Going beyond ‘do you know of any open positions?’ | Hacker News Reader

Going beyond ‘do you know of any open positions?’

dewanahmed.com

94 pointsmooreds122 comments

Correct. Here’s a pro-tip that also applies at work, when you email your manager: make it as easy as possible for the person to help you. If you ask for an intro to someone, write an email that is ready to be forwarded, as is, and already has all the context that the person you are trying to reach would need. So manager or relation just has to hit forward, type a little note to their contact at the beginning of the email, and they are done.

I used to feel kind of queasy about this strategy -- writing what you want someone else to send, and basically just asking them to cosign it -- but it is both shockingly effective, and usually kind of a relief to the person you're asking.

When I do this I always preface it with, "hey here is an example of what you could send... feel free to copy-pasta or ask in whatever way you want". That way it isn't as icky feeling.

Yes! Make sure it is clear that it is a helpful suggestion and not the exact text you need.

You are also helping them by reminding them of exactly what skills you want or what you bring to the table, which may jog additional details loose in their memory.

I’ve written virtually every reference letter I have ever received for myself.

And I was asked to do so. Usually within 5 minutes they acknowledge receipt and send it.

Yes, this. I have written literally every letter of recommendation I've had myself, because every time I've asked for one, the answer was "write it up and I'll review and sign it."

I learned it from an early age while I was finishing my BSc: I needed some "referral" letters from professors that I have worked with. They all told me to write something in Word, print it and they would sign it (it was back in 2001).

A tip to stack on the tip you provided: you know you’re going to need these references down the road, so ask for them when your peak performance is fresh in your professor’s mind. Throw them in a folder and pull them out when you suddenly need a reference.

Nah, that doesn't work. Most reference collection mechanisms are online now and require the professor's email to generate a fresh referral at the time of application. This is to prevent fraud of course, which became very prevalent.

Sounds like a great problem looking for a blockchain solution.

The prof signs it once, you keep it forever.

It may not work well for you; I cannot dispute that.

This methodology works (very well) for me. Perhaps I do not submit references to people who think I am lying directly to their face, or perhaps you have tried this in a low-trust environment where it was not allowed.

Good for jobs, bad for schools, basically.

Wow, snark much? I assume you are young.

Once you graduate and start working in your chosen field, those reference letters will be out of date in a few years, as propective employers don't give a hoot as to how well you did in your 2nd year data structures course. If it's for grad school, then it will be as I said in the vast majority of cases: A direct request soliciting feedback to the faculty member based on credentials you provide.

You have assumed poorly. I’m about fifty and I’m a lawyer. I have also worked in tech. At every stage of my career I have collected letters of recommendation and used them to obtain my next certification or position. I’m not sure what to tell you at this point other than to mention that making assumptions is not a great habit.

I don’t know too much about “grad school” unless you consider law school graduate school, and then I can assure you that zero direct requests soliciting feedback from any faculty member were made during my application process.

I admit that very occasionally someone wants a directly submitted recommendation. When this happens, I email the old recommendation to the old recommender and just ask them to resend it.

Like anything else, you get more traction if you make it easy for the other person.

I see most of those open-position LinkedIn posts as lazy cries for help rather than legitimate job search strategy. People swarm and post good reviews of the person as a coworker/employee, but it’s a waste of time. Sympathy is not worth a damn, no matter how many people tell you that you deserve a great job.

Chris Rock said something similar to my attitude: a person waiting on the side of the road with a broken car isn’t getting help. A person pushing their car on an exit ramp will get people to help.

Here are better job hunting strategies:

* Connect with anyone (just spam connect requests). You can easily have 5,000 connections. This looks good to people who take a cursory glance at your profile.

* remove anything on your profile that could be a potential liability for your future employer: no attitude, no rainbow emojis, no flags, no political statements

* embellish your resume and work history. If you’ve read a tutorial on a technology, you list it.

* start applying for anything you might qualify for. Interviewing is a skill and a process you have to get used to.

* Set your status to Open-to-work, open accounts on Monster/Dice/Blind/Indeed and start talking to headhunters/recruiters. Reach out to the big players (TekSystems, Robert Half, etc) as well as the smaller shops and see what they have.

* Personally ask or DM your friends for leads and references.

* search for “inurl:careers <your role or industry>” and find open positions to apply for anything

If you can’t get a job after following this advice, you’re doing something wrong.

> * embellish your resume and work history. If you’ve read a tutorial on a technology, you list it.

This seems like not a great idea.

It works when you’re being filtered on keywords. A competent C# software engineer who has worked with web tech can list Blazor, ASP.NET MVC, or even PHP if they understand the fundamentals of web dev. Let’s not kid ourselves, most of these frameworks and web languages are very similar.

