the number one question that i get asked on any of my videos is how do i get a job in formula one over the past couple of months i've answered at least 200 emails and dms and received thousands of comments asking exactly this but there is one big problem nobody is talking about this because everybody that knows how to do it is busy doing their job in formula one that's where i come in i've been there i've done that and i think i've learned quite a few things that i can share with you today my name is blake and welcome to break f1 in this video i'm going to tell you how some kid from texas with absolutely zero professional motorsport experience got a job in formula one now the first part starts with two questions that i need you to answer first and if you don't know the answers to these questions don't worry i'll help you figure it out the first question is very important why do you want to work in formula one and then the second question is what specifically do you want to do and that's very important in terms of preparation and how you're setting yourself up over the next couple of months or even years after you've figured out what exactly you want to do we need to figure out how you're going to get there i'll talk about education and extracurricular activities that will help you improve your chances for having a very strong cv and a very well-rounded skill set that make you look attractive to a future employer which brings me to my next point if i was looking through a stack of cvs what kind of things do you need to have in that cv or resume in order to stand out now once we've got a cv or resume that we're happy with we need to understand where to look for jobs and how to apply for them finally i'll let you know my top six characteristics that you need to have if you want to be a successful formula one engineer but really this applies to almost everything if you don't know my story here's the very short version in 2010 i moved from texas to the united kingdom to try and get a job in formula one a year later i landed a job at force india as a vehicle dynamics engineer and then eight months into that i got the job as a trackside performance engineer that means traveling to all the races working with a driver and race engineer in 2015 i moved to red bull racing to do that same job there and then three years later i decided i had enough of the trackside circus and it was time to take a break and do something else i moved back to the factory at red bull racing to focus on more of the development of the car rather than running the car every weekend so i was part of the simulator performance engineering group focus on running the simulator developing tools to help analyze the data better and just improving processes so that we're making better use of the information that we're getting from the track and translating that into useful stuff so that's about 11 years of a formula one career in about 30 seconds if any of that sounds super interesting you'd like me to do a video on any of that do be sure to leave me a comment and let me know which specific parts you want to talk about i could dig into any of those things for at least 30 minutes so we'll save that for another time okay so after doing pretty much everything that i wanted to do in formula one i decided it was time for a new challenge so i'm creating content for you guys full time honestly i think this might be a little bit harder than being a formula one engineer but i'm just getting started give me some time now i'm a pretty ambitious person and i really really enjoy finding myself out of the comfort zone and i think as a result of doing that for quite a long time i've learned a few things maybe subconsciously but after thinking about that when i was writing this video i think there's a handful of things here that i can tell you exactly what i was doing and i think they'll be very useful and your endeavors to try and get a job in formula one also don't forget if you do enjoy this video do be sure to subscribe to the channel i'd appreciate it so let's get started and remember before i start this video i said i had two questions that you need to answer first before we can go anywhere the first question i have for you is why do you want to work in formula one what motivates you for me personally if your motivation are fame glory you want to make a lot of money you want to have a cool nine-to-five job that you can tell your friends about formula one's not the job for you but there's a couple of other considerations that you just need to be aware of because for the most part yes if you work in formula one sometimes your job can be nine to five but say for example you're a design engineer and it's winter before car build you're probably going to be putting in some very serious hours honestly it's not too bad the job is insanely rewarding but it's just good to know that before you go into it because if you say to yourself i don't want to work more than nine to five and i need this salary look around and probably you'll find out that maybe formula one's not for you but if you've got a passion to do something very cool very exciting and you're willing to make sacrifices in other places this could be perfect but that's up to you to decide now the next question i have for you is what exactly do you want to do what kind of job do you want inside of formula one there are so many different jobs and here's here's a list i'll just go through a list of the jobs you could be an aerodynamicist you could be design engineers stress electronics control systems software vehicle dynamics race engineering strategy r d machinist fabricator laminator cleaner catering legal marketing finance human resources facilities there's a whole lot of jobs in formula but i've got one tip that i think is pretty underrated and not a whole lot of people are doing i mean there's a reason i'm getting all these questions and people don't know where to look one of the best places you can look if you want to figure out what you want to do in the industry is open up linkedin go look through companies look through the people that work for those companies and see what kind of jobs they do look at their background look at their education look at their old jobs look at their new jobs if you see stuff that interests you make notes of those people and those jobs that they're doing now you've spent weeks researching linkedin you've got some good ideas of what you think excites you what you might want to do in the industry now here's the next part you're probably going to have a few questions and depending on the specific job that you want to do there might be somebody that you've come across in your linkedin research that could be very worthwhile reaching out to but please please please be considered people's time be very thoughtful if you're going to reach out to somebody and ask them for help make a few short concise questions and ask them if they would have a little bit of time to share some advice with you but please be