Guide

How international students get hired in the US

Getting hired in the US as an international student is one of those problems that makes ordinary advice feel insulting very quickly. You already know how to work hard. What you need is a cleaner read on the small moves that change whether the market can place you at all.

Who this is forStudents trying to land

Best for people balancing interviews, networking, paperwork, and a job market that keeps acting weird.

Core lessonClarity travels farther

The market does not reward vague ambition. It rewards people it can place quickly.

What to useHumans before forms

Career fairs, referrals, alumni, and recruiter conversations still matter a lot.

Who this is for

International students who are done guessing which part of the search is actually broken.

If you are sending applications, hearing nothing back, and wondering whether the problem is your resume, your story, your outreach, or the visa line, this page helps separate those threads.

What tends to work

Sharper story. Warmer routes. Better follow-through.

The guests in this lane keep saying versions of the same thing: people need to understand what you want, where you fit, and why you are worth the hassle before the market will move.

First moves

Start here if the problem on your desk is real right now.

Short enough to scan. Direct enough to use.

Say the target role clearly enough that someone can repeat it for you.Use career fairs and alumni conversations like they matter, because they do.Tighten the resume around fit, not just effort.Ask better follow-up questions so the next step is obvious.Keep your visa context in the story without making it the whole story.

From the transcripts

The lines worth clipping.

These are short on purpose. If one of them lands a little too hard, good.

Full transcript

The full EP 82 conversation is here too.

If you came here for the raw language instead of the cleaned-up takeaway version, good. That is the whole point.

6,892 transcript words56 transcript blocks
00:00:02

You and I are probably in agreement that the optimal outcome from attending a career fair is an interview call back. But what if I told you that you're actually setting yourself up for failure by hoping and optimizing for this outcome? outcome? For every career fair success criteria was am I able to connect with a few new people on LinkedIn? I'm Naman Pande. This is the Ready Set Do podcast and in this episode my guest is Rohan Malotra. Rohan is a data scientist at Wells Fargo who actually got his job through a career fair. So I think you'll find it rather ironic when he'll share with us today why one's game plan for any career fair should actually be optimizing for something completely different. He takes us through how to craft the perfect elevator pitch,

00:00:43

craft the perfect elevator pitch, dealing with clearly uninterested recruiters and also how you can actually use their disinterest to your advantage. Marketing yourself with charisma and perhaps most importantly standing out in a sea of folks just like yourself. I think this is a great icebreaker. What are the roles they're recruiting for and what kind of people they are looking for in those roles. I feel like a lot of international students the moment they hear no sponsorship, they're like, "Oh, thanks."

00:01:07

sponsorship, they're like, "Oh, thanks." But no, don't do that cuz you what you don't know is tomorrow that same recruiter will join a company that does sponsor. Guess who they're connected with on LinkedIn and who they know is a nice standup person that's talented, has good projects, and then guess who they might refer for their next open position. position. Go for highest impact first. Whatever gets their ears up instantly.

00:01:25

gets their ears up instantly. In line with the theme of learning from somebody who's just a few steps ahead, my goal with this episode is to quite simply help you find success at your next career fair. Subscribe on YouTube and any of your favorite podcast apps for weekly episodes and daily clips from those episodes on YouTube and Instagram. And now without any further ado, here's my friend Rohan. Welcome to the only podcast in the world featuring stories of high agency individuals who are just a few steps ahead of us. Roan, welcome. Hello Nam. And let's get right into it.