If you’re actually desperate for a job, you’ll take what you get and rise to the challenge.

Then you endup with 12 take home tests in a variety of frameworks that all require mental energy needed elsewhere

Double edged sword. In every job I've had, there's always been at least one coworker who makes a point of probing items on a person's resume - even if it is irrelevant to the current job. If the person doesn't have more than a bare minimum knowledge of the topic they claim to have experience in, it is an automatic disqualification.

A lot of people really don't like resume embellishers.

You don't have to put in your resume though. Still dubious strategy, because you might be getting more irrelevant positions advertised to you because of that

We send a self assessment form (which is pretty much "here is list of techs we use, judge yourself on how good you are on them" before recruiting and ask candidates near-only of things they say they are good on the resume or that form.

Soooooooo many bullshiters

Do you make them type a number or is it free flowing text?

A scale of 1-5 is really not helpful. A 2 for me maybe a 3 for you, etc. I prefer being explicit and writing text to indicate what/how much I know.

I list anything I've completed more than a tiny amount of paying work in. Maybe leaving something off if I think it'll hurt my chances, comp-negotiation, or get me shunted to shitty projects. Otherwise, if I got paid to do it, and shipped, it goes on the list.

However, I can barely "hello world" without mistakes or consulting references in any language I've gone more than a week without writing. So if I only listed languages & such that I'm ready to take a quiz over at any given moment, the list would always be very short. I'd miss a lot of job opportunities. Guessing that'd get me DQ'd from your process, but taking the alternative approach of only listing the very-small set of things I'm ready to work in right this second at any given time would surely have had very bad consequences for my career.

I think there is a careful balance that needs to be met between what HR wants to see and what hiring manager/peers want to see. I was mostly lucky enough lately that most of my recent positions were direct referrals to hiring manager, which meant I did not have to hunt for keywords or anything silly like that, so I could get away with my resume/linkedin looking understated.

In my experience, TekSystems (an IT hiring agency) have proven to be a waste of time. Even if you manage to secure a job through them, be prepared to sacrifice a significant portion (10-30%) of your potential salary, as they'll deduct your hourly/salary pay as a finding/employment fee. I'm not sure if this is common practice with other recruitment companies but I find it to be very scummy

This is not customary. In fact I've never heard of it for placements. A broker for consulting work might take a finder's fee, but never for regular employment.

Way back when, like in the 1950s and 60s, employment agencies might take a percentage. The shift to more contract work, where the percentage is baked into the billed rate vs. what they pay, has ended this.

> just spam connect requests

Tons of great tips in this comment

I have ~5000 connections, I get hit up for jobs and collaborations every week.

If you’re not playing the game willingly, you’re still playing the game.

I'd have assumed spamming requests and accepting all the incomings would mostly just lead to even more recruiter spam, and that anything else coming through a network so-grown (jobs, collaborations) would be extremely low-value (why would people offer high-quality opportunities to people they don't actually know? Unless they're desperate, which is itself not a great sign, right?)

Is that incorrect?

I have found well-paying freelance and full-time positions recently (~4 months ago) using this exact strategy. I assume that being active daily on LinkedIn will help push your profile to the top (algorithm-based results) over other profiles.

I put my LI profile to "open-to-work" on Monday and had three requests for interviews from various companies/entrepreneurs by Sunday.

The next week, I had at least 4 inquiries about my job status and interview availability. After the 1st two weeks, my email inbox was full of potential jobs/recruiter spam, which I sorted through and followed up on.

I'd agree about most being low-value leads, but getting your resume out there seems to attract all sorts of companies. Sure, I don't want to be a QA or SDET engineer, but my resume helped attract opportunities that I would have followed up on had I been more desperate.

You also have to assume that most recruiters are lazy and are doing the shotgun strategy as well.

Interesting. Thanks for the very-complete response—may have to change up my LI strategy.

Some of this is good advice, but I definitely wouldn't advocate embellishing your resume in this way. You're going to waste a lot of time on the phone with recruiters exploring roles you probably are not a good fit for. Also if I contact you because I'm looking for a FOO expert and you actually only read a blog post about FOO, you immediately lose credibility with me. Very low chance of it turning into a job.

IMO it's better ROI to get as specific as possible about the BAR role you are looking for and then put in the effort to do these things:

1) really workshop all the text on your resume / LinkedIn to make it clear you are seeking BAR opportunities

2) connect with people who are working on BAR or are BAR-adjacent

3) (if needed) think of easy things you can do to bolster your BAR credibility (small side projects, read a book on it, etc).

If you can do these things you automatically stand out because most people seem to lack introspection about what they want and also communicate poorly.

