“A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.” This was proven by an Indian Ivy League graduate who bagged a job offer from the World Bank, defying all odds on his way. Sharing his inspirational story in a LinkedIn post, 23-year-old Vatsal Nahata wrote that he began the job search in 2020, just as he was about to graduate from Yale University in the US, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Even though he was eager to graduate from one of the most prominent colleges in the world in April 2020, the uncertainty surrounding his job kept him up all night.
Nahata recalls, “I shudder every time I remember this (the tale of how he obtained his World Bank position). Everyone had a challenging period in the first half of 2020. The job situation was very dismal, and people were already having a hard time adapting to the pandemic. “I did not have a job at hand and I was going to graduate in two months. And I was a student at Yale,” Nahata wrote.
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The 23-year-old’s dream of getting a good job after his Master of Arts in International and Development Economic degree hit many roadblocks. One of them was Donald Trump’s stance on immigration, which compelled organisations to only recruit US nationals.
Nahata was one of several Indian professionals in the United States who struggled to find employers willing to sponsor a visa. He would get to the final stages of the interview process but would later be turned down since they couldn’t sponsor his visa.
He asked himself what the point was of coming to Yale if he couldn’t find work in the United States. Nahata, a Research Analyst at the International Monetary Fund, however, didn’t want to give up so easily. He knew two things for certain: returning to India was not an option available to him, and his first salary would only be in US dollars.
This clarity led him to make one of the most important choices of his life. He decided to quit searching for jobs online or filling out application forms and instead try “networking.” And from then on for two months, Nahata worked on expanding his network. He made over 80 cold calls, sent over 1500 connection requests, and wrote over 600 cold emails.
Most of these efforts appeared to be yielding no results until the first week of May this year. He had received four employment offers, with the World Bank being one of them. After the completion of his Optional Practical Training, they agreed to sponsor his work visa too.
Nahata, who also holds a degree in Economics from Delhi’s Sri Ram College of Commerce, explains that he wants to share his experience with the world to inspire others to never give up.
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