00:01:59

Hello Nam. And let's get right into it. So I went to a career fair at informs conference. This was in Houston and this was the year 2022 that I'm talking about. So about three years ago and uh we had this conference where where we were presenting uh some of our project and the intention was purely that but we also had this career fair. So uh all of the people attending the conference were also obviously interested in like applying to jobs there because why not. Uh so now right down at the career fair like that was one of the most interesting uh things I saw because uh as soon as we entered there were like 12 stalls set up and all you like all the people around you would just walk to those stalls and just start talking and for a moment uh I was a

00:02:50

talking and for a moment uh I was a little like you know stuck maybe for a second like okay what is happening here like everyone's just walking towards these people and just randomly started talking and I was like like how many students were there around this time? There were about good 30 40 because this was really early in the morning like this was 8:30 a.m. Got it. And people were still coming in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, we just I saw all of my friends and not friends go just go up to people and start talking and I was a bit like taken aback like okay what am I supposed to do here? So I just like came up with a very funny strategy probably like I

00:03:28

a very funny strategy probably like I saw a role that Amazon was offering which required five years of experience and I only had two. So I was like this is my best bet just walk up to them uh play a test game uh practice my elevator pitch with this person practice my projects with this person and like there's nothing to lose here. the best outcome that can come out of it is he will tell me that there's another role available apart from the one that he's like recruiting for and the worst that comes out of it is like I'm anyway not qualified for the role so that's fine yeah so that was like step one strategy like all the material that I've prepared or rather like whatever short material

00:04:06

or rather like whatever short material that I've prepared about myself and the guidelines I had I just went about started just started rolling with it so going up to a recruiter introducing myself talking to am uh one of the things that I kept in mind during these these conversations was whether I'm putting my best project or whether I'm putting my most known quality about me, my crown jewel in front of the people at the start. That's fair. And then I guess one of the things that I'm sure must be coming up in the minds for our listeners right now is obviously everybody's elevator pitch is different, right? Like there's no fixed formula here. There's many approaches you can take. We've had a guest on this podcast actually that went

00:04:48

guest on this podcast actually that went over around three different frameworks around how you can structure your um tell me about yourself essentially which is your um elevator pitch. But I am curious to pick your brain around um what were some of the ways in which you went about you know figuring that out and as you said you iterated a few times and I know this was 3 years ago so you probably don't have all the details but do you kind of start from the present and go back chronologically or do you start from your bachelors and come forward chronologically or some other combination like what's your working formula for a good elevator? Uh so for that particular conference and something

00:05:27

that particular conference and something that I think I follow a today would be that I would go for highest impact first like whatever gets their ears up instantly like either it's a yeah either it's a project either it's your background in studies so for me it was uh one of the things was the university I come from the other was uh a couple of projects that I had done which because it was the era of uh natural language processing and all the cool GPTs coming up very soon. I think people were really uh attracted to those uh projects in general to know more about okay what did you really do there or do you really have the technical depth to um answer some of my questions now that you have mentioned such a project. So I would say again just digressing but coming back to the

00:06:17

digressing but coming back to the elevator pitch strategy I think highest impact first would be best also uh I wouldn't be so sure of going as far back as my as my bachelors or even at this point like my previous work experience because I feel it has become a little too uh old uh or like it lacks so much uh like I do not have new context about either the field of study or the career So, it would be so much better if I talked about more recent, most impactful. But if you've done something in the past that like was like topnotch, 100% go and mention that.

00:06:54

100% go and mention that. Got it. Yeah. I think what I'm picking up here is um basically in an ideal world, right? Obviously, this is not how all the booth visits work, but in an ideal world, if you can get in there and figure out what roles they're hiring for and go one step further and figure out within that role, what what type of skills/ project/ you know, tools, expertise that they're looking at. So, if you can get that information now, all you have to do is figure out how to build a bridge between that which you just figured out and past things that you have done hopefully you've done right in your past experience. because if you haven't then you're just kind of screwed and you have to go with parallel stuff to that. But would you agree that

00:07:36

stuff to that. But would you agree that roughly that's kind of the blueprint that one can have is to find information A connect the dots to B and then hopefully pray that they see that join as well. I think you hit it like head on. That is absolutely it. I would actually even say that having the parallel track or like just showcasing that you could succeed even in a parallel track to that project is also worthy of it because if you can show logical consistency in your thought and that you can create a mirror of what they're looking at from a different perspective they actually appreciate that a lot as well. So u but yeah going back take look at what they are