Doing this also will improve the ROI you get from your own network, because people will be able to more easily understand what you're looking for when thinking about the opportunities they know about.

Bottom line though: If I read over your profile, is it obvious you are actually good at X and seeking Y? It's amazing to me how many applications I see that communicate nothing about what the candidate has accomplished or would like to do next. A keyword spam resume is getting the circular file if it hits my desk.

If you have no friends, discuss it with ChatGPT.

> Some of this is good advice, but I definitely wouldn't advocate embellishing your resume in this way. You're going to waste a lot of time on the phone with recruiters exploring roles you probably are not a good fit for. Also if I contact you because I'm looking for a FOO expert and you actually only read a blog post about FOO, you immediately lose credibility with me. Very low chance of it turning into a job.

I think it depends on whether you already have a job you're OK with vs. if you're unemployed and have N months until you're living in your car.

I've been unemployed with a family and burning through a very small savings account. When you're in that situation, "finding a good fit" is not a priority. Getting an offer letter from any company by any means is the priority. Embellish and spam. Knock on physical doors if you have to. Let the company decide whether you're a good fit. This is one of those unfortunate "don't hate the player, hate the game" realities.

I understand the scenario you are describing, but I still don't think running around like a chicken with head cut off is your best strategy. Thinking about how to convey your value and targeting work you are well-qualified for will convert into a job much more reliably than spamming and claiming to be something you are not.

what does BAR mean in the context? couldn't find the acronym when searching

It's Foobar. See:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar

I think the idea is “BAR” is the opposite of “FOO”, it doesn’t actually stand for anything, it’s just “bar” jobs you actually want, rather than “foo” experience you list in your resume.

thanks!

