They asked for a reference from my previous CEO.
I had left on good terms (gave 4 weeks' notice) and was incredibly professional while working with the previous CEO, so I got a glowing reference. If I had been an ass, it'd be unlikely I'd have gotten such a great reference and got this job. ~6 months later, we even scored my previous CEO as a customer.
The tech world is SMALL. Especially if you niche down career-wise, it's possible to find yourself in a situation where only a couple hundred people worldwide have the same expertise as you. At that level, people would instead work with people they know or have strong references from people they know.
The friend is a programmer. He used to work in CGI, gained a reputation in animated film, and decided to leave it. People he had known for years convinced him to apply for a role in gaming. He wasn't a typical candidate, but the insiders he knew vouched for his skills and volunteered to onboard him, so he effectively switched industries.
The family member is a nurse. She holds an NP with a midwifery specialization. She was based in a large Western city and couldn't land a job for many months after she got her license. Every clinic wanted someone with 1-2 years one the job experienced.
When she finally applied for a role in the small mountain town where she had done her clinical training, the people she had interned for put their reputations on the line with the folks hiring at the clinic. The job offer documents were ready before she walked out of her interview.
These people are both conscientious and hard workers, but they were each making a leap of sorts. One to a new sector that also needed his skills, and another starting her career and in need of a couple years training post diploma. In both cases, people who had the ear of the hiring manager staked their repuations so that they would be hired.
Connect with them on the LinkedIn desktop web app and include a personal note how you’re interested in the role.
I have had a lot of success-maybe something like 30%+ interviews from the cold outreach.
Worth noting I was targeting early stage startups who are more likely to engage with any interested candidate. These folks are also more motivated to talk with you - they are literally posting hoping that it will happen.
For more mature companies apply through LinkedIn was actually fruitful for me too, but I had to be eagerly watching and ready to apply within the first few hours of posting.
You can also toggle on that you’re looking for a new job and recruiters should ping you if you have the right stuff in your profile - which is really just “software engineer” and use the keywords.
Good luck!
One with all the robot text at the top with all the keywords for easy parsing by their automated services.
The next page should be a colourful tour through your life, that showcase your skills.
First one gets you through the door, and the second one makes you stand out.
It is also not that my CV sucks because in 2020 and 2021 I was sending out my CV and was getting calls or replies the next day.
Additionally, depending on how desperate your search is, you need to be honest with yourself about remote work being a requirement. Ideally you shouldn't budge on it, but the reality is that capital owners have the leverage now vs a few years ago, and you have to play the game. But I would only budge on this if you absolutely need a job asap.
2. Do a first aid course if you haven't done one. Out of two otherwise equal candidates, a first aid cert is a nice tie-breaker. Or a "how to use a fire extinguisher" course.
3. Go lateral. It's easier to get a job when you have a job. I found work as a medical receptionist/IT guy. Now they have a wiki, dynamic PDF forms, better typography, Open Office, spreadsheets for time-sheets, text expanding software, and on-the-ground tech support for paper jams, etc.
I'll even acknowledge that someone told you that you were not permitted (by whom, and on what authority?).
O/wise, after many years in Australia your statement sounds sketchy.
eg: In NSW:
Ensure installed fire equipment is suitable for specific fire risks at your workplace (eg foam or dry powder type extinguishers for fires that involve flammable liquids, Carbon dioxide extinguishers for electrical fires).
Install signage so people can find fire equipment quickly and identify what type of fire it can be used on.
Nothing about only trained people can touch the extinguisher.
It's still great training to know the various types of extinguisher, and how to correctly operate one. It's not as simple as "aim and press trigger".
It sounds much more like a job site policy that trained staff must exist and that they must be the ones that respond first (to use the correct extinguisher, etc) .. but it's difficult to imagine actual rules forbidding on pain of penalty (firing, fine, jail) an untrained person to step up (in the absence of any trained person being present, etc).
I'm in and from WA, although I've travelled a great deal, and here there's a lot of encouragement to have St John's Ambulance training, to take fire safety courses, to join SES and local volunteer fire brigades, etc. and I've never yet heard of any such rule as if your not trained, don't touch an extinguisher.
Also only happend like two times in my experience
Also why would any company care if you have a first aid course.
The world is more complicated than always/never.
But never underestimate an in-person appearance. An resume is easy to chuck in the bin, a person is less easy to dismiss.
To put it another way, with ten years experience a hiring professional might reasonably wonder why you are cold applying rather than working through a professional network. Or at least networking into the company org-chart before applying. [1]
And because any public job listing is going to be fire hosed with applications by people scraping, the hiring professional's job entails saying "no" on more than 99% of applications.
Therefore finding reasons to say "no" is mostly what they are going to do for very practical reasons. You might be a diamond in the rough, but being in the rough is almost certainly a good enough reason to not move your application forward in a saturated channel of applications.
Good luck.
[1]: If you identify someone within, reaching out and asking for an "informational interview" is a way of opening a conversation. An informational interview is where you can find out what a company is looking for in candidates. You need to be fly fishing, not chumming.
Contact everyone you've worked (or studied) with before that you'd at least consider working with again, and say something like "Hey Jabbs, I enjoyed working with you at [name of place], I'm looking for a new opportunity, are you/is your employer hiring or have you heard of any opportunities that might be a good fit for me? Thanks etc"
Looking for work is a slog, but send out at least ten of those a day, until you run out of people you can remember; and hopefully you'll get something moving.
Going forward, try to make sure to keep a list of people and contact information you work with that you'd like to work with again, on personal equipment/accounts, so that you can network more easily in the future.
They are a way of meeting someone on the inside.
1. Applied for the job within 30 minutes of the recruiter reaching out.
2. Replied to the recruiter, requesting a quick phone call the next day.