00:08:15

back take look at what they are recruiting for see in your resume your profile what fits best try to make that shine and if there's something that does not like shine through but you think that that is really something that you have really worked hard on do not feel shy about mentioning it unless it's like really unrelated but try to make those connections even they may be not so apparent but if you're now able to draw connections from something which they think is unrelated but you can you know just bring out either techniques or frameworks or technologies anything that you can draw parallel with your work I think they really like it because they that kind of shows maybe that you have a more broader thinking than just not executing the project I guess true that's a fair point and to that end

00:09:01

true that's a fair point and to that end also then when you first walk up to the person do you just start kind of cuz it's obviously it's awkward right and it's not fun for anybody you're just kind of there like, "Hi." So, do you kind of ask them um what roles they're hiring for or do you just straight away launch into your, you know, elevator pitch? Cuz there's two ways you can go about this, right? Do you have a preference for which one might work better for most people?

00:09:27

better for most people? That is a very interesting question. I'm just trying to go back 3 years and think what happened. From as far as I remember it was slightly easier for us because uh every company was recruiting for very few roles like Amazon was there for just one role and then Wells Fargo was also there for a few roles and all these companies like had their expectations set like what they're exactly looking for but uh the walk up to the booth uh so I would just walk up to the booth the first step the formal step was just hand them a resume and the main thing on that resume honestly for them was your contact number and your email ID in case

00:10:07

contact number and your email ID in case they like you they want to reach out to you set up solo interviews otherwise they would probably LinkedIn too yeah 100 oh wait 100% LinkedIn uh so that uh that is not lost at all you know we don't want to lose that avenue absolutely and yeah I think that was pretty easy for me like we just walked up to this boots we knew what roles they're recruiting for uh we had clarity about those roles because they were shared in advance with us as well. What kind of roles each company would be recruiting for. Uh but I think that is not usually the case. Uh

00:10:41

I think that is not usually the case. Uh that is very rare. So I would I would recommend that whenever you walk to walk up to a booth, I think this is a great icebreaker to just ask them like what are the roles they're recruiting for and what kind of people they are looking for in those roles. I think that can also help you align your elevator pitch or like just quickly go through your uh elevator pitch in your head or all the content you want to say in your head and kind of filter it out. Yeah, that's such a good call out because it kind of takes me back to my first year at Purdue. So 2020 is when I went to my first couple career fairs,

00:11:15

went to my first couple career fairs, right? And like most students out there again like you just kind of you know just assume that you're just going to walk out with the job, right? That's just the you just focused on the eyes on the prize. There's no other like secondary um occurrences here that you care about. All you want is yeah, you just go in, you do you say your spiel, and then they're like, "Okay, here's your job. Good job." But of course now I know that and I'm sure you know that that's not how that works. So I kind of want to peel the layers a little bit around around how one should think about maybe I shouldn't say should think about but how

00:11:56

shouldn't say should think about but how one could think about approaching career fairs in general right so just to set the stage here my first time at a career fair I used to walk up to all of these booths this was at Purdue I think it was called industrial round table something do you remember what it was called was industrial something does that ring yeah this happened in fall I think this used happened at fall like very early. I remember remember IR something. Anyway, that's besides the point. But what I remember was happening was that I was just going up there. I had my resumes printed. Um, hand them that again. They like usually wouldn't

00:12:31

that again. They like usually wouldn't even look at it, right? Just go straight to a pile, which I'm sure went straight into the trash at the end of the day. I don't know this for a fact, but that's just kind of in my head. That's what happens now. And then I would just launch into, you know, blah blah blah, this is who I am, you know, etc., etc. And then like 30 seconds in, I would already know that they're just not interested. interested. So I want to start there, which is I know it's such a difficult place to start, but it happens, right? It's just not uncommon by any mean. So when something like this is happening to you, obviously you have two options, right?