Do what you want with some of those tips, maybe not necessarily good advice. But if you're searching, try these search queries replacing `%s` with your desired role(s):

``` search_strings = [ 'site:boards.greenhouse.io %s', 'site:jobs.smartrecruiters.com %s', 'site:jobs.lever.co %s', 'site:.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com %s', 'site:icims.com inurl:jobs %s', 'site:careers.peopleclick.com %s', 'site:apply.workable.com %s', 'site:jobs.workable.com %s', 'site:apply.workable.com %s', 'site:.taleo.net %s', ] ```

Most of those ATS systems are super annoying. I actually give preference to employers using more modern systems that have up to date user experiences, but regardless, it doesn't hurt to scrape and search all the big ATS players.

> embellish your resume and work history. If you’ve read a tutorial on a technology, you list it.

I'm going through a huge pile of resumes for a role I have open this week and these are getting thrown out immediately. I have no interest in reading through 6 pages of bullet points with keywords bolded. It's tacky, too information dense, and doesn't call out what you are actually good at nor how you've applied it.

I think the 'correct' (from the perspective of getting an interview) approach would be to personalize your resume to include skills that are called out in the listing, even if you've just read a tutorial on it. Not to list a ton of irrelevant skills.

An example would be if you had 5 years of experience in AWS and only a few tutorials of GCP for experience, but the listing specifically wants GCP skills, you list it.

Not a case where you have 5 years of backend experience and start applying to senior frontend positions because you went through a React tutorial.

This is an ironic post about what not to do, right?

Offer better advice, then.

We live in a world where you can either compete or wonder why no companies want anything to do with you.

“Fake it till you make it” is a good strategy when you have to pay bills.

* Don’t spam people with LinkedIn connection requests. No one cares about the size of your network. Maybe if you know someone they know they’ll ask them about you, but that doesn’t work if it was connection spam in the first place.

* Be human. If you’re posting toxic stuff online, you’re going to have a bad time regardless. Rainbow emojis aren’t toxic. Flags aren’t toxic.

* Do not embellish your resume and work history. You’ll only be wasting your own time when you get rejected after every screener.

* Do start apply for anything you might qualify for. Interviewing is a skill and a process you have to get used to.

* Do not reach out to TEKSystems and Robert Half. Those are garbage recruitment firms. If you want to work with a recruiter, at least use a good one (ask your network or not-fake LinkedIn connections for recommendations if you must).

* Personally ask or DM your friends for leads and references. Be careful not to spam people you don’t actually know.

> no rainbow emojis

So it's not possible to be openly gay and hire-able?

I mean, sure, that must be true for some companies but I wouldn't want to work at those anyway.

edit: on second read, this might come off as more aggressive than I wanted, and the rest of the post is pretty good, but this part just stood out to me

No, the point is to look like a good candidate who won’t start a Slack pronoun campaign while delivering garbage code. For some companies, that outward presentation of identity and politics will be a deterrent. Do that stuff on your own time.

My advice is how to get a job when you need one.

How do you be gay "on your own time"? How do you be a they/them nonbinary "on your own time"? My co-workers sometimes have a picture of them with their opposite-gender life partner in their profile pictures... they are clearly bringing that heterosexuality to work. One of my most productive team-mates is a man who keeps an image of his wife and kids on his desk, even!

Why did you bring up the garbage code thing? The poster and the original poster said nothing about your actual capacities as an engineer.

People bringing any aspect of their weird home lives, hetero or not, on LinkedIn is just embarrassingly unnecessary at best. The idea of me declaring my heterosexuality while postering my CV with a photo of my wife and I embracing on the beach would never cross my mind, but inexplicably it happens all of the time.

This has nothing to do with your individual sexuality. Everyone looks ridiculous being overtly personal on LinkedIn.

I hear what you're saying, and the issue is that the photo you're describing would not be considered controversial for most people, even on LinkedIn. Lots of people have wedding photos, or photos with them and their spouses, and people don't bat an eye.

But, for someone who is gay, by mearly showing a picture of themselves with their husband they'd be "declaring their sexuality", and being "overt"; They don't have to say anything more. Their _existence_ is politicized, and that's the problem.

And when we say "don't show rainbows", or don't show anything that can be linked to LGBTQIA, we're really saying,

"You can't do these otherwise non-political things, because just being who you are is still politically charged". We're better than that HN.

Believe me when I say a middle aged white conservative guy posting Jersey shore photos of his third marriage on LinkedIn is precisely an example of what I deem to be outrageously ridiculous on LinkedIn.

I feel like you're giving away your stance here with the "weird home lives" comment in relation to being openly gay. And I don't mean that I want even more personal stories to LinkedIn, but posting vacation pictures is hardly equatable with posting a hardship story about being gay in the workplace.

Being heterosexual is a privilege since it's the norm, so you don't have to worry about it. Being gay on the other hand can be dangerous, even life threatening depending on the country.

What? Weird home lives are LinkedinLunatics posting themselves working from pools and their backyard writing pseudo motivational blogspam. And countless other acts of WTF.

You're projecting on to me right now.

You specifically said this which I maybe latched on to a bit hard.

> The idea of me declaring my heterosexuality while postering my CV...

But based on your answer you are also making a delineation between "blogspam" and for example someone posting a story about discrimination for being gay (for example).

But the thing is that the original poster did not say not to put a picture of your spouse up on LinkedIn. It explicitly says nothing rainbow i.e. gay. It reads very "there are only two sexes, male and political".

Also, a photo of yourself during your wedding is not a "weird home life". That's like the maximally normal home life thing. I think it would be flagrantly out of bounds for someone to tell a co-worker that their wedding photo is "weird home life" stuff and to keep it at home.

Edited to add: I don't really have anything against the advice of not putting your personal life at work. i.e. photos of kids, spouse, vacation pictures on linkedin, etc. I'm just confused why apparently only gay people can't do it according to OP. That's so bizarre to me.

I agree with you no one should be singled out specifically. I extend the idea to all people!

Bring it to work, not to the interview.

Once you're hired feel free to do whatever, but leave anything controversial off the interview.

And yes, your linked in profile is part of the interview.

Again: what do you mean by "leave anything controversial off the interview"? Why is gay the controversial thing? I'm 100% fine with saying "leave all your personal stuff out of your linkedin", i.e. wedding photos, vacations with spouse, pictures of your children, etc. But why ONLY the gay people?

Not "being gay", but "being a campaigner".

None of my multiple gay friends have ever displayed a rainbow on their profiles.

They are, however, openly gay on their profile.

No hiring manager wants to deal with drama, so it's not just rainbows, it's literally anything that that has a campaign and political force behind it, like Trump pictures, BLM links, climate change, conservation, nuclear power...

You reading the word 'ONLY' when one example is proffered is a problem in your end.

Have you actually asked your gay friends if having a rainbow on your profile makes you a campaigner for the gays? If they've felt personally campaigned by people with rainbows in their profile?

I literally don't understand affiliating rainbow emoji with pictures of actual political candidates or an actual explicitly political activist name.

I also don't understand saying climate change, conservation, or nuclear power has campaign/political force behind it. If someone had something to do with nuclear power in their profile I would just assume they worked in energy??? I am not reading politics into this at all dude...

> I literally don't understand affiliating rainbow emoji with pictures of actual political candidates or an actual explicitly political activist name.

It doesn't matter that you don't understand it, the idea is to get the interview over other candidates who focused solely on presenting the value they bring, and at the interview, landing the job over other candidates who are also focused solely on the value they bring.

You may not understand why hiring managers tend to avoid candidates who display non-work-related activism on their CVs, but that's just the way it is.

I agree. The world is messed up, but it is what it is.

I have a connection on LinkedIn (garnered from the spam connect campaigns I talked about previously) that talks about his MtF transition experiences as well as the struggle to land a job. No one cares enough to do more than post "You go, girl!" and move on with their day. Good advice would be to tell this person that LinkedIn is not the place to talk about your bottom surgery, vents about potential unsympathetic employers, or your struggles to find a partner. A good hiring manager would check social media for any red flags, and this public venting is a HUGE one.

> For some companies, that outward presentation of identity and politics will be a deterrent.

This is correct, if unfortunate.

>A good candidate who won’t start a Slack pronoun campaign while delivering garbage code

This is vile and slanderous.

You:

>a good candidate doesn’t care about that LGBT stuff

Me:

>a good candidate cares about that LGBT stuff

Call it a different worldview or whatever, but I don’t mind making my profile/timeline suboptimal for anti-LGBT people.

Otherwise it’s just the LGBT folks in my network engaging all by themselves, and it’s a lot harder to ‘other’ and exclude people with vocal allies.

And yes, it’s 100% about engineering. I can engineer under awful heat/noise etc conditions, but if I was being dehumanized and excluded, my performance would suffer a lot more.

> who won’t start a Slack pronoun campaign

Are people on HN getting railed at work with pronoun campaigns? We had one and it was honestly _the easiest thing in the world_

"Hey Daft, can you add pronouns"

*15 seconds later

"Done!"

What's the honest holdup with making the work environment more inclusive to non-binary or fluid people, there are a _lot_ of them. We already call people by their preferred titles, preferred nicknames, why the hangup on pronouns?

Nothing wrong with it, but why would a manager prefer to interview a campaigner for FOO over someone else, all else being equal.

The advice is how to get a salary when you need it. Take off anything even slightly controversial.

What do people on HN mean when they say

> Campaigner for pronouns?

Specifically, in a concrete day to day sense? Asking for the smallest of efforts, the most minimal of inclusive actions, in the form of "putting a pronoun on your slack profile" doesn't really feel like a _campaign_ to me. We've spent more time here talking about it then it takes to add it to the profile during the "campaign"!

> Asking for the smallest of efforts, the most minimal of inclusive actions, in the form of "putting a pronoun on your slack profile" doesn't really feel like a _campaign_ to me.

Do you disagree with the statements:

    The advice is how to get a salary when you need it.
    Take off anything even slightly controversial.

???

Anyone campaigning, or proud of campaigning, on their CV will get fewer callbacks. It's unfortunate but true.

Openly gay != in everyone’s face writing preachy DEI memos and forcing pronoun campaigns

Essentially, don’t advertise that you might bring drama to the workplace.

Some people are always looking to pick fights and create drama (they can be gay, straight, whatever) and employers screen for this personality type.

I feel like you skipped a couple steps between "showing a rainbow", and "bringing drama to the workplace", there's nothing wrong with having a rainbow on your profile, and certainly nothing to suggest that the person would be insufferable, unless you're implying that by the _nature of being gay_, they're more likey to be insufferable? Which, honestly, is bigoted.

Edit for no half measures on calling out bigotry

> _nature of being gay_, they're more likey to be insufferable? Which, honestly, is bigoted.

Ha, wow.

Please reread my comment. I’m discussing how an excessive virtue signaler may be viewed by potential employers as someone who creates drama.

