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It sounds like you are applying cold and going through the process used to filter the unwashed masses (e.g. new bootcamp grads, college grads, career changers w
by jurassic 8y ago
It sounds like you are applying cold and going through the process used to filter the unwashed masses (e.g. new bootcamp grads, college grads, career changers with no network, fakers of all stripes). There are some diamonds in the rough there but it's no surprise they put that candidate population through the ringer to make sure they don't waste their engineering staff's time screening duds.
If you've been working for a while it's much more efficient to get jobs through your personal network. I have about 4.5 years of industry experience and was able to skip directly to the final round onsite with a couple companies where I have close friends/former colleagues trying to recruit me. I just started a new job with desireable BigCo that I got this way. Unless you are specifically passionate about getting in with a specific company to work on a specific product, you're much better off focusing your energy on companies where you know people who will vouch for you.
- twoquestions 8y agoSo it sounds like building your network is a more valuable thing to do than study for all-day interviews. However, why should some well-connected person want to talk to some bozo who's only giving them the time of day to job hunt? Especially in a career like ours that isn't dominated by talking like sales is?
- jurassic 8y agoYou should study. You still have to have the chops to pass a full-day onsite. Having a contact from your network trying to bring you in just cuts down on the amount of pointless hoop-jumping. Building and maintaining a professional network is something you should be doing all the time. If you wait until you need a job to network you are doing it wrong.
- ccore 8y agoWell then I must be doing it wrong because all I want to do after work is relax and not talk to anyone and sometimes play video games. I still want to be recognized for the work that I do but apparently that's not enough. Maybe I have Asperger's or something else, but this whole thing about relying on connections to get jobs more easily doesn't come naturally to me.
- james_s_tayler 8y agoI actually think our careers are dominated by talking. At least my experience is that talking is very, very important.
- samfisher83 8y agoFrom my experience, if you recommend someone they still need to go through the interview process.
- ccore 8y agoI am actually guilty of this- I'm trying to overcome my fear of being more friendly at work. I'm seen as the serious guy who doesn't talk to anyone (outside of work-related matters). The result of me not being more social for 10 years since college means that I don't really get contacted by colleagues, and I always have to go in cold with a new job. I don't have any "voucher" people. TBH the whole thing about getting ahead more easily to jobs through common friends, man does it remind me of nightclubs. I don't care about having a personal entourage, but the industry seems to be forcing me to. I'm just trying to live a happy career and life without needing to be popular and stuff. And while I do have friends I've made in high school, they're a small group and they've never given me good leads. I don't generally see them as people I rely on for jobs. They're in totally different work fields and the kind of people who can't tell programmers apart from IT. Why wasn't building a good network second nature with me, I don't know. But want to know why I don't have the intuition, and how to fix that.
- quickthrower2 8y agoI find I usually don't want to work for the companies people I know work at, and when I have been vouched I still need to go through every round. I'm not in the US, so there is no FAANG jobs. So YMMV