6 ms·

Hotter tip: toss the advice from people who interview a lot and aggressively and seek advice from the people who wander into opportunities seemingly without eff

Hotter tip: toss the advice from people who interview a lot and aggressively and seek advice from the people who wander into opportunities seemingly without effort. Ask them how they approach their job search. Most of this advice is bad or fixes problems that come from scattershooting an interview process by bulk for nonsense you don’t even care about. This blog post outlines the most miserable way to do a job search. And the way to get rejected a lot.

mesaframe 6y ago
It seems you possess knowledge regarding this process. Care to share some?
- djcapelis 6y ago
  Don’t interview in bulk! Look for the positions you really want and think can grow you in a way that matters. Then find out what skills you need to do that. If you have them, go talk to that set of organizations and tell them about your skills! People desperately need good people! If you don’t have those skills yet, either look for a different match... or think about where you’d need to go to get those skills. ... and then go talk to those organizations! Figure out something you’d like to work on. Figure out where your skills are the best match for those things. Then interview for those! Your conversations will be more focused. Your approach will be more focused. You will get jerked around less. And people will be thrilled to talk with you and figure out how your passion aligns with what they need. And if it’s a match, they will want to hire you. Do not mindlessly grind. Do not scattershot. Do not play games. All of that is unfocused, unsuccessful and unlikely to connect you with a position you even care about! What ends up happening with these people is they set up this huge funnel and then at the end of it they play offers against each other and have agonizing decisions about which numbers to accept for a set of positions they aren’t even excited about instead of focusing on what matters: 1) Which position will grow you the most? 2) Which position do you think you can exceed expectations in? You want to optimize for the sweetest mix of both of these. And both of these factors are complementary to each other. Organizations grow the people exceeding expectations and you will exceed expectations most in a position that provides you the glide slope of growth which is the best match for your interests. If you’re early career, an offer is the start of a business relationship. Not the destination. And if you’re doing it right, the initial offer is what they want to pay you to try things out. What they will want to pay to keep you happy will be more than that after you join. If you’re later in your career maybe you and the company are so correctly calibrated to each other and in sync that your initial offer hits it exactly on the head and the adjustments are for growth from there. Whatever. Who cares. Even if what you care about is money: go for the job where you will grow the most and provide the most value, because ultimately that’s where you’ll have the most leverage to grow numbers either in the same company, or in a different one. To say nothing about the obvious fact that this is a huge chunk of your time each day you engage in it and it’s 100% worth it to do something you’re excited about instead of just taking the offer for the person who pays the most. This field pays well. A 150k/yr base isn’t a disaster even if you could have gotten 220k/yr elsewhere. Which is totally a huge difference! But will round away over time when your growth is explosive and the engineer plugging away logging hours at a 220 base goes nowhere, stalls and ends up with uninspiring refreshes and trajectory.
  - ampersandy 6y ago
    This is great advice. It also helps expose one of the fundamentally broken pieces of advice that come from scattershot interviewers: "make sure you know at least one thing about the company so you look good!" Why are you interviewing somewhere when you don't know anything about it? Sounds like a great way to line up jobs you don't even want, which is a waste of both your time and everyone at the company whom you spoke with.
    - mschild 6y ago