Unfortunately for all of us and because of people who are so trigger happy with them, words like “racist”, “bigot”, “transphobe” etc no longer have much meaning at all.

You're correct in that you didn't use those words, and it's fair to state that; I do however stand by my comment. What underlies my rephrasing of it into that form is this:

> Openly gay != in everyone’s face writing preachy DEI memos and forcing pronoun campaigns Essentially, don’t advertise that you might bring drama to the workplace.

The points you're listing (DEI, pronouns) are efforts to _address_ people who _are bigoted, but you word it in a way that makes it seem _bad_, using words like "preachy", "force" to describe what's really pretty low effort asks on the part of businesses towards it's employees to be more inclusive.

To put it bluntly, how is asking to _not misgender_ someone "a campaign" or "virtue signaling"? How is asking to reduce biases against people of color "a campaign" or "virtue signaling"? You're right in that you're not saying things like "insufferable", but you're specifically choosing to callout certain items, with certain phrasing, and the common denominator in all those are _minorities_.

Now you might make a rebuttal referring to something of the affect, "It's not about the content, it's about the _fact I have to participate in these activities_", and that very well may be a genuine response. But why, of all the things we _have_ to do at work, which are so much more insufferable and draining, are these the ones you take issue with?

Literally if the OP didn't bring up not putting rainbows it would've caused 0 drama, but now you have a bunch of people asking wait why are we calling gay people political.

I certainly wouldn't hire anyone that creates drama like this.

You could replace "rainbow" with "Ukraine flag" or "Russian flag" or NY Yankees logo and it would still hold to be true. Someone will find an issue with anything about you, so why even post it?

Be a cog in the machine and be employed, or be an unemployed individual that whines on LinkedIn.

> You could replace "rainbow" with "Ukraine flag" or "Russian flag" or NY Yankees logo and it would still hold to be true

This _is_ the issue, making these "equivalent". Here we're drawing equivalencies between posting "the flag of a country interlocked in an international proxy war" with posting a "rainbow flag which LGBTQ people use to create solidarity, to feel normal, and not have their existence deemed controversial in the same breath as, amongst other things..." an international proxy war!

I don't think the point is to be found in one's sexual orientation. The thing is the rainbow emoji can communicate much more than that due to how it's used by conservatives, unfortunately. Some people may turn your application down simply because you have a rainbow emoji in your bio and they've heard conservative bullshit about some inexistent LGBTQ+ lobby that wants to chemically castrate every single child on this planet.

People are dumb. Better be safe than sorry.

I'd rather not work for companies that consider being gay a red flag....especially since I'm gay.

Yeah, I gotta agree with the other poster here. If the person is interpreting "rainbow emoji" as a signal for "gay people bad", that seems like a company you definitely wouldn't want to work for, considering they _wouldn't recognize your basic humanity_.

What's most wild to me is that here, on hackernews, people are saying "Don't give _any signal_ that you're gay", and making that seem comparable to other actual controversial things on your profile.

Some good points but 3) is terrible advice. If you list a technology and I use it frequently, and if I can tell you added it for the sake of padding your resume, that is going to weigh on my decision pretty heavily.

I value honestly over bullshit.

This is the shotgun approach, right? In our field, you will quickly be participating in 10+ hiring process and it'll be a nightmare.

> * embellish your resume and work history. If you’ve read a tutorial on a technology, you list it.

I've learned through experience to never list something on your resume you don't want to get asked about in an interview. If you're comfortable saying "I put down C++ because I read a tutorial" that's fine. As a former hiring manager, my reaction would depend on how much I needed you to know C++. If it was a C++ job, it'd be an immediate no. If it was tangentially related, maybe it's okay.

> * start applying for anything you might qualify for. Interviewing is a skill and a process you have to get used to.

Sure, but get used to no replies or no interviews. That's not a bad thing to get used to, but playing the numbers game isn't usually successful.

Here are some ways to stand out, esp if you are a new dev: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2022/09/19/ways-to-stand-...

How is someone suppsed to be able to make any slight career changes then. Go all the way back to being a junior developer becasue they happened to have python or java jobs instead of cpp?

It's not really a "slight" career change to switch languages (especially if you're transferring to a new company) though there seems to be an unfortunate trope that it's quite trivial.

The effort involved also depends on framework, business knowledge, stack side and a whole lot of other factors, it's not always (or often?) the case you're just swapping in one language for another, and even this latter "simple" case is often a significant undertaking.

That doesn't mean you've got to drop a rank, but it does mean you have to be prepared for the possibility or be able to explain what exactly you are bringing to the table that justifies the money over a competitor applicant who can hit the ground running.

Or learn the new language in your own time and contribute to open source to establish competence you can demonstrate if you don't have the opportunity on the job.

Here's how I'd do it, in increasing order of difficulty (using C++ as an example):

* make the career change internally. Shift to a different department or help with a project using C++. Gain skills without changing companies. You're a known quantity and should have some social capital to make such a move without taking a salary hit.

* target companies/jobs using <tech you use> + C++. Leverage your <tech you use> skills.

* contribute to something non-trivial built in C++; this is the open source path. Start with low hanging fruit (documentation is great!) but build up your C++ muscles. Then you can point to that during interviews.

* do a startup and select C++ because it is the best fit for the job. I did this with rails and a startup. I had minimal experience in rails, but after evaluation, it was one of the best tools for the job (SaaS webapp). Afterwards, I was a lot better at rails. (This is hugely risky and can also lead to 'expert beginner' status, but is an option.)

