jQuery find() method not working in AngularJS directive

Question

I am having trouble with angularjs directives finding child DOM elements with the injected angular element.

For example I have a directive like so:

Answer 1

If anyone is looking to grab the scope off of a 'controller as' element,.. something like this:

use the following:

var vm = angular.element(document.querySelector('#firstctrl')).scope().vm;