Hi everyone. This is the story of when I applied for a job to fulfill my dream in cybersecurity. If you haven't read the previous story, you can read it below.
It wasn't easy to find a job after I came back to Indonesia. I competed with millions of other graduates who shared the same goals and ambitions. I had already sent dozens of applications through platforms like LinkedIn, JobStreet, Kalibrr, Glints, KitaLulus, and Klob. I even attended a job fair organized by my almamater, hoping that my CV would somehow make its way through the recruitment process.
At some point, I think my browser history consisted of 50% job portals and 50% searches like "How to answer interview questions confidently" and "How long should I wait for a recruiter to reply?" Unsurprisingly, the good news still did not come that day.
Then, one day, I found an opening from PT Bank Syariah Indonesia Tbk on Klob for a Management Trainee (MT) program. Finally, something caught my attention. The program offered two pathways: General and IT. Without thinking twice, I chose the IT pathway because it included a cybersecurity division.
The recruitment process itself was quite a journey. To complete the program, applicants had to pass several stages: Administration, Pre-Assessment (Academic Potential Test, Coding Test, and Forum Group Discussion), User Interview, and a Final Interview with the Director.
Trust the process - even when the process consists of aptitude tests, coding challenges, interviews, and an unreasonable amount of waiting.
The Administration stage was straightforward. Like any other job application, we had to submit several documents: a CV, academic transcript, graduation certificate, and a few others that, to be honest, I no longer remember 😀. Fortunately, I had prepared most of them in advance. For the first time in my life, my habit of keeping dozens of PDFs on my laptop actually paid off.
After passing the Administration stage, I moved on to the Pre-Assessment stage, which consisted of three parts: the Academic Potential Test (TPA), a coding test, and a Forum Group Discussion (FGD).
This was the phase where preparation became my full-time job. I reviewed different types of TPA questions, practiced basic mathematics and logic, and spent countless hours solving problems on HackerRank and LeetCode. Reopening those websites after months away made me realize that my coding skills had apparently gone on vacation.
For the FGD, I also needed to study AKHLAK, the core values of BUMN companies, so that I could better understand the company's culture and provide more thoughtful answers during the discussion. Looking back, this phase taught me that preparation matters much more than confidence. Most of the challenges were not impossible - I simply needed to be disciplined enough to practice.
Alhamdulillah, I passed the Pre-Assessment stage and advanced to the interviews.
The interview stage consisted of two phases: the User Interview and the Final Interview with the Director. This was when the real challenge began. Thirty minutes may not sound like much time, until you have to summarize your entire academic background, achievements, strengths, interests, and future aspirations in front of someone you have never met before.
The interview forced me to answer difficult questions:
- "Why should the company choose me? "
- "What could I contribute? "
- "What made me different from the other candidates? "
As someone who was more comfortable working behind a screen than talking about myself, this stage was surprisingly exhausting.
Thankfully, I passed the final stage and was officially accepted as an employee of PT Bank Syariah Indonesia Tbk. Yippie 🎉.
The entire process took around seven months. Looking back, technical skills were important, but patience turned out to be the skill I practiced the most. Every completed stage was followed by another period of waiting, hoping that an email with good news would finally arrive.
In the next article, I will share more about my activities during the MT program and how my journey in cybersecurity truly began.
Thanks for reading. Cheers.