patient and nobody owes you anything so if they don't reply so be it now there are so many different engineering disciplines and other jobs in the industry but for this video i'm going to focus mostly on engineering roles that's my background that's my expertise so i could probably give you some pretty good advice if that's what you want to do another thing i want to mention is over the next couple months i'm going to be finding people that work in the industry to talk them about their careers their paths what they love what they hate about their jobs and hopefully some of those will not be engineers so again you like that kind of stuff do be sure to follow me over on twitch i will be taking those podcast style conversations and wrapping them up and putting them here on youtube as well but if you have any questions or any specific jobs you want to know about let me know i'll try to find one of those people since we're talking about engineering jobs the first thing we need to talk about is academics and studies if you're not in university yet you need to make sure that you're focusing on your math and your science based courses those are going to be the most important as far as getting an engineering job if these are not your strong point don't worry you've got time now in general most formula one engineers have either a mechanical engineering or aerospace engineering background or some people also have an automotive engineering degree now there are so many exceptions to this for example a software designer will have a computer science background so again this is where your linkedin research comes in handy you can try and understand what job you want to get and see what other people have studied in order to get there now this is my biggest biggest piece of advice regarding education having a degree or going to school is only the start of this thing the thing that's going to set you out from everybody else is going to be what you do outside of the classroom a great example of this and it's not the only thing you can do and it's not the best thing you can do but it's a great example this formula student or formula sae these programs are spectacular if you're not familiar with formula student do yourself a favor and google it after you watch this video and come back and tell me what you think of it if you're already doing a formula student great that's a good start but there's plenty of other collegiate design competitions that you can do i will say this formula sae and performance student are not necessary but it's just another one of those things that gives you time to take what you've learned in the classroom the academics the fundamentals and apply those to an engineering problem hands-on practice is insanely valuable so let's talk about how i did it and let's talk about my path i don't think it's super special i don't think it's unique it just goes to show you that any normal person can do this i did it so me personally i've got a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the university of texas at arlington while i was at ut arlington i got very involved in the formal sae program the formula se program is where i learned how to use cad i learned how to operate a mill a lathe i learned how to weld i learned a lot of skills that i was not learning in the classroom and that's why i tell you that learning stuff outside of your courses is very important just showing up to your classes and doing the homework is not enough after my undergraduate studies at uta i moved to the uk to do a motorsport master's degree at oxford brooks university now other than doing the coursework and enjoying the local pubs i was very involved in oxford brook's former student team for my year of that degree as well again the formula student team just gives you a lot of scope to apply what you're learning in the classroom to a real world hands-on thing that you have complete control of again it's not the only thing you can do but it's a great example i'll come up with some other examples later in the video now when i got my first job in formula one at force india i had zero professional motorsport experience so there's also hope for you but i still think there's a couple of things that i did even though i didn't know i was doing them at the time which gave me a great advantage when i was looking for a job and we'll get into that now let's talk about the most important thing how do you look for jobs you've got your cv you've got your education your background sorted now you need to find that job that suits you in general you should always keep an eye on motorsportjobs.com this is going to have everything you can sort it by your region what kind of team you want to work for what industry so this is a very important resource don't forget about it now if you're a university student looking for a placement every single team offers second year placement roles now in general most universities in the uk you'll study for two years go to an industrial placement and then come back and finish your degree so that's kind of how this is geared the formula one teams will start advertising these roles around october and these placements usually run from like june or july for 12 or potentially 14 months and then you go back in the fall and finish your degree so definitely keep an eye out on a team's websites their social medias linkedin and of course motorsportjobs.com unfortunately there are some limitations when it comes to applying for jobs in the uk for example every single formula one team in the uk will ask you are you eligible to work in the uk and if you do not have a visa the answer is no you are not eligible however there are some exceptions and this is actually what i did to get a job in the uk as an american citizen this visa program doesn't always exist but i do believe it's active now i'll leave some links and details on that below in the description so feel free to dig into that and make sure that it's applicable for you but the uk will usually let you stay in the country for two years after you finish a degree so if you're not a uk citizen you can come to the uk do a qualifying degree and then you are granted permission to work in the country for two years maybe even more now this is another one of those benefits for people that have an undergraduate degree in another country but you want to do a master's degree in the uk i do believe that for example oxford brooks and cranfield university still have the motorsport msc degrees they've got formless student teams and then after you complete these degrees you can be granted access to work in the uk so once you go to apply for those formula one jobs you are eligible to work in the uk but of course make sure you do the research and make sure this works for you now let's talk about your cv or your resume during my last couple of years at red bull i spent quite a time looking at junior position cvs and even student placement cvs and i've got a few things that you need to keep in mind now i'm not going to