever used like chat GPT to do something like that? Recommend chat GPT.

I know B system use co-pilot. I know chat GBT is robust, but you want to get Oh, we’re here. Microsoft hasn’t has right writing resumes.

So if an organization has tips for résumés, they can’t knock you if your resume is following their template. And that’s what I like to say like if you get rejected, you know, the one thing you can always say in a funny term is I used your recommended template. But anyways, so as you can see, they want a chronological resume, functional resume.

They’ll go through about it. But I prefer you guys going through something on like GitHub. There’s other professionals in the field who will post their resumes and things they found out inside and share that out.

So you get some outsource insider outsource information. Question. Four more minutes left.

So this is our last question. Confused on what to do next after connecting on LinkedIn. The links for the job are publicly online.

So, it makes no sense to ask if they’re available for a position. Is the goal to get them to ask for my resume? The goal is not for them to get your resume or get you the job.

The goal is for you to build a genuine rapport with that person because through time that would naturally or organically happen. If I may be brutally honest, there’s people that I would message on LinkedIn who became my good friend in real life. There are so many people out in the world who just as long as your intent is to create a genuine rapport and then potentially have something organically happen for you, you want to go in with the right intent.

And you want to create something that you know even though that person couldn’t help you get an organization even for myself when I was interning I got a job elsewhere and it brought it opened my eyes to other things. So I didn’t get the job I wanted it but I got something that opened me up to then get something that I long term I wanted it. So just know that you want to create genuine rapport and you do want to get of course to the point where you can share resume and get feedback but you want to do it something that’s more organic.

Think about dating apps. You already know what happens there. Hi my name is dot.

I do this dot. What is real there? You’ll get the same result.

Do you want the same result? 150% Unlikely. So, you want to change how you’re engaging with people.

Same rules follow. Same different intent, but same rules follow. Let’s do one more, Josie, and then I’ll head out.

We don’t have time for one more. Oh, okay. Yeah.

But what I want to say is that it is awesome to do a session with you. Thank you. For everybody who thinks that way is absolutely amazing, I want you to put a clapping emoji in the screen or a heart.

There we go. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like your session is so real and so live every single time and it’s just such a pleasure to spend time with you online.

Thank you. And we wish you luck in your degree. Woohoo.

All right. So, we have reached the end of our session. We’d like to thank Weey for the engaging presentation and discussion.

Please drop your appreciation in the chat and if you have a company booth, which they do, we encourage you to go visit them during the networking break. To close us out, we’ll now go with a live brief video from our host Bobby B. Thank you for joining us in this session.

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