00:13:10

obviously you have two options, right? You either cut it short and then you you just kind of informally are like do you not like me or like what's what's going on here or you just continue anyway and wait for the inevitable um you know whatever I we're not hiring blah blah or we don't sponsor right classic for international students. So, I guess how do you deal with um you know figuring out or when you realize that this person is clearly not interested, what's your go-to approach with that situation? Because I just think that it must happen so often, right?

00:13:45

must happen so often, right? Yeah, I think I'll give a little bit of a buildup to this. So, I think certainly the amount of uh walk up to the booth and walk back, walk away from it with a smile on my face, this has happened way less times than with a frown. So most of the experience has been of what you just said that you walk up to someone they listen to your story sometimes interestingly interestedly sometimes not so interestedly and like yeah sometimes there's this one thing in your resume or one thing about your uh like anything profile profile profile experience that they did not like or do not does not align with the

00:14:24

like or do not does not align with the position and yeah you are just out. So certainly this will happen more often than not that you will find you not being the right fit for a particular job and at a career fair because the options are like in the hundreds normally. This is going to happen way more often because all we are looking for is like one job. We just need one like you can't work a 100 jobs anyway. So you should not be disappointed in you know 99 rejects if you get like your one. But uh coming back to the point whether like I've started explaining to someone and they seem disinterested I would actually like if I have gauged this I would cut short whatever I'm saying and try to get

00:15:05

short whatever I'm saying and try to get some more either feedback or solicit some kind of a response from them like through a question or through uh maybe a technology mention or like asking them whether you are working on something similar in your organization with this. So try to bring them into the conversation if they are disinterested. So that this gives you like kind of a binary way. So if they are really disinterested and they want to remain that way, they would any which way you could have just gone on or you could have not. But this this might make them think that okay wait he's asking me a question about whether are we doing this? Okay what is he saying? suddenly they probably have to pay attention to you or like they might get a good um like I I

00:15:53

like they might get a good um like I I don't know probably energy from you that you're still being positive because I think they are also aware that we can read non-verbal cues. So if you can still maintain an energy where you are like oh like uh I've worked on this this this uh I I remember using like lang chain framework for this have you implemented something like that and they would at least that would at least solicit a response but yeah I would say more often than not you might end up being disappointed at career phase but then all of those practices practice runs are just for like perfecting your skill for the run that you really believe. believe. Absolutely. And I think to what you said, I think it's such a great point.

00:16:30

said, I think it's such a great point. And I want to add that obviously I didn't know this at the time, right? In 2020, I was just a dummy. I had no idea how anything worked. So many years later, I actually learned um that a lot of what people just consider charisma, you know, like how you you when somebody says the word that that such and such person is charismatic. Apparently, a lot of what that boils down to, obviously that's not the only thing, but a lot of it is still just the idea that these people, you know, that are um traditionally charismatic, they make the focus on the other person like it's never about them. So, these are the people that will walk into a room and go from person to person asking them things

00:17:12

from person to person asking them things about like the other person and almost never ever ever talking about themselves. Now, I understand that this is obviously counterintuitive, right, for our listeners cuz you're there to get a job. It is about you. How is it not? But it's also kind of not because it's such a surefire easy way to stand out cuz think about it. When you've had a 100 students walk up to you, non-stop rattle off their elevator pitches, the 101st student does not do that and instead asks you, I don't know, what do you like? One approach is that yeah, what you said around the languin like have you done blah blah blah? Or I would even say what do you like to do in your