      I think your focus is a bit too narrow. For a mid/senior role, regardless if its in tech, your advice is probably good. You have experience, you know what kind of work you like and dont like and you have more knowledge of your industry. If, however, you are a new graduate, you dont have this knowledge. I recently graduate from university. I'm looking for junior roles. I have a vague idea of what I like and dont like, but also realize that the field is so unbelievable big. There are so many companies out there, especially smaller/medium sized ones that make great products and are probably fun to work for. I would love nothing more than to take my time and research what each company does on a detailed level. But I dont have this time. I need a job that pays my bills. In the beginning of my job search I went out and wrote detailed cover letters and fine-tuned my resume to match the job position. I even researched what they were doing in depth and made sure to mention this. Do you know the most common response I received after ~2 months of writing applications? Nothing. Not a single word. Keep in mind I didnt just apply to the big ones. I looked for companies of all sizes that really matched what I studied and would love to do. One month ago, I started the shotgun approach. I looked for companies that had somewhat good ratings on glassdoor and similar platforms, made reasonably sure that I could see myself working there, put them in an excel list, and starting blasting generic resumes. So far I got 8 invitations to interviews. I know that times are a bit unusual and everyone is stressed, but right now, for me, and from what I hear from my friends, its unfortunately a numbers game. Your mileage may vary.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        I agree. Especially out of school, barring a thesis/project/etc. that really lines up well with certain employers, it's really a numbers game both for you and for any large company. Heck, way back when, I got a job offer from Boeing without even a phone screen based on my resume and cover letter; I had on-site only after I asked to visit. In the days before email and online applications, I just sent out tons of letters/resumes plus on-campus interviews. Mid-career I totally switched tactics and the few jobs I've had since came entirely through contacting people I knew.
pldr2244 6y ago
Close but not quite. Hottest tip: seek advice from the people who landed a job. Specifically? How they landed in their current role. As in anything, understanding what successful people do leads to... success.
- djcapelis 6y ago
  Yeah I agree with you. My post was written in haste and yours captures the intent much better. Thanks!
fractionalhare 6y ago
In my experience, it's not possible for (approximately) anyone to "wander into opportunities seemingly without effort" at many of the companies I'd actually work for. There are companies which can be well-aligned to your professional interests, compensation requirements and growth expectations which are also difficult for just about anyone to get a job at. Unfortunately, these tend to be the companies I want to select for. Note that I agree with not applying to jobs shotgun style - I'm just nitpicking very specifically on the idea that you can generally find someone who reliably walks onto the jobs they want. But maybe I've misunderstood you.
- risyachka 6y ago
  I've seen many creative ways people used to get a job. Like with any problem out there - there are lots of solutions. Just sending a resume is only one of them, the most obvious.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    Has sending in a resume ever worked for anyone ever? (I’m only slightly exaggerating.) All of my opportunities came from inside referrals. It’s hard to imagine getting one any other way. I mean yeah, a resume is involved — I fill one out — but it’s never been the reason for the opportunity. Ah, I have a suspicion there are two types of engineers: those with FAANG on their resume, and those without. Perhaps that accounts for the disparity. :)
    - bradlys 6y ago
      I’ve never received an offer from applying through a referral. All my jobs either came from using Hired or from blind resume submission. (3 of 5 we’re resume submission, 2 were through hired) And all these jobs were in the last 7 years. Resume submission does work. It’s not fun or great but for those who don’t have a great network, it is all you have.
      - djcapelis 6y ago
dehrmann 6y ago
Completely agree; the scattershot approach is really only good as the basis of a clickbait blog post. They would have been better off spending two hours per day doing leetcode, then just a few technical interviews. My last round, I refreshed my memory on algos and did a bunch of leetcode, had two onsites, got an offer from one. I didn't "wander" into anything, but I did plan it out so my effort would be more effective.
JimTheMan 6y ago
I think that pattern of advice is good for so many situations ie: - Don't ask people who date a lot about relationships, ask long term happily married couples about their habits

