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Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

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Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#61

Post by smartbit »

hasenj wrote: post #38
moron4hire wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're focused on the wrong thing. The resume comes way too late in the job acquisition process to really matter. The vast majority of jobs are filled through networking, not applying cold with a great resume. You need to work on meeting people in your field, at the companies where you want to work. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Go out to meetups. Be a friendly, helpful person. Make friends, lots of them…

I always hear this, but I've never been hired through networking, nor have I ever seen someone hired through networking. I suspect that to be more the case in very large companies. Luckily I have never worked in one.

I pivoted my career and got hired through networking (active attending meetups)

Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#62

Post by robot »

Great question. One way is to learn abstract skills such as managing others and finding and executing the critical path to a solution.

If you have these skills you can apply them to different software stacks or technical problems. A high-level and decent understanding of the subject is sufficient.

Steve Jobs had no expertise building computers.

Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#63

Post by groby_b »

moron4hire wrote: post #12
tristram_shandy wrote: post #7

Don't write anything on your resume that would indicate "number of years experience" -- list your jobs, explain key achievements, don't distill anything down to a number. Your resume should NOT explain who you are, or go into real specifics -- it's an advertisement for you, as simple as that. If they want details, they'll have to schedule an interview. Once you have the interview, you can talk about your experiences,…

You're focused on the wrong thing. The resume comes way too late in the job acquisition process to really matter. The vast majority of jobs are filled through networking, not applying cold with a great resume. You need to work on meeting people in your field, at the companies where you want to work. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Go out to meetups. Be a friendly, helpful person. Make friends, lots of them…

I still doubt the "networking" part.

I've got my first job in the states because a recruiter called me. Same for the second job. The third one was through being acquired. The fourth one, you could call networking if you call showing up for a recruiting event networking. 5th one? You guessed it, recruiter called. Sixth one? Yep. Exactly.

Before that, I worked in Germany. 1st job, applied cold. Second one, applied cold. 3rd one, applied cold. 4th one was working with a friend, so there's that. 5th one, applied cold for contract work, converted into a job. So half networked.

So, if we're generous, 2 out of 11 were networking.

As far as I'm concerned, work on the things you care about, build your skills, and when you switch jobs, make sure it propels you forward in some way. If you're a social person, by all means, enjoy meetups/meeting people because it's something that works for you. But don't force yourself to yet another meetup just because everybody says you should.

Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#64

Post by caseysoftware »

infinii wrote: post #43
quuquuquu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Also, don't say you're 'pivoting' yout career. Just don't." I tend to find such polemics unhelpful. Usually when someone tells me "just don't", I end up really wanting to know the mechanism behind what is causing such a stern warning. For example, if I asked someone, "should I jump out of an airplane with no parachute",... and someone says... "just don't, because unless you have lots of luck and can defy lots of la…

Startups "pivot" because they failed in some way. Pivoting your career can be construed as having failed somewhere and needing to find something else. In the context of a career, phrase it as evolving your skills to match market demand. The very people who "pivot" resonate with will immediately associate it with failure.

Pivoting sin't because they've failed. It's because the path to their goal has changed or isn't what they previously thought. Basically, they're adjusting to new information (market, industry, etc) just like the rest of your definition.

Yes, it's an overused term but it's NOT a sign of failure.

Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#65

Post by groby_b »

Nope. If you're a senior developer, you're a senior developer. You've developed the thinking skills you need for that level. Places that need very deep experience in a very specific technology are quite rare.

One of the skills you have as a senior dev is that you can come quickly up to speed on a new stack in whatever your field is. You understand the underlying problems, learning the new incantation to make things work is comparatively trivial.

Note: If you entirely switch fields this does not necessarily apply.

Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#66

Post by abstractbeliefs »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #19
acangiano wrote: post #10

Four suggestions: 1. Don't obsess over the specifics on an ad. See if the role is in line with what you have to offer, but don't worry if you don't have the exact number of years of experience they request or one of the many skills they added to what it's essentially their wishlist. 2. Provided you have a solid foundation with some standard skills like JavaScript, Python or Ruby, etc, specialize in a relatively new s…

Re: #4. I currently live in a city that has virtually no tech scene. I work remote and my office is a thousand miles away. What are some ways to get a similar experience, but online? I don't particularly like social networking online (in person, sure!), so I've never tried looking into tech related social scenes.

IRC: get online and talk to people on freenode, the experience there covers both project related and social aspects.

It won't make your city any less dead, but if you get online and help people with what you know, and learn from others, you'll certainly make friends.

Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#68

Post by stephengillie »

quuquuquu wrote: post #33
tristram_shandy wrote: post #7

Don't write anything on your resume that would indicate "number of years experience" -- list your jobs, explain key achievements, don't distill anything down to a number. Your resume should NOT explain who you are, or go into real specifics -- it's an advertisement for you, as simple as that. If they want details, they'll have to schedule an interview. Once you have the interview, you can talk about your experiences,…

>"Also, don't say you're 'pivoting' yout career. Just don't." I tend to find such polemics unhelpful. Usually when someone tells me "just don't", I end up really wanting to know the mechanism behind what is causing such a stern warning. For example, if I asked someone, "should I jump out of an airplane with no parachute",... and someone says... "just don't, because unless you have lots of luck and can defy lots of la…

Pivoting is the new failure. It casts you in a bad light, like putting a reason for leaving as being fired. Additionally, pivoting means you're trying something new, and this is less valuable than having experience in the job. It means you'll have to spend a lot of the employer's time (money) messing around, making mistakes, breaking things, etc - as is necessitated by learning.

Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#69

Post by infinii »

TheTrueTDF wrote: post #60
infinii wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups "pivot" because they failed in some way. Pivoting your career can be construed as having failed somewhere and needing to find something else. In the context of a career, phrase it as evolving your skills to match market demand. The very people who "pivot" resonate with will immediately associate it with failure.

They are pivoting because they don't want to fail. They maybe made a mistake or the market changed, acknowledged it and took action based on this information. For me this is not something negative at all

I agree with your comment except the last sentence. Negative or not, I think it's a poor choice of word to use in the context of a CV/career.

When interviewees are asked "So why are you looking to move from your present job?". Saying that you need a new challenge sounds very different than "needing to pivot".

Re: Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack

#70

Post by sidlls »

groby_b wrote: post #63
moron4hire wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're focused on the wrong thing. The resume comes way too late in the job acquisition process to really matter. The vast majority of jobs are filled through networking, not applying cold with a great resume. You need to work on meeting people in your field, at the companies where you want to work. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Go out to meetups. Be a friendly, helpful person. Make friends, lots of them…

I still doubt the "networking" part. I've got my first job in the states because a recruiter called me. Same for the second job. The third one was through being acquired. The fourth one, you could call networking if you call showing up for a recruiting event networking. 5th one? You guessed it, recruiter called. Sixth one? Yep. Exactly. Before that, I worked in Germany. 1st job, applied cold. Second one, applied cold…

I still get recruiters randomly messaging me. However they're all looking for someone to move laterally, not up. This wasn't the case when I was more junior. Much like salary I find myself wondering if there isn't a limit to finding new opportunities without networking.
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