Job hunting while day-jobbing (2021)
code.maiamccormick.com
code.maiamccormick.com
I have a suspicion this is another factor contributing to lower retention rates across the industry. Before the pandemic, if a recruiter contacted me I would have to weigh all the benefits of the role against the hassle of interviewing, including figuring out how to leave the office discreetly and potentially block off consecutive days. Now, it’s trivial for anyone to schedule interviews during hours without meetings.
Effectively, the bar for accepting an interview loop from a candidate’s point-of-view is lower when they are fully remote.
On the flip side, if you’re fully remote and find it difficult to job hunt while working, then that’s a good reason to leave! Your role likely isn’t giving you enough autonomy.
On top of that, each individual call/interview takes up some adjacent time to schedule + prep and occupies your headspace until it happens.
And then the resulting offer isn't even on par with your current comp.
It's almost as if the entire thing is designed maliciously on purpose.
1. Ex-coworker or recruiter reaches out with an opportunity that sounds interesting.
2. I ask for comp range and make sure it's acceptable (50%+ increase).
3. I go through the interview loop and get an offer
In there have been maybe 3-4 short recruiter calls that went nowhere for fit or comp reasons. In my life, once I got to the tech screen stage I have gotten an offer 6 out of 9 times.
Is this other people's experience as well? Maybe I have just been extraordinarily lucky?
Anyway, my main point was that I have found inbound job requests from recruiters or referrals to have a very high success rate.
My recent job search was more like 8 -> 5 -> 3 rather than the 100 -> 10 -> 1 in the parent comment.
Don't take a call just because the recruiter asks for one. They're just trying to extract as much attention from you as possible because they think extracting lots of attention from you is a positive signal and increases their chance of closing the deal.
Ask for comp upfront. Only go forward with those who disclose comp in your desired range. This will eliminate 99% of the wasted time in your job search, if you're not doing it today.
Imagine the following...
- Recruiter outreach is filtered / summarized.
- Recruiter phone screens are scheduled for you, batched together.
- Your assistant pre-screens for basic preferences: remote, salary, company size, role scope/level.
- Interview loops are scheduled for you.
- Receive a packet of spaced repetition exercises (optional), digest of Blind/Glassdoors messages, compensation data from the company/industry/area.
- Negotiation practice, coaching
In my experience, "forwarding this to my assistant for scheduling" is a power move.
Some of above is handled by agency-style recruiting (Cybercoders) but the quality of those leads is on the low end. The high-end recruiting agencies focus on the employer side of the equation. Feels like there's an interesting gap for a service focused on a highly-skilled candidate's side of the equation.
I know of one guy who was a consultant who had a dedicated agent to handle this stuff for him. Which lots of consultants get their jobs through agencies who match consultants with companies anyway, so it just seemed like a natural jump up to this level for him.
On the other, I get sort of a bullshit-job vibe on this, in the sense that it would an entirely new type of professional invented just to paper over inefficiencies in an existing system.
Is there a way we could improve recruiting across the industry that would make this sort of specialised PA unnecessary?
(Asking not just hypothetically -- it could help me design sensible recruiting processes.)
So using assistants would be one way to make using assistants unnecessary.
The recruiter with good matches asks for meeting time, salary, you figure it out reply. In this scenario assistant does that. Do you think recruiter is supposed to talk people into meeting at inconvenient times, interviewing for jobs with salaries below what they require? I think none of these things make a difference to the recruiter whether you provide the information or the digital job filtering agent does it.
Leetcode and system design prep take up the overwhelming majority of job search time. (Hundreds of hours - months of nights and weekends) Then the interviews themselves come second. I did something close to 200 hours of interviewing for my last job search (including some dozen onsites which were all 5-6+ hours). This is hugely time consuming… spending a half time spamming some websites is hardly that difficult in comparison.
And yes, I had to finally take time off of work to accomplish this. I usually take PTO to do this or just quit my job outright or get severance to help as well. (All the above sometimes)
I don’t expect any less than 10 onsites for any job search regardless of tenure.
This is definitely a pain, 100%. I've read as many as 90-95% of messages some engineers get from recruiters don't include comp at all within the outbound, it's a shame! On top of that, it's many times impossible to understand anything deep about the company, what projects they have going on, information about the team members you'd be working with etc. Recruiting, and job descriptions in general, can do so much more than they do today and actually be an asset to engineers instead of time drains.
Also helps to take a few days off here and there to get it all done, even if you're working remote
> if a recruiter contacted me I would have to weigh all the benefits of the role against the hassle of interviewing, including figuring out how to leave the office discreetly and potentially block off consecutive days.
I wonder if remote working and remote (long-distance) relationships are facing similar challenges—maybe more "serial monogamy" (lower retention), "cheating" (secretly working for a second company or consulting), "polygamy" (openly work for multiple companies at the same time), "open relationships" (allowed to take consulting gigs and side projects on top of one's job), or just "dating" (freelancing instead of being exclusive with one company).
