Journal Entry 1: So I Tried Applying for a Job At Chipotle...

When it comes to trying to succeed as an entrepreneur, it's not easy. There comes a point where money takes the highest priority before one can continue pursuing something of high risk, in this case, entrepreneurship. During the timing of this blog post that I am writing right now, I have about $2,800 left in the bank, and $0 in income since I am unemployed.

I spent some of the first 6 months of 2018 trying to apply for a job as a web developer, but sadly, I rarely ever get any responses from my job applications that I sent out through Monster.com, Indeed.com, and ZipRecruiters.com. I've changed my resume 3-4 times, and I've kept on polishing and learning new skills.

NOTE - By responses, I mean any type of response, such as a reply from the company of being rejected or accepted for an interview.

It is now June 22, 2018, I just came back from my interview at Chipotle. By the time you are reading this post, I probably either got accepted by Chipotle, rejected by Chipotle, or I probably got accepted but decided not to accept Chipotle's offer due to a change of heart.

My Chipotle Interview Experience

This was my first time applying to a job that didn't have a college education as a requirement, and it was a restaurant position. I had zero knowledge and experience about this industry.

I studied up about them, watched videos from past successful employees on how to prepare for their interview, and yeah.

Because of their type of business, they were busy serving customers, so when I went in, they just told me to have a seat and wait until their manager was available to do the interview. When it was time, the interview took place.

Unlike your typical interview for an office position, this one was a group interview. I took the interview alongside with two other candidates who applied for the same position as I did: Restaurant Crew Member.

So you're probably wondering at this point, why are you applying for a restaurant position even though you have a degree in Computer Engineering? Good question.

As mentioned earlier before, I tried applying to many companies, but failed to get a response, and those who did respond, mostly ended up rejecting me. From that timelength, I've only managed to get 2 interviews. That was it. Sadly, I failed the technical interview, but I continued to study and continue brainstorming new ideas to add on to my portfolio and hopefully make a successful startup out of one.

Okay, so back to Chipotle.

One of the questions I expected, based on my research from past employees sharing their experience, was "what is food with integrity", which surprisingly, never came up nor did any question related to Chipotle besides "why do you want to work at Chipotle?"

The person who was interviewing me basically asked questions about what your goals are in the next 6 months, what is your most proudest achievement (regardless of how big or small or whether it was successful or not), why should we hire you (or was it what do you bring to the table for Chipotle), and some other generic interview questions which I've forgotten by now.

One of the things I knew that would jeopardize my chances of getting the job was I didn't bring my resume nor did I dress up to business casual attire with a tie at the time. To be honest, deep down inside me, I felt conflicted as to whether or not I should go through with this if accepted. I knew that it would be a major setback towards my desire to become a successful entrepreneur. Plus, even if I were to give up being an entrepreneur and go full force with pursuing getting a job as a programmer for the rest of my life, working at Chipotle would probably be a major setback career wise, but right now, I need money to help pay the bills and to get rid of that student loans (which is almost $8,000) is priority.

Update 6/26/18

This morning, I woke up, greeted with an email notification of Chipotle's rejection of me for the position.

Compared to my other rejection emails, I didn't feel sad nor did I feel happy. I just felt the same way as I did every other day while being unemployed. With this, I conclude the first entry of hopefully many entries of my journey as someone who is trying his best to pursue the dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur.