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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

#91

Post by bryanrasmussen »

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.

it can be construed that way, but it can also be construed other ways. Perhaps how it is construed acts as a filter on who you want to work for.

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

#92

Post by dnautics »

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'm working at a place where I don't know anyone who was hired except through networking.

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

#93

Post by alkonaut »

Don't apply for jobs that have a laundry list of technogies you should be experienced in. Look for positions where they realize that tech will change every year and people will need to learn. That is the kind of place where they don't see you as replacable labor that needs to deliver on day 1 because they expect you to be gone within a year or two. Find a place that hopes and thinks you'll be there to see a few tech stacks come and go.

A broad technology such as having experience with "databases" or "functional programming" or whatever might be appropriate, but if an ad says "need N years experience with Framework-X" etc. then run away.

If your first contact with the company is a non technical HR person screening you for the appropriate buzzwords: also run away.

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

#94

Post by martijn_himself »

milofeynman wrote: post #20
jorgemf wrote: post #17

What do you mean to pivot you career? It is not the same moving from front end development to backend development than from front end to data scientist. If the pivot is "highly overlaped" you can try to pivot in your own company, as it probably does both things. If it is something where your past experience means nothing then you will have to start from scratch for the new career. But probably you will progress faste…

I'm at a small, dying startup doing Xamarin mobile development and I'm looking to pivot out of xamarin/mobile and into web and data. I am learning online and doing a side project on github, but I don't have experience making this kind of transition. I've thrown on an infrequent job application not expecting much and gotten 0 responses. So I am curious what others who have made that sort of transition do to get notice…

What made you want to pivot from Xamarin? Did you find there is a lack of opportunities, or do you dislike the technology? As someone who is looking into moving to Xamarin development I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

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

#95

Post by palerdot »

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,…

Ideally this should be the flow in having a job conversation. This will clearly lead to better fit for both the employer and the employee. Unfortunately, most of the real world jobs ask for some kind of number as experience, even though they know that the number does not directly translate into anything meaningful.

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

#96

Post by martijn_himself »

alkonaut wrote: post #93

Don't apply for jobs that have a laundry list of technogies you should be experienced in. Look for positions where they realize that tech will change every year and people will need to learn. That is the kind of place where they don't see you as replacable labor that needs to deliver on day 1 because they expect you to be gone within a year or two. Find a place that hopes and thinks you'll be there to see a few tech…

I think this is one of the most sensible replies. You only need to look at a HN 'who is hiring' thread though to see these kind of companies are pretty nonexistent.

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

#98

Post by kbart »

eugenoprea wrote: post #72

I am going to write this from the perspective of a potential employer. Personally, I don't look at the years of experience someone has, but at the projects that the person worked on and how good that person is at answering some technical questions (to weed out people that lie about their experience and knowledge). If you are good at what you do, then have some projects to show your expertise. And there are a few opti…

"1. help a non-profit for a lower pay or even for free 2. contribute to open source projects 3. create a project of your own where you can show what you can do"

What's wrong with projects from previous full-time jobs? My most complex and interesting projects were done during paid hours and since I usually was the only person working on these projects, I can proudly call them "mine", despite being owned by an employer. From the perspective of an employee, if you demanded to have non-paid projects I would thank you for an interview and say "goodbye", even though I have some of these.

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

#99

Post by martijn_himself »

eugenoprea wrote: post #72

I am going to write this from the perspective of a potential employer. Personally, I don't look at the years of experience someone has, but at the projects that the person worked on and how good that person is at answering some technical questions (to weed out people that lie about their experience and knowledge). If you are good at what you do, then have some projects to show your expertise. And there are a few opti…

I think any of these things (1, 2, 3) are commendable, but expecting any of them is like only hiring a plumber if he has completed any good plumbing projects in his spare time.

I find it completely bizarre this has now become the standard in hiring software engineers.

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

#100

Post by EnderMB »

jonahx wrote: post #42
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…

The reason, at least to me, was implicit: Because the word itself is a signal of bullshit and is likely to raise flags for many people doing the hiring. There isn't anything more concrete than that. YMMV. In this particular case, it rings true to me.

My thoughts exactly. Software development in general is a high-bullshit career, so I think anyone involved in either building software or hiring people to build software is going to have an extremely well-tuned bullshit detector.
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