4 ms·

Mostly retired. Stopped worrying about finding FTE 5-6 years ago and focused on making the cash I had work for me on a more immediate time scale. I do some advi

by epc 7y ago

Mostly retired. Stopped worrying about finding FTE 5-6 years ago and focused on making the cash I had work for me on a more immediate time scale. I do some advisory work with local startups for equity. Angel invested for awhile but stopped as mentioned elsewhere in an earlier thread. Would love to work again in tech but have never cracked getting on recruiters’ radar and I have better things to do than play whack—a-mole with the latest and greatest in applicant tracking systems automated decision algorithms.

luckydata 7y ago
I'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it.
- vageli 7y ago
  > I'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it. How are you supposed to find out the hiring manager's name from a job post? I'd be curious to hear some of these tricks.
  - w-ll 7y ago
    Look at their company/about page, then go to LinkedIn. Also most email address are fairly predictable.
    - vageli 7y ago
      This might work in smaller companies, but for enterprises I have a hard time seeing this working.
      - pmiller2 7y ago
        I work for a company with 4500 employees. I assure you, one of the obvious patterns based on first and last names will get you most email addresses there.
  - bsder 7y ago
    > How are you supposed to find out the hiring manager's name from a job post? I'd be curious to hear some of these tricks. Go to meetups. User's groups. Any gathering of technical people. Important people tend to network, but they may not be the "regulars" as they are busy people. I know more than a couple of technical/user groups where a relatively unknown person giving a good presentation is likely to wind up with an interview on the spot ... if not an actual consulting/job offer. The key is a good presentation. The content shows your technical chops and the presentation shows your communication skills. And, while lots of people say "have a GitHub and reference it", I'm going to caution about this. Just like an art portfolio, only put things you can proud of in there if you're going to make it public and reference it for employment. I may make you show me at the interview on your laptop and talk about it and it shouldn't embarrass you. (Personally, I don't check GitHub unless someone points me at it explicitly.)
  - bonestamp2 7y ago
    Linkedin. If you can't find the person who manages that department, find anybody in that department and ask them about the job and the manager. One "trick" is to let them know you're looking to apply at the company and want to ask them for career advice. Most people love giving advice.
- Zenst 7y ago
  As a 50+ chap, I had an instance of a top company, referred by friend, whole team up for it and to not even get an interview as I got `filtered` by HR and the recruitment process. Turns out they rejected me as I was `overqualified`. Equally in my early years pre PC mainstream days, there was an age bias towards older people. With many personal experiences upon that in that time/culture - including, believe it or not `overqualified` (they sat a coding exam and I found mistakes in the exam) for a COBOL job at a bank aged 19 (had 3 years work under my belt already in the field). Recruitment agent said it was because I knew more than the boss and he didn't like that. Was a time also back then when the boss would of previously done the job of those under him in such institutional culture of that time. Dare say starting out today is easier than it was pre internet boom. I'm sure there are others who equally have experienced agisim on both ends of the scale in IT.
  - specialist 7y ago
    As a gen-x'er, I wonder about being caught in the middle. I was too young for boomers (started as weekend tech in 9th grade). Now I sense I'm too old for millennials. Supposedly both demo groups strongly prefer their own. Whereas us x'ers were so few, we just had to get along with everyone.
    - aleister_777 7y ago
      As a gen-xer, I fucking love where I'm at. I have the perfect combination of knowing how to to fix my toilet and my wifi (was third engineer at Aruba - suck it).
      - mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Good attitude, thanks.
  - RickSanchez2600 7y ago
    A friend of mine is in his 50s he got tired of being overqualified for jobs. So he sent in applications for CEO of Microsoft etc and got the overqualified letters back. It is ridiculous if you ask me, and he is only overqualified because of his age.
- wave100 7y ago
  I'm a CS student graduating from college in a year - I'd love some advice on job hunting if you're willing to provide it!
  - p1esk 7y ago
    Make sure you have something to brag about in github. Highlight it on your resume and cover letter. As others said, contact hiring managers directly. But most importantly, figure out what is it you enjoy working on 8+ hours every day, and look for companies that would let you do that.
- arvinsim 7y ago
  Until everyday does it. And then what?
  - hogu 7y ago
    It's a capitalistic market. When everyone does X you have to figure out what Y is which will differentiate yourself. When everyone uses linkedin to target then you have to find other channels. Everyone should read Traction by Garbriel Weinberg. It's for startup marketing but job searching is basically marketing yourself in a world that has one dominant channel (recruiters). The efficacy of different channels is time varying as they get saturated- You have to find the one that works for you at any given time

by epc 7y ago

luckydata 7y ago

I'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it.

