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Comment by Shugarl | Hacker News Reader

> At the end of the day, if you don't know these basic things about a company, why have you applied for a job there?

Because I need money, and you might be the 3XXth company I've applied to. Job hunting when there's something unappealing about yourself can be quite a pain, but rent is still due at the end of the month.

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If you're applying to 300+ companies, something is wrong. When I've gone looking for work I've talked to maybe 5-10 companies at most. Specialization and a good network of contacts makes all the difference.

Can you expand on that? Every time I've looked for a new job I've had to use the "carpet bomb" approach with my resume to get anywhere. Any time I've been out of work historically, it's taken a minimum of 3 months to find a job.

Carpet bombing can get interviews, but it tends to waste a lot of time and be relatively ineffectual. Last time I looked at getting interviews, a number of the interesting job listings were behind absolutely horrific web sites that basically require mangling all the relevant content from a resume into a web form. Ask around between a few friends and former coworkers on Linkedin and it's pretty easy to get a resume into the hands of the hiring manager bypassing all the HR filtration garbage. From there it becomes an actual two way conversation to figure out if there's a good fit on both sides.

True, but I absolutely hate having to ask my network anything. I'd gladly help them, but I despise having to advertise what's going on in my life.

It's a 2 way street. If a job or contract that seems like a good fit for someone I know, then I pass it on to them. Over time it's mutually beneficial.

I think the difference is having a network. A soft introduction, even from an acquaintance, is much more likely to get you an interview. It doesn't get you the job, you need to do well on the interview and appeal more than the other candidates, but you get the classic "foot in the door." Without that, it is a crap shoot. Another approach to the same thing is a professional middle-man, such as a recruiting agency.

I guess it must also depend on location and level of experience. I haven't had to go out of my way to land a job in 20 years, but I get not everybody's circumstances are the same. FWIW I'm not at all specialized, pretty much a jack-of-all-trades type dev, and while I do have a good network of contacts, I didn't rely on them for finding the new role I'm moving into.

Location definitely matters. Certain types of work are more popular in some regions than others. The level of trust required for landing remote work jobs also strongly leans on having good references from one's network of mutual acquaintances.

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