Job Hunt

I promised to talk about my job interview process last week, so I’ll get right down to it. I’ve been seriously job searching since May of 2016. Since then I’ve submitted 56 resumes, completed 20 interviews with 8 companies, and turned down 2 (bad) offers.

I’ve also experimented with a lot of different techniques. I’ve tried military headhunting companies like LucasGroup, Cameron Brooks, and Orion. I eventually stopped working with them because only Orion has prospective clients in the Northwest. I’ve tried job boards like Indeed.com, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, Monster, Dice, and AngelList. Right now my batting average is about 5% with them, that is 1 interview for every 20 applications submitted. That’s even after I used resume keyword tailoring to each position using jobscan.co (awesome website, by the way). If I truly went with the ‘spray-and-pray’ method the response rate would probably be an order of magnitude less, but I can only hypothesize at this point since the few that I have sent unvetted have gone unnoticed. I’ve been to two different job fairs, one with almost 100 companies and one with only 5. Both of them were garbage. I went all out for both with business cards, 32lb 100% cotton resume paper, as well as suit and tie. I didn’t receive any offers to interview (or even replies to my emails) afterwards.

Through that experimentation I’ve learned alot though. Namely:

1. Specialize! Even though it means fewer jobs, it also means that you can focus on a particular field of expertise. Before I specialized I’d study the SQL question I got wrong in the last interview just to get jabbed with a memory management question in the next interview. Now that my scope is narrowed, the scope of possible questions is too. Achieve an ‘All-Star’ rating on your profile and change your position to ‘Seeking Full-Time Employment.’ The first part puts you higher up in the search queue of employer searches. The second shows that you’re open to offers to interview.
2. If a recruiter contacts you on their own initiative, even if the job is outside of your chosen specialization, go with it! At worst it’s a guaranteed opportunity to sharpen your interview skills. At best, it’s a connection into that company to seek positions that you’re really passionate about.
3. Go to Meetups in your area. For the Seattle Area I’d recommend Seattle Tech Mentors, Seattle Tech Interviews, and Dev Bootcamp Seattle. They all meet regularly and are outstanding resources for someone with no organic network to leverage. I’ve already made a lot of personal contacts as well as several interview opportunities through them. Have a failsafe backup plan. Right now mine is enrollment in a software development bootcamp. They’re pretty common in major cities and the best ones offer a moneyback guarantee for job placement in your chosen field inside 3 months. The peace of mind of having that contingency plan keeps you from accepting a bad offer out of desperation.

PERSONAL NOTE: Companies interviewed: 3 interviews with BrighterBrain, 3 interview with BAH, 3 with Eagleview, 2 with AWS, 3 with Amazon, 3 with RCG, 2 with Tech Qualled, 1 with Accenture.