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All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
111–120 of 153 posts
Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#112Project yourself as a highly skilled wage slave
Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#113Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#114I've been unemployed for about 14 months since resigning from my most recent role -- a role which my close family and friends characterized as "destroying me." After becoming unemployed, with enough savings to sustain myself for a long search, I then faced a significant family trauma that required me to move away from Boston (where I had lived and worked for most of the past decade), back home to do basically full-ti…
Although you didn't ask for it; my sympathies on your situation, and best of luck with your job search. You should probably add an email or other means of direct contact to your profile, I can't imagine there's no-one reading this that aren't at least a little bit interested in talking to you about a position, or at least a consultancy.
As you're being so open - would you mind sharing a little more detail on "compensation/benefits packages that were substantially worse", or what kind of ballpark you would consider? (Just to be clear, this would be just to satisfy my abstract curiosity about the non-SV US job market - but I also think that if you post an email, also posting something along the line of "only in a position to consider compensation of 150k USD/yr and up" will head off any offers that won't interest you even before they are sent).
As I'm also looking for work right now, I get your frustration with the "Who's hiring" threads, but I don't think a low percentage match there is a bad thing - quite the opposite. I don't view those threads as a slice of the whole job market, but more as a way to discover new opportunities that look like a great fit right off the bat. For me that means interesting product, interesting stack, interesting colleagues and fully remote team. And transparency wrt. compensation is a great plus. And no requirement for a US work permit (I'd not be against relocating, but I generally think that being remote-friendly is a good signal about good processes and culture - and if a company has that, I wouldn't mind some kind of consultancy contract. Which shouldn't require a work permit).
That doesn't leave all that many. But it does leave some.
Did you consider applying to Compose? Sounds like it might be a marginal fit for you, at least. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11612085
Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#115The one thing I always tell anyone on the job hunt, which few ever seem to take me up on: Informational Interviews. These are informal "can I take you out to coffee?" talks with people in your industry to see what they are working on, what is happening with them, what is going on in the industry. Every job I have ever gotten is through informal meetings with people I have met through my network (whether its the curre…
I agree. What I do as a consulter is to make sure I do a good job (therefore I don't take any project if I don't think I'm a good fit) and then make sure that I stay in touch with my clients and some of their employees in the future. (having a lunch from time to time, or a coffee)
That's why I didn't have to actively search for clients in the last ten years. Employees switch jobs and remember me when their new employer has a project that fits my skill set.
They recommend me and I get the project. In most cases the project/position is never even advertised anywhere before I get it.
Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#116The one thing I always tell anyone on the job hunt, which few ever seem to take me up on: Informational Interviews. These are informal "can I take you out to coffee?" talks with people in your industry to see what they are working on, what is happening with them, what is going on in the industry. Every job I have ever gotten is through informal meetings with people I have met through my network (whether its the curre…
Any advice for doing this when you're in the middle of nowhere? I've heard of patio11 doing something similar via skype, but it just seems odd to invite people for coffee via skype or hangouts.
I think this is really hard to pull off. Your best chance is to work on some project that will show off your skills, even if it is your own side project and then proactively contact companies.
Open source projects might be a good idea because there you'll be working together with other professionals that might recommend you if you make a good impression.
Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#117"Do free work"
"Negotiate after you’ve started"
Terrible advices, right there.
Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've tried advice like this before, and always results in rejection to even talk or after talking a nice referral to a frustratingly useless Taleo application portal. Maybe i'm not asking the right people but in my experience talking to people and hoping for a job goes nowhere.
I hear this often, and yes it can be very frustrating to get rejections. I've done 200+ informational interviews over my career, and probably gotten turned down by 2000 requests. I wrote a post about this problem specifically a while back: https://grahamwahlberg.com/2016/03/22/informational-intervie... But summary is: 1) Are you the people you are reaching out to “warm contacts”? By that I mean is there someone you k…
> 1) Are you the people you are reaching out to “warm contacts”? By that I mean is there someone you know who knows them? If not you may want to try to start with people you already know.
So, people with already a well developed social capital are doing better of people without it. News at 11.
The point is that having this "social capital" is not neutral or random.
Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#119It's amazing, this site is more and more like reddit or Slashdot. This comment is heavily downvoted? It's punishing people for not being outgoing. More and more silly and baseless "I don't like this" downvotes n this forum.
Actually, the number of people who are comfortable to follow this advice is likely far lower than the opposite. Also, it depends on your history: As an introvert you don't have a useful network to begin with, meaning the ones that are in your network tend not to be the well-connected types either.
This is like advice from a rich guy "why don't you do it like me and make money?"
Why is it necessary for everyone to be of one personality type? Why shouldn't people be able to get a job equally easily when they don't have the network and the drive to connect to lots of people, who actually behave very awkwardly when forced to do so?
Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
#120Hi everyone, I'm the author of the piece. If you know any other good resources or statistics we should incorporate, I'm keen to hear about them. If you disagree with something, feedback is very welcome.
Hi there. I just wrote a full length guidebook on the portion you refer as "Leads". I call them "Informational Interviews". Book is available for free at and I'd love to partner with you guys to reach more people! Content here: http://www.grahamwahlberg.com/book
cool, I'll take a read