100% of "does your company have any open positions" requests I have received are answered with "take a look at the careers site and let me know if something is a good fit, and I'll refer you". There's really no other way to do it.

The author recommends this resume builder [1]. Everything I've learned about resumes tells me that this style will not be taken seriously— which makes me doubt the veracity of the rest of his post.

Am I wrong? Do hiring managers like to see this style of resume?

[1] https://novoresume.com/

Here's a scanner, https://www.open-resume.com/resume-parser

You can also build a resume with it (and you can self host it if you want)

@rovr138, thanks for the pointer. I've updated the post and replaced the previous option with this one.

I've been told by recruiters directly that the multicolumn layout style can mess up applicant tracking systems, so it's best to go with the standard format. It looks boring, but it won't cause the system to reject your resume because of extra spacing or formatting.

@drBonkers, you're correct about multi-column resume not to be the best option. although I've used the resume generated from NovoResume to get into multiple big tech companies and startups, I agree that a better template is the one from Google Docs --> Resume template. I've updated the post and replace NovoResume with Google Doc resume template. thanks for the note.

> although I've used the resume generated from NovoResume to get into multiple big tech companies and startups

Interesting counter point. Thanks for the tips!

I've gotten some complements for my resume's layout and it's basically the exact opposite of that.

It's based off of some latex template that looks roughly like this: https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/cv-template-using-t...

My CV is styled as a manpage and always seemed to be well received by technical interviewers. I’m not sure how successful it would be with recruitment agents though.

The first time it landed me a job, I eventually went to introduce myself to the CTO and he said “oh I know who you are, you’re the guy with the manpage CV”.

I'm not a hiring manager and never been on the interviewer side of interviews, but I'm gonna try to elaborate on OP comment, as I'm of similar feelings about most templates - they try to be memorable/standout or focus on wrong things instead of simply being informative and straight to the point

allocating a literal third of space to a self-rated list of skills is kinda bad move, it might seem like you're trying to be honest but to me it speaks ego problems, and that you're too focused on tools instead of solving problems at hand. I would much rather prefer having skills/tech used listed together with each job

imo the most important info on resume is

1. work experience (pet projects/contributions to open source if you're big nerdo)

2. location/timezone

3. name and contacts

Oh interesting, I recognize like 3 or 4 of these CV templates from current candidates, haha. Curious to know where they come from.

But on topic - as an admin or developer, style just doesn't matter to me beyond an initial notice of "This looks nice" or so. To me it borders more on a good sign if I can recognize that someone just shoved something through asciidoc to get a PDF.

I much rather care if the CV is put together well and doesn't look sloppy. We had one CV come in that had just broken formatting - linebreaks in headings inside words, typos and such. That's not a good flag. Like, if you can't care to move a linebreak in a CV 8 characters earlier for the same overall space used, what'll you do with critical production data?

And beyond that, the focus in CVs to me is to be easy to skim. A good CV allows me to look at the positions for a minute or so and I can get an initial idea that they're a good fit for something the team needs and I should spend more time on this candidate.

But that being sad, the CVs I got based on novoresume minimalist or elementary were on the good and effective side.

Everyone in recruiting and hiring has a different opinion of what makes a good résumé—formatting and content, both. Many of these are mutually exclusive. You can't realistically know which set of preferences you're dealing with before you submit an application, so you've just gotta hope that whatever you've picked doesn't get your application round-filed for arbitrary reasons. Even if you hire a genuine pro to put it together, the result's gonna make someone roll their eyes and toss it in the trash.

(then, of course, there are cultural differences between countries re: how a résumé should or should not look, but that's another matter)

[EDIT] My point is that it's entirely possible this style is loved by some readers, and hated by others. Any (reasonable) formatting or content you pick is going to impress some readers while turning off others. It's dumb, it's frustrating, it's inefficient, it's unfair—but that's how it is.

I think some things are subjective, I personally dislike colour, multicolumn layouts and those arbitrary scales of skills (4 out of 5 stars nodejs!) things. But I appreciate that it's an opinion and some people might like that.

But I think you should never put your picture on a CV. I think it just puts you at a disadvantage, you have no idea what unconscious biases people have when reviewing CV's. Definitely not worth the risk.

In many countries of the western world your CV will be thrown into the garbage bin if you don't have a picture.

Wow, i had never considered including a picture to a resume, it just doesn't sound right. My resume seems to have been working so far.

Can you elaborate which parts of the style you feel "will not be taken seriously"? It looks like a pretty standard resume to me.

> I hope this message finds you well.

As an American, I find this a very odd way to start an email.

It always makes me think of Civil War letters or something.

> I have a big favor to ask, and I truly appreciate your time and consideration.

This also seems like too much, and too early in the message. Leave the "thank you" for the end.

As an American, none of that sounds off to me at all. It's certainly formal, but that's appropriate.

Those two read a bit "Indian" to me; that is, like English that someone from India would write. Something similar happens when someone from my country (Mexico) writes an email/letter: You usually have to read it from the middle to the end, because the first half would be just fill-up text.

Curious to hear more on "Those two read a bit "Indian" to me" :)

How would you start a conversation with a stranger?

