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Talk · Career

Land Your
Dream Job

CV & Interview Preparation
for College Students

⏱ ~45 min talk
🧑🏻‍💻 Arief Rahmansyah
📸 Instagram: @ariefrahmansyah
Audience

Who is this
talk for?

🌱
Early Starters
Freshmen & sophomores who want to build strong foundations from day one
Year 1–2
⚡
Job Seekers
Juniors & seniors actively applying for internships and full-time roles
Year 3–4
🚀
Fresh Grads
Recent graduates ready to land their first professional role in tech, product, data, or business
0–1 YOE

Wherever you are — it's the right time to start preparing.

Roadmap

Today's game plan

01
Your CV
Make it Irresistible
Structure, impact bullets, projects, and avoiding red flags
02
Technical Interviews
Crack the System
Problem-solving frameworks, core topics, and practice strategy
03
Behavioral Interviews
Tell Your Story
STAR method, common questions, and how to prepare your narratives
04
Using AI
Work Smarter
AI tools for CV polishing, mock interviews, research, and role-specific practice
Big Picture

Your full journey

Before we zoom in, here's the complete map. We'll revisit each stage in detail.

📋
Apply + Screen
ATS + recruiter call
💻
Assessment / Task
Coding, case study, or take-home
🧩
Domain Rounds
Technical, analytical, or case interviews
🤝
Behavioral
Values & culture fit
🎉
Offer!
Negotiate confidently
📄 Today we start with your CV
Your CV determines whether you get to the pipeline at all. Get it right first, then prepare for each stage.
🔁 We'll revisit this map
After CV, we'll come back and deep-dive each interview stage — technical, behavioral, and how to negotiate.
Part 1

Your
CV

Your CV is your first impression.
Let's make it unforgettable.

Reality Check

The 6-second test

6s
average recruiter scan time
  • ATS filters first.  Applicant Tracking Systems scan for keywords before any human sees your CV
  • Top third wins.  The most critical info belongs above the fold — name, title, top achievements
  • One page rule.  For students and new grads, one page is almost always better. Make every line earn its place
  • Match the job description.  Use the same keywords from the job posting — but honestly and specifically
Structure

CV anatomy

📌
Contact Information
Name, email, LinkedIn, portfolio/GitHub link — tailor to your role
Must-have
✨
Professional Summary
2–3 lines: who you are, your focus, what value you bring
Must-have
🎓
Education & Skills
For students & fresh grads, this is a key differentiator — include GPA, coursework, honors, tools
Must-have
💼
Experience / Internships
Impact-focused bullet points with metrics. Reverse chronological.
Must-have
🛠
Projects
Your portfolio showcase — especially important for new grads
Key section
Impact Writing

Bullets that hit

Action Verb
Led, Designed, Analyzed, Built, Delivered, Reduced…
+
What You Did
The specific work and technology used
+
Impact + Numbers
Users affected, % improvement, time saved
❌ Weak
Helped organize a campus event and assisted with various tasks
✅ Strong
Led end-to-end planning of an annual tech fair for 300+ students, coordinating 12 sponsors and increasing attendance by 40% YoY
Projects

Projects are
your portfolio

🔧
Personal Projects
Solve a real problem you care about. Works for all roles — build an app, design a system, analyze a dataset, or create a case study.
  • Pick something you'd actually use
  • Document your process clearly
  • Show the outcome and impact
⚡
Competitions & Hackathons
Show creativity, speed, and teamwork under pressure — valued in every role from SWE to PM to BA.
  • Highlight your specific contribution
  • Mention placement or awards
  • Quantify what you built or delivered
🌍
Community & Org Work
Student org roles, volunteer work, and committee positions show leadership, communication, and real-world collaboration.
  • Frame it with impact + numbers
  • Show ownership, not just participation
  • Link to portfolio, writeup, or repo

💡 Keep your portfolio active — GitHub for SWE/DS, Notion/Behance for PM/Design, a personal site for anyone

Avoid These

🚩 CV red flags

01
Generic objectives
"Seeking a challenging role to utilize my skills" tells recruiters nothing. Replace with a specific summary of your value.
02
Responsibilities, not achievements
Listing what your job was ≠ showing what you accomplished. Quantify every bullet you can.
03
No numbers or metrics
"Improved performance" is vague. "Reduced load time by 60% for 50K users" is memorable.
04
Irrelevant skills & experiences
Tailor your CV to each role. Remove things that don't support the narrative you're building.
05
Typos & inconsistent formatting
One typo = a red flag on attention to detail. Use Grammarly, spell-check, and have a friend review it.
Part 2

Technical
Interviews

Show your expertise.
Think out loud. Make your reasoning visible.