00:17:51

even say what do you like to do in your free time? Like how are you finding this career fair? What did you have for breakfast today? I don't care. Literally ask them anything that's new. And I promise to you that already you've stood out just by not sticking to the norm that the previous 100 people before you did. And one of these experiences that come to mind is in in like I think this was the next year I went back for another one and I talked to this recruiter for almost half an hour. There was a whole queue of students standing and all of them were shooting me such dirty looks. I can still remember you know to this day. And this guy, he just wouldn't stop telling me about just stuff he follows on Twitter. And it was just a really engaging conversation. And

00:18:31

just a really engaging conversation. And I could tell that he was so bored that he was just holding on to the one semi-interesting conversation that he had had all day. And obviously, sure, it did not get me the job, but I am still to this day connected with him on LinkedIn. And you know, I see his post, sometimes he engages with my post. And you know, there there's I feel like there's a there's a learning in there, wouldn't you say? Oh 100 100 100% like that I I did not know about this story so wow like like yeah expanding from just asking them a interpersonal question like has such a great impact because now you've eliminated all the robotic process around like you've eliminated eliminated throw in the eyes. Yeah.

00:19:11

throw in the eyes. Yeah. Yeah. you've you've removed all these roles of recruiter and student applying for a job and you know this kind of a implicit hierarchy established in in that room. Now you're just two people talking about uh such a good work or like just something that connects you which is common to you and like yeah that just breaks barriers I would say. So yeah, certainly absolutely absolutely possibly can try what did you have for breakfast this morning next time I go to I mean it's just it's just a no-brainer I feel like and again it that's the beauty right it doesn't even matter what you ask long it's not what role are you hiring for today don't do that like you know they're sick of that get to that in

00:19:55

know they're sick of that get to that in a in a bit like let it breathe just chill and obviously that brings us to the whole meta of why it's important right to have people's skills like you just kind of have to there's no quick crash course for this. This is just a muscle that you have to develop through years and years of just talking to people um picking up emotional quotient understanding how they work which we will get to in a bit. But for now I want to turn our focus to if like if we imagine there is a currently in the first semester international master student watching this and I guess really any student doesn't have to be international. I only say international cuz it's playing the game on the hardest

00:20:33

cuz it's playing the game on the hardest difficulty for us, right? Cuz obviously compared to everyone else there although it is hard for everyone for sure, not discounting that. But what do you think their mindset should be when they go into this? So you know is the goal to get a job? Is the goal to um give out as many rums as you possibly can? Why are you there? Like what is the success criteria here in in according to you?

00:20:57

criteria here in in according to you? Okay. So for all students watching this the success criteria for me was very low for every career fair and I'll tell you why. So every career fair success criteria was am I able to connect with a few new people on LinkedIn. So anyway I had to everyday sit and network with people across my second semester across like whatever time we had after our first semester. So if I am networking so much like online and just sending out cold emails or like cold messages, if I have one opportunity to actually go and talk to people in person and just connect at connect at a level where I can a present myself better, b present my projects and all of that stuff way better because like putting it on a piece of paper versus me talking

00:21:48

on a piece of paper versus me talking about it and like actually giving them some of the nuggets that I experienced. I think that just is super top-notch. So just like the bare minimum that everyone or anyone who wants to go to a career fair is uh go there practice your elevator pitch and that's like step one. Step two to everyone whom you have practiced your elevator pitch on get their LinkedIn and that's it like aim for these two. So you have now practiced your elevator pitch to a point that it becomes second nature. Uh you have also you know like you mentioned the emotional quotient that will come from all these practice sessions like just keep practicing or just keep going to booths to booths keep talking keep trying to uh like engage

00:22:36

talking keep trying to uh like engage with the right people and engage charismatically like you very well said. So the bar I would say is very low. The bare minimum that we have to do is go like number one show up. Show up to the career fair. important, right? The first one, just show up. Uh make sure you talk to as many recruiters as possible. Doesn't matter if they uh like they should obviously align to what you want, but you can still like talk to companies which you probably did not think you would want to apply to, right? Or even companies that don't sponsor you. I feel like a lot of international students, the moment they hear no sponsorship, they're like, "Oh, thanks." But no, don't do that. You