I really wonder how much the technology environment enables or pushes us towards these types of relationships, professional and romantic.
I booked a small meeting room during work hours for an interview, but as I was about to enter I noticed my boss was already in there. I guess he didn't check the schedule.
Panicking, I had 2 minutes until the interview and nowhere to take it. I ended up going into the office gym and doing it on a bench while someone was running on a treadmill in the background.
Funny times, I ended up getting the offer too.
I fucked one up by being 5 mins late - aka 50% gone. Lesson learnt haha. No I didn't get to the next step with them.
If they're your friends, you celebrate getting the job with them. Don't tell them the plans beforehand because that is just opening yourself up for problems. And you do end up looking a bit worse if you keep trying to find new places but not getting anywhere.
(Not to say to distrust your friends; it's just that people chat naturally. secrets never remain secret for long.)
I actually found my new job on stack overflow while i was searching for something while at work. I applied, had a month long interview, and I only told my friends when I was up to the final stages of the interview. but we were a cynical bunch and we were all lamenting to leave, so they enjoyed the idea of the place falling apart after I left.
I also told them a few of my failures earlier in the year, so they knew what i was up to, but they often didn't have specifics that someone else in the company could try and pin me by.
It's not like you're cheating on a partner. You are expected to maximize revenue.
Yes the ideal state is having employers who can take attrition on the chin and root for their people on the way out the door, and yes those kinds of employers exist.
The opposite is also real, and acknowledging the former doesn't preclude the latter: I and judging from comments, others have also been in the kinds of shops that will cut someone loose for interviewing even for a second job when the first isn't providing the hours or income they need, and I and I presume others have also given whatever amount of quit-notice and then immediately been walked out the door even after expressing a willingness to stay aboard, finish up $project and help the team transition well once we leave+.
So I can respect the ideal state while acknowledging some people have completely rational trepidation about who they share this kind of status information with.
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[+]even though I personally think quit-notice more often than not, but certainly not always-often is a disservice to the person quitting
If you really have noone outside of work to talk to && need to then get a therapist, or a dog, or COD warzone buddies
1. You lucked your way into a role that you're completely unqualified for
2. Your employer will use this information to expedite the process of termination (that began prior)
Unless you're in big tech, your employer will beg you to stay if you mention interviewing elsewhere. And if do have a name brand on your resume it will magically float to the top of the list.
Everyone who is in business should be interviewing (on some side of the table) all of the time.
Unless your contract specifies duration, you are entirely within bounds to interview at any time, even after your first week at a new job. Anyone who finds fault with it is viewing you as property, not a vendor.
This is our one life we have, and we’re supposed to just throw away our time on this earth for companies that are a bad fit, at least a year.
And yet my former employer had no problem laying me off with zero notice.
I’m going to preach against overlooking short tenure candidates as strongly as I can wherever I go. Quality, well-managed companies with top benefits packages don’t have issues with employee turnover.
Only the mismanaged dumpster fires have those issues. In my experience they’re the ones who make the biggest stink about resume tenure during the interview process since their daily reality revolves around that cycle of employees joining, finding out the place is shit, and leaving.
It just doesn't quite sit right with me because the company has really been quite good and I like the people I work with. The extra money also wouldn't really enrich my life all that much. But I feel like I'm doing something wrong by not interviewing every week and trying to squeeze the last drop of wealth out.
Sure, you don't want to chain together a whole bunch of those. But I see so many resumes that are a string of 1 year + 1 month, and I know they only stayed because of cliff vesting. It's not 1993 anymore.
Sometimes someone up and quits without saying anything (and that’s their right), but I think it’s more productive if we can have a real conversation about the situation and maybe we can change something or maybe we can’t.
The very worst that I’ve done knowing someone was looking was not putting them onto a long project that would require substantial personal commitment to accomplish if I knew they were looking. Otherwise, no impact (and even there it made their departure easier on both sides).
I think at most I would be extremely vague about declining a project like that.
But I see this as very context specific. I was confident that this would work out well in this case, but can easily imagine situations where it would not. I don't mean this as universal advice at all.
Those conversations should have started way before the person even started looking.
Really depends on the employer and on how much they want to keep you and how willing you are to stay there.
People change positions fast in this industry, so keeping on good terms with coworkers you respect can be good later when they have moved on and are looking to hire.
I’ve been through too many layoffs as participant and spectator to have any concern for the difficulty of transitions. Here we are encouraging employees to plan out their departure months in advance, but my employer has no problem sending out “if you got this email you aren’t fired” bulk emails. My two week notice is generous in comparison, and I can guarantee that the transition sure won’t be difficult on my end.
And while our EMs are surely nice people, they have no power to enact real change in the majority of organizations. They have no say over budget, headcount, and often their cries about misguided priorities are ignored.
In other words, if your VP and Director are the wrong people there’s no amount of planing or negotiating that’s going to save the situation. On to the next one.