mesaframe 6y ago

It seems you possess knowledge regarding this process. Care to share some?

djcapelis 6y ago
Don’t interview in bulk! Look for the positions you really want and think can grow you in a way that matters. Then find out what skills you need to do that. If you have them, go talk to that set of organizations and tell them about your skills! People desperately need good people! If you don’t have those skills yet, either look for a different match... or think about where you’d need to go to get those skills. ... and then go talk to those organizations! Figure out something you’d like to work on. Figure out where your skills are the best match for those things. Then interview for those! Your conversations will be more focused. Your approach will be more focused. You will get jerked around less. And people will be thrilled to talk with you and figure out how your passion aligns with what they need. And if it’s a match, they will want to hire you. Do not mindlessly grind. Do not scattershot. Do not play games. All of that is unfocused, unsuccessful and unlikely to connect you with a position you even care about! What ends up happening with these people is they set up this huge funnel and then at the end of it they play offers against each other and have agonizing decisions about which numbers to accept for a set of positions they aren’t even excited about instead of focusing on what matters: 1) Which position will grow you the most? 2) Which position do you think you can exceed expectations in? You want to optimize for the sweetest mix of both of these. And both of these factors are complementary to each other. Organizations grow the people exceeding expectations and you will exceed expectations most in a position that provides you the glide slope of growth which is the best match for your interests. If you’re early career, an offer is the start of a business relationship. Not the destination. And if you’re doing it right, the initial offer is what they want to pay you to try things out. What they will want to pay to keep you happy will be more than that after you join. If you’re later in your career maybe you and the company are so correctly calibrated to each other and in sync that your initial offer hits it exactly on the head and the adjustments are for growth from there. Whatever. Who cares. Even if what you care about is money: go for the job where you will grow the most and provide the most value, because ultimately that’s where you’ll have the most leverage to grow numbers either in the same company, or in a different one. To say nothing about the obvious fact that this is a huge chunk of your time each day you engage in it and it’s 100% worth it to do something you’re excited about instead of just taking the offer for the person who pays the most. This field pays well. A 150k/yr base isn’t a disaster even if you could have gotten 220k/yr elsewhere. Which is totally a huge difference! But will round away over time when your growth is explosive and the engineer plugging away logging hours at a 220 base goes nowhere, stalls and ends up with uninspiring refreshes and trajectory.
- ampersandy 6y ago
  This is great advice. It also helps expose one of the fundamentally broken pieces of advice that come from scattershot interviewers: "make sure you know at least one thing about the company so you look good!" Why are you interviewing somewhere when you don't know anything about it? Sounds like a great way to line up jobs you don't even want, which is a waste of both your time and everyone at the company whom you spoke with.
  - mschild 6y ago
    I think your focus is a bit too narrow. For a mid/senior role, regardless if its in tech, your advice is probably good. You have experience, you know what kind of work you like and dont like and you have more knowledge of your industry. If, however, you are a new graduate, you dont have this knowledge. I recently graduate from university. I'm looking for junior roles. I have a vague idea of what I like and dont like, but also realize that the field is so unbelievable big. There are so many companies out there, especially smaller/medium sized ones that make great products and are probably fun to work for. I would love nothing more than to take my time and research what each company does on a detailed level. But I dont have this time. I need a job that pays my bills. In the beginning of my job search I went out and wrote detailed cover letters and fine-tuned my resume to match the job position. I even researched what they were doing in depth and made sure to mention this. Do you know the most common response I received after ~2 months of writing applications? Nothing. Not a single word. Keep in mind I didnt just apply to the big ones. I looked for companies of all sizes that really matched what I studied and would love to do. One month ago, I started the shotgun approach. I looked for companies that had somewhat good ratings on glassdoor and similar platforms, made reasonably sure that I could see myself working there, put them in an excel list, and starting blasting generic resumes. So far I got 8 invitations to interviews. I know that times are a bit unusual and everyone is stressed, but right now, for me, and from what I hear from my friends, its unfortunately a numbers game. Your mileage may vary.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I agree. Especially out of school, barring a thesis/project/etc. that really lines up well with certain employers, it's really a numbers game both for you and for any large company. Heck, way back when, I got a job offer from Boeing without even a phone screen based on my resume and cover letter; I had on-site only after I asked to visit. In the days before email and online applications, I just sent out tons of letters/resumes plus on-campus interviews. Mid-career I totally switched tactics and the few jobs I've had since came entirely through contacting people I knew.

pldr2244 6y ago

Close but not quite. Hottest tip: seek advice from the people who landed a job. Specifically? How they landed in their current role. As in anything, understanding what successful people do leads to... success.

djcapelis 6y ago
Yeah I agree with you. My post was written in haste and yours captures the intent much better. Thanks!

fractionalhare 6y ago

In my experience, it's not possible for (approximately) anyone to "wander into opportunities seemingly without effort" at many of the companies I'd actually work for. There are companies which can be well-aligned to your professional interests, compensation requirements and growth expectations which are also difficult for just about anyone to get a job at. Unfortunately, these tend to be the companies I want to select for. Note that I agree with not applying to jobs shotgun style - I'm just nitpicking very specifically on the idea that you can generally find someone who reliably walks onto the jobs they want. But maybe I've misunderstood you.

risyachka 6y ago
I've seen many creative ways people used to get a job. Like with any problem out there - there are lots of solutions. Just sending a resume is only one of them, the most obvious.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  Has sending in a resume ever worked for anyone ever? (I’m only slightly exaggerating.) All of my opportunities came from inside referrals. It’s hard to imagine getting one any other way. I mean yeah, a resume is involved — I fill one out — but it’s never been the reason for the opportunity. Ah, I have a suspicion there are two types of engineers: those with FAANG on their resume, and those without. Perhaps that accounts for the disparity. :)
  - bradlys 6y ago
    I’ve never received an offer from applying through a referral. All my jobs either came from using Hired or from blind resume submission. (3 of 5 we’re resume submission, 2 were through hired) And all these jobs were in the last 7 years. Resume submission does work. It’s not fun or great but for those who don’t have a great network, it is all you have.
    - djcapelis 6y ago

dehrmann 6y ago

Completely agree; the scattershot approach is really only good as the basis of a clickbait blog post. They would have been better off spending two hours per day doing leetcode, then just a few technical interviews. My last round, I refreshed my memory on algos and did a bunch of leetcode, had two onsites, got an offer from one. I didn't "wander" into anything, but I did plan it out so my effort would be more effective.

JimTheMan 6y ago

I think that pattern of advice is good for so many situations ie: - Don't ask people who date a lot about relationships, ask long term happily married couples about their habits