``` I want $something

EOM ```

for some folks, filler sentences are a sign of politeness.

Introduce yourself and ask your question.

Dewan,

Hi, this is bluedino, we've spoken a few times on Hacker News. I saw that your company has openings for QBasic programmers on their website, do you know anything about this position? I'm interested in applying and would love a referral or introduction to the hiring manager/team leader if that's possible.

Appreciate your time, BD

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/babu

> The term babu English is a disparaging name for a florid, overly polite, or unidiomatic variety of English historically associated with Indians who have limited proficiency in English.

The "I hope this message finds you well" is also potentially an indicator of ChatGPT influence, as for whatever weird reason it very often starts "Write a letter to X about Y" responses with that phrase.

"Do you know of any open positions?" is asking someone else to do an unknown amount work for you.

"Can you introduce me to the hiring manager so I could ask some questions?" is asking them to do a specific small favor.

"Can you implicitly endorse that I will do good work for your company?" is asking them to lie on your behalf.

> a specific small favor

And risk their reputation if you aren't that good.

There is a gradation from people who will tell everyone they know that the most hire you if they can, to people who will finally cough up a name with the request that you not mention their own name.

Depending on their opinion of you.

> Utilize job search tools: Make use of LinkedIn’s robust job search features to find relevant positions

I LOL'ed

What's your preference? Glassdoor? Indeed? Pls let me know (with data) if those job search engines are significantly better and then I can update the post.

Some anecdotal data for what it's worth: I've applied to many (hundreds probably) opportunities on Linkedin, Indeed, Hacker News, and Wellfound (Angel.co).

Only applications made on Hacker News and Wellfound lead to offers and jobs! Meanwhile, my applications made on LinkedIn almost never even get a reply.

My preference is HN's Who's Hiring monthly thread or specialized job boards (e.g. WeWorkRemote and others). At least those have real jobs.

LinkedIn is full of spam, position that have already been closed, open positions that are used only to gather contact info, desperate recruiters, startup founders looking for a lead, etc.

The most grotesque I've seen on LI was a few companies posting separate jobs for each major city in the country in order to attract candidates that might be looking for positions in those cities (the "real" position was somewhere else).

The signal-to-noise ratio in LinkedIn, Glassdor, Indeed is too high. Last time I was looking for a job, I tried them and it was a complete waste of time.

> Pls let me know (with data) if those job search engines are significantly better and then I can update the post.

Please contact me in private to discuss my hourly rate.

I agree LinkedIn is not the best job search tool (e.g.: it doesn't allow to block stuff I don't want like blockchain and Web3).

But is far from being the worse. I gave up on Google Jobs, it is unusable.

Same reaction. LinkedIn Jobs is a joke. Reaching out directly on the platform has more value.

Beyond personal networks, I'm curious what's working for people in 2023?

Levels.fyi seems decent

Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/11n2ruy/...

A related pet peeve of mine is when people use the subject/title/first-message as a useless statement of intention or a useless greeting, sometimes made very annoying by futile efforts to communicate urgency. For example, an email where the subject is “question”, a slack message that just says “hi” and absolutely nothing else, or a Reddit post who’s title is “[very urgent] hi I have a question pls help”. More often than not, the question is ill-informed, lacks any meaningful context, with the author either disappearing or frantically answering follow ups with “idk”.

If you’re going to request/demand someone’s time, at least do them the small courtesy of communicating clearly in the title/subject (for search and visibility), and be prepared to demonstrate that you put in effort. If they are unsure what question, they are free to ask what kind of question is appropriate or what might be a good way to think about a problem.

Uninformed queries or requests that demand the helper(s) to think on behalf of the asker are insulting to the helpers time and usually demonstrates willful ignorance and entitlement.

The 20 minute networking meeting has lots of thoughts on this kind of thing. Many linkedin gurus talk about this too.

Frankly I find these sources overfit their experience a log and are far too dogmatic bit there are still some good insights.

This may be of use too: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2022/09/05/how-to-find-co...

I love the point of this post. There's so much information available now that just asking "do you know of any positions" is, frankly, lazy. People want to help, so help them help you by targeting your questions.

“what are you qualified for”

I’m a hard worker willing to learn and just need a chance!

ok, you and everyone else buddy, if you think that’s unique its because your crowd and support system was even less qualified, so just ask your friend’s parole officer for open positions because they know where to send their parolee

Thanks for the constructive feedback; I've updated the post based on some comments. If anyone needs a free resume/LinkedIn review, send a DM: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diahmed/. Only heads-up is that all of my reviews are posted as public LinkedIn post.

What's the H1B version of this? I'm not from India.

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