4 ms·

Job search is a full time activity if done right. It doesn't leave you time to do freelancing.

rukuu001 9y ago
You're corroborating a quote from the article, which I don't think deserves downvotes. Would you like to expand on your point? It might be illuminating for people already established in the industry.
- stale2002 9y ago
  I can expand on it. Fairly recently I left my job at a startup (I've been in startups for 4 years as a software enginer). Every single day I am practicing interview questions. I am talking with recruiters on the phone. I am talking with HEADHUNTERS on the phone (not the same as recruiters). I am doing tech phone screens. I am doing take home projects. And I am going to tech meetups. And I haven't even gotten to point in the process where I would be spending the entire day doing an onsite interview, so when that starts happen in a couple weeks I'll be even more busy. I have perhaps over-prepared, but boy do the results show. I've passed every single one of my phone interviews and been invited to an onsite interview for Google, Cruise automation, Uber, Linkedin, Twilio, and a few other smaller startups. 2 years ago, when I was also looking for jobs, I took my job search much less seriously. And the results were predictably much less good. I was only about 50-50 on passing phone interviews, and only ended up getting 2 offers, and they were at no name startups. Zero offers from any of the big 5 tech companies, as well as many failed interviews. This time around my success has been much much better, because of how seriously I am taking the process. And this success is going to add up to literally 10s of thousands of dollars in pay increases. Take your job search seriously. The difference in pay between "top" tech companies, and rando startups is 10s of thousands of dollars, and perhaps even over a hundred thousand dollars when you add up ALL the benefits/stock/401k matching/bonus/ect. Obviously money isn't everything, but it still matters.
  - ensiferum 9y ago
    But you haven't actually gotten that job yet. Just passed some phone screens. So it's too early to talk about "success"
- cheapsteak 9y ago
  Different guy here responding If you have a job, then you can only interview on lunch breaks or after work. If you have a shitty job then you have incredibly short lunch breaks and get off work late. You'll miss a lot of interview opportunities. You also might not have time to do the various different screener exercises that many companies require of junior developers to make sure you actually know how to do something more complicated than fizzbuzz If you've got two juniors of similar skill levels, and one of them needs this job significantly more, that may also weigh in your hiring decision
  - pacaro 9y ago
    Thanks for the answer. For myself, it is easy to forget this reality. Once your career is bootstrapped the story changes so much. I've changed employers only 4 times in 23 years, one of those was an acquisition, and the other three times I only interviewed with four companies (total, not each job change). Since getting my first job, I've never not gotten the phone screen/onsite interview/job offer. Ok that all sounds very braggadocio. Sorry. But when I consider my first job search: over a period of nine months I sent out over a hundred applications, received several hundred rejections (some companies like to reject you once for each internal department that doesn't like you), and finally scraped a handful of interviews, some mealy mouthed "maybe if" not-quite-offers, and finally a real job offer. I also had the unbelievable arrogance to walk out of an interview because they used a 4GL and I wanted a real programming job (I was polite about it, I waited until lunch and just said that I didn't feel that I would be a good fit) Hone your craft, it gets better.
    - cheapsteak 9y ago
      I'm actually on the other end of this, have had to design a few of those screener questions myself. They're a pain but they do help with screening out those who can talk the talk but end up being overly confident spaghetti machines. I know I'm missing out on people who are good but don't have time to prove it to me, but the cost of a bad hire is much more costly than missing out on a good one, and there are so many people to sort through

You're corroborating a quote from the article, which I don't think deserves downvotes. Would you like to expand on your point? It might be illuminating for people already established in the industry.

stale2002 9y ago
I can expand on it. Fairly recently I left my job at a startup (I've been in startups for 4 years as a software enginer). Every single day I am practicing interview questions. I am talking with recruiters on the phone. I am talking with HEADHUNTERS on the phone (not the same as recruiters). I am doing tech phone screens. I am doing take home projects. And I am going to tech meetups. And I haven't even gotten to point in the process where I would be spending the entire day doing an onsite interview, so when that starts happen in a couple weeks I'll be even more busy. I have perhaps over-prepared, but boy do the results show. I've passed every single one of my phone interviews and been invited to an onsite interview for Google, Cruise automation, Uber, Linkedin, Twilio, and a few other smaller startups. 2 years ago, when I was also looking for jobs, I took my job search much less seriously. And the results were predictably much less good. I was only about 50-50 on passing phone interviews, and only ended up getting 2 offers, and they were at no name startups. Zero offers from any of the big 5 tech companies, as well as many failed interviews. This time around my success has been much much better, because of how seriously I am taking the process. And this success is going to add up to literally 10s of thousands of dollars in pay increases. Take your job search seriously. The difference in pay between "top" tech companies, and rando startups is 10s of thousands of dollars, and perhaps even over a hundred thousand dollars when you add up ALL the benefits/stock/401k matching/bonus/ect. Obviously money isn't everything, but it still matters.
- ensiferum 9y ago
  But you haven't actually gotten that job yet. Just passed some phone screens. So it's too early to talk about "success"
cheapsteak 9y ago
Different guy here responding If you have a job, then you can only interview on lunch breaks or after work. If you have a shitty job then you have incredibly short lunch breaks and get off work late. You'll miss a lot of interview opportunities. You also might not have time to do the various different screener exercises that many companies require of junior developers to make sure you actually know how to do something more complicated than fizzbuzz If you've got two juniors of similar skill levels, and one of them needs this job significantly more, that may also weigh in your hiring decision
- pacaro 9y ago
  Thanks for the answer. For myself, it is easy to forget this reality. Once your career is bootstrapped the story changes so much. I've changed employers only 4 times in 23 years, one of those was an acquisition, and the other three times I only interviewed with four companies (total, not each job change). Since getting my first job, I've never not gotten the phone screen/onsite interview/job offer. Ok that all sounds very braggadocio. Sorry. But when I consider my first job search: over a period of nine months I sent out over a hundred applications, received several hundred rejections (some companies like to reject you once for each internal department that doesn't like you), and finally scraped a handful of interviews, some mealy mouthed "maybe if" not-quite-offers, and finally a real job offer. I also had the unbelievable arrogance to walk out of an interview because they used a 4GL and I wanted a real programming job (I was polite about it, I waited until lunch and just said that I didn't feel that I would be a good fit) Hone your craft, it gets better.
  - cheapsteak 9y ago
    I'm actually on the other end of this, have had to design a few of those screener questions myself. They're a pain but they do help with screening out those who can talk the talk but end up being overly confident spaghetti machines. I know I'm missing out on people who are good but don't have time to prove it to me, but the cost of a bad hire is much more costly than missing out on a good one, and there are so many people to sort through