Hard work, Coincidence or divine help
By Eddie Cheng
At the end of 2016 I finally finished university. Thank God for that. I graduated with a B. Comm & B. Econ majoring in accounting/finance/economics. Time to look for a job.
GETTING STARTED
While working part time at Hungry Jacks I spent my time between church and applying for jobs. With not a clue of what I wanted I used seek.com, LinkedIn, subscribed to various companies for job vacancies and pretty much applied for any position that I saw. For about four months this didn’t yield any results, just declines and no replies.
From all the job descriptions of the positions/companies I applied for, I wasn’t really excited about doing those jobs. But as I read the description for a banking role, it got me excited and really interested. So I honed in my searches to just the banks: CommBank, Westpac, ANZ, Nab, Bankwest etc. When I got a reply from ANZ I was glad I progressed into video interviews and then finally face to face interviews. But I didn’t manage to land the job. I was still optimistic and continued searching. The same thing happened with Commbank and also Bankwest but again, no results. So I continued to apply continued to pray. Finally I got into NAB, spoiler alert, where I work now. I was blown away by a series of events that happened for me to get in. There was no way it was a coincidence.
DIVINE APPOINTMENTS
This is what transpired. The NAB position opened up because the previous guy who left is a friend of a friend, so I applied for the vacancy. I progressed through the stages until I reached the final one, the face to face interview where there were ten other people going for the same spot. It was all going normal until I was asked the question: “Why did you choose NAB out of the other banks?” I was stuck for a few seconds, not knowing how to respond. Truthfully in my head I was thinking, “Mate, I applied to all the banks and I just want a job.” But then I remembered something. I told him I had a friend who worked at NAB who shared about his experiences which sounded really awesome. He asked me who it was and I’m like nah, you probably don’t know him. But he kept on pushing and I told him his name. Turns out he knew him and so we hit it off!
After the interview I messaged my buddy and confirmed that he did know the interviewer. Not only that but his brother knew the senior banker there as well. So I asked him if they could put in a good word for me. Two or three days later I received the reply saying I got the job!
Post-mortem
I went through difficult times and moments where I felt inadequate and not good enough. I looked at myself and thought, “My only job experience is at fast food, the majority of the time was at Hungry Jacks” and I felt that wasn’t good enough. But actually that was one of the reasons, among many, I got the job- I had a track record of work experience.
I would suggest to those applying for jobs to put in work like studying the company, what they value; studying common questions, how to answer without sounding so rehearsed; how do you tailor it to the job you’re applying to, etc. Every rejection or failed interview is another learning experience to reflect on how to improve.
ABOVE ALL: I believe God helped me all the way, opening doors, putting the right people in the right place at the right time. It is the grace of God who put me in NAB and I must thank Him. 