The Journey

The interview pipeline

📋
Apply + Screen
ATS + recruiter call
💻
Assessment / Task
Coding, case study, or take-home
🧩
Domain Rounds
Technical, analytical, or case interviews
🤝
Behavioral
Values & culture fit
🎉
Offer!
Negotiate confidently
⚡ Take-home / Assessment Tips
Read all prompts before starting, show your thinking process, submit something over nothing, keep it clean and structured
🎯 Live Domain Interview Tips
Clarify before jumping in, narrate your reasoning out loud, ask for hints if stuck — interviewers care about how you think
Universal Framework

Think out loud, always

01
🎯 Clarify
Ask questions upfront. Confirm scope, constraints, and what success looks like. Never assume — it signals maturity.
02
🗂 Structure
Break the problem into components before diving in. Signal your approach — interviewers value organized, structured thinkers.
03
🔍 Analyze
Apply domain knowledge. For coding: pick the right algorithm. For cases: user + business lens. For data: form a hypothesis.
04
💬 Communicate
Narrate your thinking throughout — not just the answer. The interviewer evaluates your process as much as your solution.
05
🔁 Synthesize
State your conclusion clearly. Acknowledge trade-offs. Mention what you'd explore with more time — it shows depth.
Know Your Domain

Study what your role demands

🧑🏻‍💻 Software Engineer
  • Data Structures & Algorithms
  • System Design fundamentals
  • OOP & design patterns
  • SQL & database basics
🎯 Product Manager
  • Product sense & user empathy
  • Estimation & prioritization
  • Metrics & success definition
  • Cross-functional communication
📊 Data Scientist / Analyst
  • SQL & Python / R
  • Statistics & probability
  • A/B testing & experimentation
  • Data storytelling & visualization
📋 Business Analyst
  • Requirements gathering & analysis
  • Process modeling (BPMN, flowcharts)
  • Stakeholder communication
  • Data analysis & reporting

💡 Not sure which track? Pick the role closest to your target job and master its core topics first

Part 3

Behavioral
Interviews

Your technical skills got you here.
Your story will get you the offer.

Framework

The STAR method

S
Situation
Set the context. When, where, what was the challenge or environment?
"During my internship at X, our team was facing…"
T
Task
What was YOUR specific responsibility? What were you asked to do?
"I was responsible for designing the…"
A
Action
What steps did YOU take? Focus on your individual decisions and actions.
"I decided to refactor the pipeline by…"
R
Result
What was the outcome? Use numbers. What did you learn from the experience?
"This reduced deployment time by 60%, shipping 2 weeks early"
Be Prepared

Common questions

👋
"Tell me about yourself."
→ 90-second pitch: who you are, what you've built, why you're here. Practice until it feels natural.
⚔️
"Tell me about your biggest challenge."
→ Use STAR. Show problem-solving + resilience. End on what you learned.
🤝
"Describe a time you worked in a team."
→ Highlight your specific role and contribution, not just "we did it together."
💡
"Why do you want to work here?"
→ Research the company. Connect their mission to your values + technical interests.
🌟
"What are your strengths and weaknesses?"
→ Strength: specific with evidence. Weakness: real, but with a growth story and mitigation.
AI-Powered Prep

Let AI be your
coach & sparring partner

✍️ Polish Your CV
Paste your CV + job description into ChatGPT or Claude. Ask: "Which bullets are weak? Rewrite them with stronger impact and metrics."
🎤 Mock Interview
Prompt AI to roleplay as an interviewer for your target role and company. Ask for feedback on your STAR answers, clarity, and structure.
🔍 Company Research
Ask AI to summarize a company's recent news, products, mission, and culture before interviews. Most candidates skip this — don't be one of them.
📝 Domain Practice
Ask AI to quiz you on your role's topics: SQL for analysts, product cases for PMs, coding for SWEs, or estimation questions for any role.

⚠️ Use AI as a coach, not a ghostwriter. Recruiters spot generic, AI-written CVs. Let AI sharpen your voice — not replace it.

Action Plan

Your 30-day plan

Week 1
Polish Your Foundation
  • Rewrite CV with impact bullets & metrics
  • Set up/clean up GitHub profile
  • Write LinkedIn summary + connect with peers
  • Pick 2 target companies, research their stack
Week 2
Domain Foundation
  • Study 3 core topics from your role's track (see slide 13)
  • SWE: 15 LeetCode Easy · PM: 3 product case studies · DS/BA: 10 SQL exercises
  • Use AI to quiz yourself on domain topics daily
  • Start sending applications
Week 3
Behavioral + Deeper Practice
  • Tackle intermediate domain challenges for your role
  • Write STAR stories for 5 key experiences
  • Practice "tell me about yourself" daily
  • Schedule 2 AI or peer mock interviews
Week 4
Mock & Momentum
  • 2–3 full mock interviews (AI roleplay or peer sessions)
  • Review and close weak spots from mocks
  • Follow up on applications, reach out to alumni
  • Keep practicing — one domain problem daily
Resources

Build your toolkit

Job Search Platforms
💼
LinkedIn
Global network, job listings & company pages
🌟
Glints
Popular for entry-level & internship roles in Indonesia
🎯
Kalibrr
Tech & corporate jobs, skill-based matching
🔎
JobStreet
One of the largest job boards in Indonesia
Prep Tools
📊
Jobplanet
Indonesian company reviews, salaries & interview tips
🤖
ChatGPT / Claude
Mock interviews, CV feedback & company research on demand

Go get that job. 🚀

Questions? Let's connect.

LinkedIn Instagram: @ariefrahmansyah ariefrahmansyah.com