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One thing will be trying to reach out to hiring managers and internal recruiters directly instead of working with third-party recruiters. Third-party recruiters

One thing will be trying to reach out to hiring managers and internal recruiters directly instead of working with third-party recruiters. Third-party recruiters try to maximize their referral fee by matching your experience to the job description exactly; hiring managers and internal recruiters get quite a bit more leeway. Is there a coding bootcamp nearby that you could teach or TA? It's an awesome way to make easy connections with local employers; growing your network is a long term investment, but if in two years it can get you a better job it is worth it. I'm also self taught and started with a terrible job cycle that I'm still working out of. I talk to recruiters all of the time, and I also refer friends to them and it gets me bonus considerations. Recently I called one up and had a very frank conversation on my career goals; she didn't have a job for me but gave me some very nice pointers (basically how to highlight things in my resume in a way that'll stand out to the five second scan of a recruiter). Recruiters are people and you can filter the good ones, many are on LinkedIn.

alltakendamned 7y ago
Care to share the pointers? :)
- arenaninja 7y ago
  In my case it was very specific, I've read my resume and overall she thought it was good. My gripe was that she reaches out with positions that seems junior (e.g.: 2/3 years of experience) but I have 7 years of experience. She said to list myself as a Senior Software Engineer; I've listed Software Engineer because it's not a distinction I care for but since I made this change I've been contacted by recruiters with roles that are in line with my seniority (and this was only a week or two ago)
non-entity 7y ago
> One thing will be trying to reach out to hiring managers and internal recruiters directly instead of working with third-party recruiters. I've tried this in the past a few times (when I could figure out the info), and always got told just to apply online like everyone else. > Third-party recruiters try to maximize their referral fee by matching your experience to the job description exactly Yeah, I specifically wrote my resume to highlight my accomplishments + impact to the organization, and recruiters seem to be very annoyed by that. Most of the time, they edit my resume into a keyword dump.
- arenaninja 7y ago
  Yes you need a keyword dump to get past the recruiter and accomplishments+impact for the hiring manager. Even for hiring managers knowing what technologies you used at your recent roles is helpful; they want to know how quickly you'd be able to get up to speed and it makes it easier to conduct technical interviews if they know which tech you're comfortable with. A summary section for tech isn't as helpful since it's unclear how long you used X or Y tech

alltakendamned 7y ago

Care to share the pointers? :)

arenaninja 7y ago
In my case it was very specific, I've read my resume and overall she thought it was good. My gripe was that she reaches out with positions that seems junior (e.g.: 2/3 years of experience) but I have 7 years of experience. She said to list myself as a Senior Software Engineer; I've listed Software Engineer because it's not a distinction I care for but since I made this change I've been contacted by recruiters with roles that are in line with my seniority (and this was only a week or two ago)

non-entity 7y ago

> One thing will be trying to reach out to hiring managers and internal recruiters directly instead of working with third-party recruiters. I've tried this in the past a few times (when I could figure out the info), and always got told just to apply online like everyone else. > Third-party recruiters try to maximize their referral fee by matching your experience to the job description exactly Yeah, I specifically wrote my resume to highlight my accomplishments + impact to the organization, and recruiters seem to be very annoyed by that. Most of the time, they edit my resume into a keyword dump.

arenaninja 7y ago
Yes you need a keyword dump to get past the recruiter and accomplishments+impact for the hiring manager. Even for hiring managers knowing what technologies you used at your recent roles is helpful; they want to know how quickly you'd be able to get up to speed and it makes it easier to conduct technical interviews if they know which tech you're comfortable with. A summary section for tech isn't as helpful since it's unclear how long you used X or Y tech