tell you how to make a cv but i've got a couple of things that you probably want to make sure that you can include remember the entire point of riding a cd is to get someone that you want to work for interested to speaking to you about a job it doesn't guarantee you the job it doesn't guarantee you foot in the door it's literally just to get their interest and once you get your foot in the door to provide a little bit of a framework to discuss and help them learn a little bit more about you now for example if you've done stuff in group projects tell me about what you've done in that group project don't tell me about what the whole group did yes it's important to know what the project was but when i'm reading these things i want to know specifically what you contribute to the project if i invite you for an interview i'm going to dig into whatever you've put in there and i'm going to grill you and ask you questions about that to see if you actually understood what you did you'll be surprised at the number of people who have actually no clue what they've done in their group project and as soon as you start asking them questions it's pretty easy to tell so don't fake it now this might sound a little bit weird but i've already hinted at it one of the most important things that i personally think is in your cv is stuff that you're doing when you're not studying when you're not at university what are you doing with your spare time did you teach yourself a programming language or undertake a cool project in your summer break i mean for example you could always download python install the fast f1 api and start to learn about formula one cars by analyzing real life formula one data like i do in my videos here so there's nothing stopping you you have zero excuses i'm going to leave some very useful resources down in the description below so that if that sounds like something you'd like to do there you go now something else pretty interesting is like did you learn a cad package are you doing formless student like what are you doing outside of university other examples could be did you teach yourself a computer aided design or cad package did you volunteer for a local race team or volunteer at your local race track on the weekends to try and gain experience those are really important things that i like to see in people's resumes now when i'm looking through a pile of cvs for the most part people's academics and their experiences and their coursework are all pretty similar so if you want to stand out i think that's the whole thing is when you're putting your cv together it needs to stand out from the rest because if there's 50 other cvs that look exactly like yours why am i going to pick up yours why am i going to email you back to tell you hey can you come for an interview when your friend or somebody else probably has better marks than you so you need to stand out now a pretty underrated piece of advice but i think it's important is uh put your hobbies in your cv you know people want to work with people that they have shared interests with and that could be the difference between imagine you had the same cv the same grades same projects same background but uh maybe you like something that the person hiring you finds interesting they might pick that out you know and it's it's just good to know and one of the most underrated and most important things about getting a job is you need to be able to get along with the people that you work with and i think that is so important so if you're already doing some of this stuff and putting in your cv leave me a comment below i'd love to hear what you guys are working on now as promised at the beginning of the video here are my top six things that i think you need to be focusing on if you're trying to get a job in formula one number one make friends and talk to people i know i know it sounds cliche it's not always about what you know but who you know yes you need to know things but also the connections and friendships that you make along the way are going to be so important to what you do in the future definitely definitely make sure that you're focusing on networking with people in the industry and people around you number two be curious and that sounds silly but honestly be curious do not take everything at face value if you solve a problem or you're digging into a piece of work and you notice something that doesn't make sense don't just set that thing aside and say i don't know what that was make a note of it if you have time go back to it understand it if you do that frequently you will find that you are learning so much more than other people around you who are not doing that now number three is kind of related to number two but always always go above and beyond for example if you're given a piece of coursework absolutely you're going to finish it but do you have any more questions after you've done that what's the next step if you have time dig into it don't do the bare minimum and this goes for your degree this goes for formula student and everything else doing the bare minimum is not good enough remember how i talked about learning stuff outside of your university courses this applies here now number four is a very interesting one but also a very tricky one understand the law of diminishing returns of course you should be curious and of course you should dig in above and beyond but make sure that you're getting the bare minimum and the basics done first before adding all the details otherwise you're never going to get anywhere a great way to talk about this is the 80 20 rule it takes you about 20 percent of the time to get 80 of the way there on a problem however it takes you 80 percent of the time to finish the last 20 and at the end of the day that last 20 may not be that important so find a balance in what you're doing and that just comes with experience now number five is a very interesting one and i see this quite a bit but do not become emotionally attached to your ideas your inventions or your projects yes you should be passionate about them but if somebody else comes up with something better learn from it just because somebody else did it and they might have done it better than you isn't a dig at you it's just an opportunity for you to learn i seriously find that super underrated i see a lot of people that struggle with this when somebody comes with a good idea their goal is to break them down but honestly learn from everything and that brings me to my sixth and final point never stop learning seriously just never stop whenever you feel bored and you're not challenged anymore focus on something else find something else that excites you and if you can't find it keep looking it's out there so i hope you guys enjoyed this video i feel like it was a lot crammed into a very short period of time but if you have any questions left please leave them down below i'm sure there's several more videos to come in this series but i need your help to figure out what they are i'll see you guys next time