>that most jobs in fact have no associated ad
so what should he do then; go into google maps and drop off a resume at every nearby engineering firm?
so what should he do then; go into google maps and drop off a resume at every nearby engineering firm?
It isn't difficult to meet people who have authority to hire people. Go to meetups/tech events/conferences in your area. Demonstrate value; ask people if they/their firms are hiring or if they know anyone who is. Some people who go to meetups/etc do not have hiring authority, but they often know who in their organization does -- ask them for a warm introduction.
There exists a series of tubes between every engineering candidate and every firm which hires engineers. It isn't like there is a Super Secret Hacker News For People Who Actually Hire People. Same HN. Same Twitter. Same email (probably your best bet for a cold contact). Same phone system. Same Github.
(Passively adding stuff to your Github is a low ROI way to get offers. Find a project managed by your target company, fix a bug or send them a pull request, then try to escalate to a discussion with a decisionmaker in engineering -- coffee or a Skype chat or whatever.)
Disclaimer: I'm a subscriber on your mailing list, watch your videos, etc.
In terms of why that doesn't make a huge amount of business sense for me:
1) I'm pretty busy (and behind on current commitments due to illness), so adding a new product line seems like a poor decision at the moment.
2) In general I would prefer to go up the value/sophistication chain rather than going down it. No offense to people looking for their first job or a career upgrade, but the amount you're willing to pay for that is not nearly the amount of money a software company CEO will pay for a $X million bump in sales, and I know I can successfully deliver that in at least some form factors. It's also likely worth less than nailing my response to this RFQ from a hospital chain for telephony services. (I write for non-monetary reasons, too, but things have to catch my fancy for that and job searches mostly don't.)
3) I'd generally prefer to talk about things I have experience in doing rather than things I don't. While I can do some extrapolations from experience, first principles of marketing, and things I know from industry participation, when it comes down to it I have a lot more experience selling software than I do on either hiring or getting hired as a FTE at (American) software companies.
If a guy walks in my company's lobby to ask if we are looking for engineers, I'll certainly give him an interview.