00:23:16

thanks." But no, don't do that. You know, cuz you what you don't know is tomorrow that same recruiter will join a company that does sponsor. Guess who they're connected with on LinkedIn and who they know is a nice standup person that's talented, you know, has good projects and then guess who they might refer for their next open position. So but sorry please continue. AB absolutely like that was that is so important to mention that none of your efforts like you should think of the like I think we probably have discussed it a lot about like long-term short-term so career affairs are a long-term game like always uh this is about networking this is about increasing your uh network which is reachable. So now that you have spoken to this person in person, you reaching out to them on LinkedIn and them responding to you has much better

00:24:03

them responding to you has much better chances than you have 100% 100% versus just an online approach. So you've already like kind of won uh the career fair game if you are getting responses from people you connected with and just uh like yeah having the practice of talking to so many people recruiters and maintaining that network like you just mentioned that there's this one person who you spoke to for so long still engages with you on LinkedIn.

00:24:26

long still engages with you on LinkedIn. uh the journey is still not over like maybe in five years you guys are working together on a startup like who knows no absolutely and I think just to hammer home that point around you know you which is such an important point right like cuz when you're reaching out to people just cold online you're just pixels on a screen you know unfortunately right it's just the nature of how the internet works like we didn't have a say in this but what I found again way later unfortunately I wish I learned these things when I actually needed these things or these in this information. But what I used to do was I used to have like a really weird yellow tie. Like I don't know if you've seen it, but it's just kind of a peculiarish

00:25:06

it, but it's just kind of a peculiarish tie. Like you don't see it's like really yellow. I don't know how how else to describe it. Maybe I can put a pull up a picture here of of the tie when when this airs. But yeah, so what I used to do was I used to like go interact with this person, do my thing, whatever. And I used to tell them literally point blank right before I'm about to walk away that and this was perfected like I said it so many times I I like still remember it to this day even though I haven't said it in years now but my name is Nam. I'll be reaching out to you on

00:25:35

is Nam. I'll be reaching out to you on LinkedIn and I'll mention my yellow tie and I used to point to my yellow tie and I kid you not, I have at least I never did the actual math but I at least had a 95% connection approval rate when I did this and I'm not exaggerating at all. Again, now you could poke holes in that.

00:25:53

Again, now you could poke holes in that. Okay, big deal. What did you achieve by doing that? Fine. Good point. I get it. I did not. But as you said, if your goal is to just increase your footprint online, have a warm network of people that know you exist, that understand your, you know, what you bring to the table, then yes, this this might be something that, you know, might help somebody out there. So, I've been to career fairs where I've just returned with a LinkedIn profile of five people, uh, an umbrella and a hat.

00:26:23

five people, uh, an umbrella and a hat. I still have the umbrella from that uh career fair. So yeah, you won't be successful like su if you're measuring like career phase success is equal to you getting a job uh then you're probably going to get disappointed a lot if you just go with the mindset that oh I have an opportunity to instead of cold connecting with people today I can actually talk to them learn more talk to peers like you have a lot of peers there as well who might be just better than you at a lot of things try to maybe talk to them as well learn from them yeah yeah but just the opportunity to go to a career fair and get five LinkedIn profiles and goodies is also good enough. And maybe in your 10th career

00:27:03

enough. And maybe in your 10th career fair, you get to the right booth. But right, you just need to constantly show up. up. Yeah. And honestly, the way I see it is it can be your 10th career fair or your I don't know 70th booth, but you could also get your 70th booth in your third career fair if you just go through them very very quickly. Like if you just fail so fast that you just get really good really quickly. So yeah, one approach is to get to the 10th, but I'm saying that you don't even have to get to the 10th one. Like you can get there way way before that. And one one thing that came to mind when you were sharing about the umbrella was at one of my first ones

