I've been out of undergrad for about 8 months now and I'm working for a university doing research programming, what I've known I've wanted to do for years. It took six months of searching university job postings and applying to hundreds of positions before I landed mine, and I had to take an awful electrical contracting job for 1.5 months just to have something to do. Searching for jobs was really hard, so much harder than working, IMO. It feels like you'll never get a job until you finally do, but you never know when that will be.
Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
161–170 of 213 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#162Freelancing agencies. More specifically, Toptal, Gigster and Pilot.co.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#163I researched interesting companies in my area that were hiring and would fit my current planned career trajectory. I went to a few interviews, other went well until I interviewed the hiring manager, the second went much better and after 7 years I'm still in the same company.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could probably leverage 2-3 years at Amazon to a much better job somewhere else as a cloud guy. It is all about credentialling and other signalling, to get your foot in the door. Remember the only purpose of a CV is to secure an interview.
Yeah but that’s 2-3 years of lost earnings and respect.
Well, it depends. Any F500 hiring manager would pay top dollar for an ex-Amazon guy to work on their cloud effort, maybe not as much as a FANG but 9-5 with decent job security. If you were looking to settle down somewhere long-term it might be worth the hit.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#165I kept getting calls from recruiters. After 3 recruiters called me about the same position at this super large company I gave the interview a shot. As a senior JavaScript developer with open source projects and military leadership experience I don't really have to look for jobs. I put my resume up on places like Monster or another job site. It takes about 2 two weeks for the resume to be populated to various other pl…
> military leadership experience
Do you have a security clearance?
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#166My new job was a recruiter cold message on LinkedIn. This was pretty novel as all my previous jobs (~17 years worth) were referrals of some sort.
Mine's from a cold email I got while I was already applying.
I guess we're the reason why they keep doing this. Sorry everyone!
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#167I went to DevBootcamp in Q4 2012. We had a job fair at the end of the program and got a job at Exec (YC 2012) from it. A year later Exec got acquired and I started looking for another job. My roommate had failed an interview with Uber a few months earlier and gave me the recruiter's email. I sent an email, interviewed and got the job. I've just started my own design/engineering studio with my fiancée - most of our cl…
What do you say to the recruiter when you got his email from someone else?
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#168Got a contract job with a unicorn through one of the giant domestic body shops. Converted to permanent status after 3-4 months. I don’t think I would have been hired through the front door.
> Converted to permanent status after 3-4 months.
How did that work? Most of the body shops I've worked with have clauses in their contracts specifically forbidding their clients from poaching their contractors for a period of time after termination (1-2 years).
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#169I attended a local hackathon. I spent around 3/4 hours creating a real-time collaborative music maker (it was super basic, but pretty cool). Unbeknownst to myself, whilst I was demoing my app my boss to be was watching and my simple music maker and was rather impressed. 18 months later when a suitable role opened up he reached out to me on LinkedIn and asked me in for a chat. A month later I started.
This has happened to me before too. The owner of a company I ended up working for found me at a hackathon. Apparently he frequents hackathons to keep tabs on the local talent of our somewhat out-of-the-way city. (To note, he also actively participates in those hackathons, so he’s not just some vulture looking for prey). When I called him up a few months later to ask if he was looking for devs, he hired me on the spot.
In his mind there was no need to interview me further, since we had already collaborated and he had seen me work and problem solve in an environment that’s much more natural than, say, whiteboarding in an interview.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your current job?
#170Coworker approached me during lunch and pitched me the startup he was about to co-found. He told me I am the most talented but the most undervalued engineer there. He shows me the slide deck and says: “Help me build this. We will get the funding. And the job is yours.” That was 4 yrs ago and I am glad I said yes. To be honest, this was burning the candle at both ends. I slept on the floor of the cowork space conferen…
How is the company doing?