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Comment by bosch_mind | Hacker News Reader

Hang in there. I’d say your experience is pretty good. Maybe try AB testing your resume structure and wording, improving social media, etc.

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Whenever I've seen a situation with low supply/high demand, networks trump credentials

>situation with low supply/high demand

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/video/unemployment-rate...

This is definitely not the tech industry

Source?

Totally agree, fortunately I have a decent network to draw from. Unfortunately, I have to refresh leetcode to take up friends who have rec's to offer + most of those friends work for orgs that have completely frozen hiring pipelines.

Network could be better though, going to spend the week at a friend's in Austin at SXSW to accelerate potentially growing the network at cringe founder events. Yes, I'm that desperate.

For me, when hiring someone, I want to have a track record with them. Having known them over a long period of time helps me be less guarded and more sure of their intentions.

This also applies if the person is a friend of a friend — building a “network” just means knowing people who can vouch for you as a valuable and trustworthy person.

The ability to build relationships and be stable over time is a merit.

So you're looking to hire people you know and people you don't know don't have a chance to be hired? I don't know how to distinguish this from nepotism.

Not at all. But if I have to decide between two people who are equal “on paper”, and I know someone who can vouch for one of them, I will pick the “in-network” person every time.

Any suggestion for boosting that when you live in a non tech city? Spam LinkedIn cold messages

If I were you, I'd go out and talk to people. Talk to friends in the industry. Go to tech meet ups. Even your neighbors might know someone who knows someone. If you can be adaptable, and self-promote, you might even find opportunities to help non-tech orgs improve their systems. If you're like me, and social skills aren't innate, it might take some exposure therapy, but as long as you maintain a friendly and positive attitude, that will register. It's all about building trust.

I wouldn't say that networks trump demonstrated ability (I prefer that to "credentials" because that's what credentials are a proxy for), but in any economic environment, your network is as valuable as your demonstrated ability. This is for many very rational reasons.

> I wouldn't say that networks trump demonstrated ability (I prefer that to "credentials" because that's what credentials are a proxy for)

That's not what I said. To emphasize my own comment:

> Whenever I've seen a situation with low supply/high demand

In context to the GGP I was making reference to improving resumes when the labor market is over-saturated. Many orgs will sooner hire someone who's been vouched for than to sift through 100s of Github repos and contact 100s of references. They might not be as good as the best candidate in the pool, but the expense of verifying that might be too much, especially if they don't have the bandwidth to do that (e.g., HR staff, time from tech staff). And in times like these, candidates will be just leaping out of their networks.

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