00:27:37

umbrella was at one of my first ones like obviously I used to be very nervous. And again, your brain will give you 10,000 excuses to not go and talk to people. Of course, that's why I take this cuz it's it's so hard, right? And our brain loves to find ways to not do hard things. It's literally a master at that. It's like million years of evolution have led us to it it being really optimized to not do that. So what I used to do was I used to kind of this is very weird to even admit a little bit but I used to stand in like the hot zones basically which like overlap a bunch of different booths and I just used to try and overhear what people

00:28:11

used to try and overhear what people were saying just to understand uh or you know just like rank my pitch against what others were saying and some of them were really good some not so much but I guess my point here is that none of it was helpful like it doesn't matter like You have to be in the arena. You have to be the one doing the talking. Unless you do that, you know, it's just not it just won't be helpful. It's like consuming chess content, which obviously I know both of us love to play chess.

00:28:41

both of us love to play chess. Obviously, one of us is way better than the other at it. But if if you could just get really good at chess by just watching content, I would be so much better than you, right? I still watch Gotham Chess every now and then. But that's not the case, right? Because you have to play. That's the only way to get better. So I'll pause there and yeah really I think the last uh question I have here for you is any kind of parting advice that you would want to leave our listeners with parting advice uh would be to find friends that look out for you. These are the friends who are going to help you uh prepare for your career fair and these are the friends who are going

00:29:21

and these are the friends who are going to interview you at a podcast 3 years later talking about your success celebrating like it's theirs and being as happy as you are. So step one is probably that uh find but yeah truly find a peer group who's motivated uh who finds your success to be their success and you find their success to be your success. It's very hard to find such a peer group but try to be around such a peer group or try to develop this within your peer group will help just you immensely. Second would be yeah have a no loss mindset possibly because like as students like all students irrespective of international or not like we put a certain amount of investment into this not just with our

00:30:05

investment into this not just with our time but also with money. Exactly. To be very honest, every opportunity you have nothing to lose. Just go ahead whatever you can get out of it. Milk it for what it's worth and like come back. And it's okay if it's just a LinkedIn profile and it's just a connection increase. That's fine. Like doesn't matter. You just have to get up and do it again. So just be ready for that. Uh other things just be gen be genuine. Uh don't try to fake stuff.

00:30:34

genuine. Uh don't try to fake stuff. It's very easy to for them to figure out that you probably haven't done this project or you probably haven't been so deeply involved. Don't lie. Be very honest, very truthful. Uh helps a lot. Uh because if they start asking you real questions like okay, one of the real real questions is what were the challenges you faced during this project? And if you do not give a good answer to questions like these they will know that if you really did not face any challenge this was not even a good project probably. So uh that's probably my advice like just be honest truthful actually grind do projects which align to the rules that you want and you'll

00:31:13

to the rules that you want and you'll get them way easier than trying to you know hack into it. Hack. Yeah. No that's such such good advice. advice. Yeah man. Um first of all thanks for the kind words. Of course always. Oh, and for the viewers, whoever did not come to know, Nan was my friend who was preparing with me a day before my flight to Houston uh at the informs conference.

00:31:35

to Houston uh at the informs conference. So, uh shout out to Mr. Nan. Thank you. Yeah, it was a very trying time. Uh my foot was broken and I was completely immobile. Not that that had anything to do with uh you know what happened, but yeah, obviously I'm you know, always happy to help anywhere I can. But yeah, I just want to real quick double click around what you said around peer groups and I was on um another podcast recently where I was asked a similar question, right? What is my advice for um international students in the US? And it's literally what I said.

00:32:06

the US? And it's literally what I said. I just feel like it is the one thing that can completely change your experience for the good or worse depending on how you go about things, right? just the amount like the people that you go to bed with, wake up with, obviously not literally, but sometimes literally, you know, so and and it makes such a huge difference in your entire experience. And yeah, I think that's just such a great call out to leave our listeners with. But thank you so much for taking the time today, Roan. It's been such a such a wonderful podcast.