vageli 7y ago
> I'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it. How are you supposed to find out the hiring manager's name from a job post? I'd be curious to hear some of these tricks.
- w-ll 7y ago
  Look at their company/about page, then go to LinkedIn. Also most email address are fairly predictable.
  - vageli 7y ago
    This might work in smaller companies, but for enterprises I have a hard time seeing this working.
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      I work for a company with 4500 employees. I assure you, one of the obvious patterns based on first and last names will get you most email addresses there.
- bsder 7y ago
  > How are you supposed to find out the hiring manager's name from a job post? I'd be curious to hear some of these tricks. Go to meetups. User's groups. Any gathering of technical people. Important people tend to network, but they may not be the "regulars" as they are busy people. I know more than a couple of technical/user groups where a relatively unknown person giving a good presentation is likely to wind up with an interview on the spot ... if not an actual consulting/job offer. The key is a good presentation. The content shows your technical chops and the presentation shows your communication skills. And, while lots of people say "have a GitHub and reference it", I'm going to caution about this. Just like an art portfolio, only put things you can proud of in there if you're going to make it public and reference it for employment. I may make you show me at the interview on your laptop and talk about it and it shouldn't embarrass you. (Personally, I don't check GitHub unless someone points me at it explicitly.)
- bonestamp2 7y ago
  Linkedin. If you can't find the person who manages that department, find anybody in that department and ask them about the job and the manager. One "trick" is to let them know you're looking to apply at the company and want to ask them for career advice. Most people love giving advice.
Zenst 7y ago
As a 50+ chap, I had an instance of a top company, referred by friend, whole team up for it and to not even get an interview as I got `filtered` by HR and the recruitment process. Turns out they rejected me as I was `overqualified`. Equally in my early years pre PC mainstream days, there was an age bias towards older people. With many personal experiences upon that in that time/culture - including, believe it or not `overqualified` (they sat a coding exam and I found mistakes in the exam) for a COBOL job at a bank aged 19 (had 3 years work under my belt already in the field). Recruitment agent said it was because I knew more than the boss and he didn't like that. Was a time also back then when the boss would of previously done the job of those under him in such institutional culture of that time. Dare say starting out today is easier than it was pre internet boom. I'm sure there are others who equally have experienced agisim on both ends of the scale in IT.
- specialist 7y ago
  As a gen-x'er, I wonder about being caught in the middle. I was too young for boomers (started as weekend tech in 9th grade). Now I sense I'm too old for millennials. Supposedly both demo groups strongly prefer their own. Whereas us x'ers were so few, we just had to get along with everyone.
  - aleister_777 7y ago
    As a gen-xer, I fucking love where I'm at. I have the perfect combination of knowing how to to fix my toilet and my wifi (was third engineer at Aruba - suck it).
    - mixmastamyk 7y ago
      Good attitude, thanks.
- RickSanchez2600 7y ago
  A friend of mine is in his 50s he got tired of being overqualified for jobs. So he sent in applications for CEO of Microsoft etc and got the overqualified letters back. It is ridiculous if you ask me, and he is only overqualified because of his age.
wave100 7y ago
I'm a CS student graduating from college in a year - I'd love some advice on job hunting if you're willing to provide it!
- p1esk 7y ago
  Make sure you have something to brag about in github. Highlight it on your resume and cover letter. As others said, contact hiring managers directly. But most importantly, figure out what is it you enjoy working on 8+ hours every day, and look for companies that would let you do that.
arvinsim 7y ago
Until everyday does it. And then what?
- hogu 7y ago
  It's a capitalistic market. When everyone does X you have to figure out what Y is which will differentiate yourself. When everyone uses linkedin to target then you have to find other channels. Everyone should read Traction by Garbriel Weinberg. It's for startup marketing but job searching is basically marketing yourself in a world that has one dominant channel (recruiters). The efficacy of different channels is time varying as they get saturated- You have to find the one that works for you at any given time