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Bryce Roberts wrote a great post yesterday describing a bookmark he was given as a gift once. It was homemade and said “I Wish I Had. I’m Glad I Did.”. He said that it was given to him to always remind him to “strive to look back and find [himself] saying ‘I’m Glad I Did’ far more frequently than ‘I Wish I Had’”.

This reminded me immediately of seven years ago, when I was deciding where to go to college. I applied to quite a few schools, but it came down to two choices. The University of Florida, where I would essentially start as a sophomore, make money every semester from scholarships, and be with most of my high school friends; or the University of Notre Dame, where I wouldn’t know anybody and definitely would not have a free ride. I spent weeks trying to decide. One of my best friends (who was going to UF) told me something I still haven’t forgotten: “Go where you can never regret not having gone” (or something like that). That one sentence essentially decided it for me. I chose Notre Dame so that I could never say “I wish I had”.

And that decision was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. If I didn’t go to Notre Dame, I never would have learned what “engineering” was. And if I never learned what engineering was, I never would have learned about computer science. And if I never learned about computer science, my life and career would be in a completely different place right now.

I think that Bryce’s quote, and my friend’s advice, suggest a great way to live your life. This is especially true when thinking about your career and relationships. I took my friend’s advice when I was picking my college, but I don’t think I am taking that advice in my career so far. Hopefully that will change soon. I don’t want to look back on my career five or ten years from now and think to myself, “I wish I had…”. I hope to live with no regrets. To take chances. When deciding between something crazy and something comfortable, to go crazy! You only live your life here on Earth for a limited time, so make the most of it.

I am about to head out of town for a final round interview and thought I’d share a few thoughts I’ve had over the past several months of my job search as they relate to interviews. First, I think that the final interview should be on site - no exceptions. It is great for both sides. The company gets to actually meet the person they are about to spend a lot of money on to make sure they will fit into the culture of the company. They can verify that this person is a real human being and that they will get along with their colleagues. Additionally, the candidate being interviewed will get a chance to meet his or her potential colleagues and superiors. They can decide how much they want to work with all of these people. They will also get to see their working conditions and what their “home away from home” will be like. I am seeing companies move away from this and try to proceed through the entire hiring process either on campus or over the phone. I would urge companies to stay away from this and spend the money to bring a candidate out for an office visit. It will help both the company and the candidate in the long run.

Another aspect of this job search that has bothered me some is the time it takes for a company to get back to you. If you’ve interviewed me, you usually know within a week (if not immediately) whether I am moving on to the next round. I have gone months without hearing from some companies after an interview, which is just crazy. Anyways…those are just two thoughts/peeves I’ve had recently as they relate to my job search..

I’m still on the hunt for a job. I’ve had a TON of first round interviews (5 last week!) with a lot of interesting companies, but am still looking for a good job that may help me progress toward my goal of working in venture capital someday. I am thinking that (for me at least) will come in two forms: working for a startup or working for a VC. I just don’t see myself going into investment banking. I’ve interviewed with one VC-like company (Summit Partners), but didn’t get an offer out of that one. I’ve also interviewed with a startup (ExactTarget out of Indianapolis) and am waiting to hear about their second round later this month.

I am heading to San Francisco in a week for my Fall Break with a group of MBAs. We will be visiting a lot of tech companies (Google, Cisco, Intel, HP, Oracle, etc.) and I will be meeting with at least one VC while I’m out there, which I am really looking forward to. I’m hoping that we’ll get to meet some ND grads working with startups too while we’re out there. My thoughts are that if I can find a job with a startup in one of these tech hubs (San Francisco, Boston, NYC), that I can eventually work my way to the other side and become a venture capitalist. We’ll see!!

On Friday, Tom Crotty of Battery Ventures spoke to our Venture Capital Fundamentals class. He had some really great insights into the VC industry, especially in trying to land a job in the VC industry. I’ve written about finding jobs in VC before, but Mr. Crotty pointed out something that I hadn’t read before and thought was VERY useful: most VC firms will be hiring right before they raise a new fund. This is when they will (hopefully) be growing their assets under management and thus need more staff to support operations. This is also the time when VC firms will promote current employees, and might need to fill the positions that employees were promoted out of. Just a little food for thought…

I did a lot of research this morning on how to break into the VC industry. I found some great articles by Seth Levine: How to become a VC and How to get a job in VC (revisited). They were both somewhat discouraging and honest, so I am thankful for the time Seth took to write those. What struck me the most were his thoughts on networking. To get a job anywhere in this economy, networking is obviously a must, but that seems even more true in venture capital. I think that this blog is a great starting point for me to begin to “get out there” - once I’ve read up enough, I’ll be able to begin networking with various VCs via (that’s a lot of v’s) different social networking sites as well as the more traditional email/phone call methods. I’m learning a ton through my internship at Innovation Park and plan on learning a lot more when I take the Venture Capital Fundamentals course in the Fall. I’m hoping that everyone talking about “recessions being a great time to start a business” will lead to a high amount of deal flow through VCs in the next 6 months to a year, which will be just in time for me to find a job to help said VCs. We’ll see how that goes…