Ask HN: Job searches don't have to suck, do they? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Job searches don't have to suck, do they?

5 pointsLanceJones3 comments

We're working on a 'Hipmunk' for hacker job searches, and we'd love to hear from this community about what's important in a job search.

What drives your search? Is it 'job first' or 'company first'?

We can imagine job/company location is pretty important, but what about understanding the customer problem the company is trying to solve? How important is that to you in your search?

What about the day-to-day perks of working for an organization (e.g., 4-day week, choice of hardware, free lunches, etc.)?

Would information about a company's success in the market (as much as can be shared publically) be highly relevant to your search?

And finally, how do you discover what great new companies are out there to work for?

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It varies a lot between hackers.

Someone working in say the financial sector or in gaming is much more likely to want to move within that sector than say someone working on web design where industry is secondary to technology.

Also location has a big impact how some searches for a job, someone in SF or NY who has a wide range of options is more likely to be picky about multiple factors, while someone in a tech backwater is much more likely to care about company success (as losing your job is much more serious) but may also be willing to travel much further to work.

There's also a lot of factors which relatively few developers care about (4 day work week, whether the company will allow you to work on open source projects in your own time) but the developers who care about them care a lot.

I run a developer job board in the UK so I obviously spent a fair amount of time thinking about these things :)

If you want to chat feel free to drop me an email, happy to share advice from my own experience.

Factors for me in order: * Location (or telecommute options) * Pay range * Problem space * Perks/benefits * Other

By location I'd generally mean what's nearby me, but secondarily, if I was ever considering a move, that target destination would obviously come in to play.

Pay range - I really need to have an idea about pay scale/range from a company. It's really annoying that more companies don't offer a range up front. It might attract the wrong crowd, perhaps, but it might also help people be a bit more realistic about the value a company places on them.

Problem space is less important to me for a couple reasons. I've worked in a range of domains over the past 16 years, and have found I can adapt to most problem domains, and am generally equally happy in all. I don't have a huge push to be in telecom vs education vs retail - the problems each industry face can be as interesting as you want to make them.

Perks - they're nice to have, but I'm not driving 2 hours per day just for a free gym membership. They've never been a deciding factor for me. 401k contributions - nice, sure. I've generally never pursued 'jobs' in such a way that I had 3-5 offers at the same time, so I'm not sure how much of a deciding factor they ever would be, but I think the other factors would generally outweigh most perks.

1. Location (I currently commute at least 2 hours a day) 2. Pay and Benefits (Married, 2 kids, house) 3. Work environment / culture (Hardest part to determine*) 4. Perks (Coffee, gym, flexibility, etc) 5. Everything else

I feel that understanding the problem space comes lower in the list of factors for me. I might be more inclined to work in a tech focused company but if factors 1-4 above are met at a company that works in agriculture... well then give me a straw hat, some overalls and I'm in.

The one thing that sucks for me is gauging the company culture. Phone or face-to-face interviews just don't cut it. And unless you know someone who works at the place it's difficult to get a good idea of what the place is really like to work at. I wish I could watch a video of people just working at the place. Show me how the meetings go, show me how you guys deploy code, show me a developer working on something, show me what happens when an issue in production comes up. ~ There's an idea, video job postings!

How do I discover great new companies? Search, search, search, interview & ask questions, talk to developers, go to meetups and talk to the people there, blog, tweet, hope something interesting somehow makes it in front of my eyeballs.

Oh and one other tip (not my site): http://dearrecruiters.com/

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