Coworkers? Maybe not. But my manager? Certainly.
Makes his life easier, allows him to plan accordingly and (in at least one case) throw some juicy new project at me that makes me rethink a 20% raise.
Also, there's no need to burn bridges on your way out[1].
[1] My last place, my manager knew about my first interview at a FAANG, he knew about my second interview, and then he knew about the offer they sent.
All-in-all, he knew for about 2 months that there was a possibility of me leaving. We're still good terms right now.
You never know what kind of obligations your manager has to deal with that situation. They might be required to send that info up the chain.
I’m also strongly against the slightest implication that the standard two week notice is burning a bridge. It absolutely isn’t. All it takes is one layoff life experience to see why two weeks notice is more than enough courtesy.
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> You never know what kind of obligations your manager has to deal with that situation. They might be required to send that info up the chain.
What you're saying is that it might have a negative result. You're ignoring that it might also have a positive result.
It's a trade-off, with the risk that your manager will take an opportunity to sacrifice you to the organisational gods for his own benefit.
You gotta ask yourself, if your manager is willing to throw you to the wolves, why are you still working there? After all, if they are willing to hurt you for simply job-hunting, there's a lot more they would have done to you over the period of your employment.
OTOH, if they've never done you in before, why are you so sure they'll start now? If they have broke your trust before, then sure, you have evidence to support a secretive approach. But if they have never done it before, then all your evidence points to them not doing it now.
To get to be a manager, they must have demonstrated more networking skills than average. I doubt that they are going to pollute their network just for kicks; all the ones I've worked with mostly attempt to expand their network of contacts, not shrink them!
> You never know what kind of obligations your manager has to deal with that situation.
True, I don't. But my managers in the past, when told that I am looking, never sent the info up the chain, even when I knew that they were obligated to.
I've been working now for 24 years; only once in my career did it come as something of a shock to my manager that I had found a new job.
More importantly, I can’t really put my finger on any kind of potential positive result for the employee.
In my mind if you “do the math” on that situation, there’s no reason to ever reveal your intentions except in extraordinary scenarios. There’s only downside and slim to no upside.
I think what you describe is kind of like betting on red and black at the roulette table. Sure, you’ll get your money back most of the time, but if you ever hit 0 or 00 you’ve gone bust, and you can never do anything besides get your money back. There’s essentially no reason to bet at all.
Also, keep in mind that so many people work for actively terrible management and can’t just instantly rectify that. Not all management comes into power off of merit like you suggest, many are members of the family business or friends of the director/VP. In that scenario, to answer your “why are you still working there?” question, the answer is “to put food on the table.”
Also keep in mind people are unlikely to just blurt out that you are out interviewing, especially if they are a trusted person. They might want to tell management that there's a number of people looking to leave and they should do something about it if they want to keep people.
Of course try to weigh the pros and the cons. But don't keep it private unconditionally.
This is good advice, but do not try to predict the question in advance, just tell a story you were going to tell anyway. Meaning, you should have 3-5 stories about accomplishments you made or problems you solved, stories you can reel off easily in 1-2min without uhh-ing to remember details, and when they ask a "Tell me about a time when..." question, just pick whichever one comes closest and tell it.
I recommend seriously considering telling your boss you are looking. Don't do it if you are at all hesitant, but ideally it fits in with career conversations you're already having.
And it definitely saved me a lot of embarrassment when an interviewer leaked that I was looking to my coworker, who immediately told my boss. That's not supposed to happen, but tech is small and people know each other.
I seriously recommend _against_ this. Except in very particular and situational cases. If you decide to do anyway, be prepared to ramp up your job search, you might need it sooner than you anticipated.
No, you won't immediately get fired because you are looking. Probably.
However, this sets a flag in your manager's head. You are a 'flight risk', so they need to start preparing for your departure, even if it doesn't happen. This has the potential to start all sorts of gears in the larger machinery.
There aren't many upsides of disclosing early in the process, and many potential downsides.
However the usual notice period is around 4 weeks before each quartal end, miss that, and have to be around yet another quartal, unless HR and the boss agree with letting you going earlier.
But either way, the good thing about “at will” work in the US is giving two weeks is often a courtesy. If I didn’t have respect for my colleague and boss I’d consider giving them even less notice.
I had to use my paternity leave to find a new job. if that didn’t work out I was going to quit after leave and continue looking full time. I made a lot of sacrifices and thankfully it was worth it in the end. But I realize so many folks can’t make such sacrifices.
So I think writing like this, which explicitly spells out the ways in which this person “violated” these silly social norms, is good. It can kind of give people permission to do something they already know they should be allowed to do.
Certainly, it's a shame that there's no short-term unemployment benefits for those who want to leave a job and commit full-time to finding a new one for a few months, while recovering from burnout or just resting.
really? I've had over a dozen jobs but never had this. Suprised by 'most'.
Probably 8 of the 10 places I've worked at.