00:32:36

been such a such a wonderful podcast. have learned so much from what your experiences and I'm sure anybody listening will completely approach career fairs in a completely new light hopefully that you know that that they were before I can say that um when I learned all of these things it literally felt like you know I'd seen the light I was just like man this was so simple how could why did nobody tell me and my hope with this is just that even if you know a few people that you know wouldn't know this now know that because of us I think that you know we have done a wonderful

00:33:06

that you know we have done a wonderful job. So, thank you so so much. And just finally, in the words of Andrew Huberman, the reward is in the effort, right? So, just go for those career fairs. Just put in the effort. That's where your real reward is and if you do it well, you will be rewarded. So, thanks so much and I will catch you next time. Thank you. That brings us to the end of our episode with Rohan. having been friends with him for close to four years now. It was such an honor and privilege for me to have him on the show. If you would like to support me and if you found value on this episode or from this episode, the

00:33:43

this episode or from this episode, the easiest way to do that is by subscribing on YouTube and leaving me up to a fivestar rating on Spotify or any of your favorite podcast apps. Something that goes a really long way for me also is if you share or comment or like things that just came to your mind as you were watching or listening through that episode. Catch you all in the next one.

Source episodes

These are the conversations this page is built from.

Go to the source if you want the longer version, the full transcript, or the guest in their own words.

Episode 82

How To Convert Career Fairs/Networking Events into Job Interview-Generating Machines - w/ Hrohaan

In this episode I talk with Hrohaan Malhotra, a Data Scientist at Wells Fargo who actually landed his role through a career fair. Hrohaan rewired the usual career-fair playbook: he didn’t show up to collect business cards — he showed up to build one great, memorable interaction.

HrohaanOct 27, 2025

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Episode 80

How To Get Hired Despite the Most Brutal Job Market Ever (Ex-Microsoft, Amazon & TikTok Recruiter POV) - w/ Shreya

If you want a ruthless, recruiter-grade breakdown of how to actually get hired in 2025, press play. This episode features Shreya Mehta — professional growth coach and former recruiter at Microsoft, Amazon, and TikTok — and she does something rare: she publicly evaluates (nay, lovingly roasts) my podcast producer Deep’s LinkedIn profile and uses that teardown to teach every listener the exact moves that win interviews and offers.

ShreyaSep 24, 2025

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Episode 21

How To Crack Your First US Internship (& Transition to Product Manager Roles) - w/ Maya

First internships are often less about being brilliant and more about not getting spooked by the process. This episode is for the person who keeps thinking the US product manager path is only for some polished, obvious candidate from the start.

MayaAug 22, 2024

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Episode 71

How To Be an Intl Student - w/ Gurasis

People get strange about accents because they confuse sounding local with belonging. Gurasis talks openly about being judged for how he spoke, the pressure to sand down your voice, and the bigger question underneath it: who gets to decide what 'professional' sounds like?

GurasisJul 23, 2025

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Episode 9

How To Hire as a Tech Recruiter (& Get Hired as a Student) - w/ Kati

A resume usually does not get rejected because you are terrible. It gets rejected because it is speaking the wrong language, and nobody bothered to tell you that until after the damage was done.

KatiMay 29, 2024

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Episode 87

How To Deal With A Lay-Off While on OPT (& Get A New Job Within 90 Days) - w/ Aman

Getting laid off is bad enough. Getting laid off on OPT with the 90-day clock running is a different kind of panic.

AmanDec 9, 2025

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FAQ

The obvious questions are usually the right ones.

So here are the straight answers.

How do international students stand out in the US job market?

They make it easier for the market to place them. Clear target role, cleaner story, stronger proof, better warm outreach, and less generic language go a long way.

Do career fairs and networking still matter for international students?

Yes. They matter even more when online applications start swallowing your time without giving much back.