Ask HN: How to get a job in a tough market? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to get a job in a tough market?

7 pointspaul92909 comments

After having an enjoyable run with my start-up, but unable to get additional funding I am now seeking Internet professional jobs on the east coast; marketing & web design.

I wonder what tips and out of the box things that have worked for other business or technical hackers to land your most recent job?

I have sent tons of resumes out and they all seem to end up in a black hole. thnx

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Instead of sending your resume to strangers, look at your current mobile phone and any other cellphones you have used in the last 5 years; go through the address books and call everyone you find there to "catch up". Invite as many of them as you can for a brunch, coffee or drinks and tell everyone you're looking for a job.

Is it really a tough market? I worked for a marketing & web-design firm in Baltimore, and they were readily hiring and growing when I left.

You can try this "hack" that my friend tried to land a job a few years ago. He scraped craigslist job listings in his area, plugged them into a script that took the job requirements and inserted them into his cover letter & resume mad libs style.

He just waited for the responses to come in and picked the best opportunity.

If I understand correctly, your friend submitted resumes and cover letters claiming that he had skills/experience he didn't have. Is that correct? So what did he do when he got called in for an interview where they were expecting him to have certain knowledge that he didn't have?

It's possible that he filtered the postings down to those that he actually had experience in first and then inserted the particular job requirements into the resume. So every job that he'd applied to would be something he had skills for, but not every skill he has appears on every resume he sends out.

I usually tweak my resumes for the particular job I'm applying for - don't most people? So I'll downplay or omit skills that aren't relevant for the particular job, but that doesn't mean that in a pinch, I couldn't use them. For example, I'm quite capable of writing a PHP or JSF app, and would probably be better at it than the median candidate in the job market. But I left those as one-word mentions on my last set of job apps, because I really really didn't want to do PHP or JSF development. If I got desperate, though, I'd send out resumes to those firms, and it'd be nice to have a script do it for me. I only applied to 3 companies my last job cycle, so my applications were quite manageable, but somebody who applies to 50-100 can waste a lot of time with little tweaks.

I suppose that like approaching a VC firm, it usually helps to have a personal introduction. If you have a friend at a tech company, have him pass along your resume to the recruiter. If you were in LA, I could hand your resume to a recruiter at my company on Monday and you could start next week. If you emailed in your resume, you might get called in a few months.

Another way in is to have an X-factor. If you have some special skills apart from hacking, find a company that could use those skills. In my case, as a former SAT/GRE/GMAT/LSAT instructor and center manager at Kaplan Test Prep, I was a tempting choice for a PHP Programmer at one of Kaplan's biggest competitors.

Who you know is incredibly important in tough times, as byoung2 states. If you know someone in a company you're interested in, you're in a far better position to get access to an interview, at least.

Depending on your experience level and your offline personal/business network of connections, getting in on something like http://www.linkedin.com/ can be quite beneficial. It takes time to set it up and grow your network, but yields great potential in finding a way to someone inside companies you're interested in - and not just HR departments.

All said, LinkedIn isn't a short-term solution though.

This really isn't a tough market to get into, as long as you have the experience and portfolio to back up your skills. As many people as are in it right now, the market is still booming. I do a lot of sub-contracting (I'm better at B2B sales than B2C), and one of the biggest problems I see isn't getting new clients, it's finding the developers to do the work.

1. Have a strong portfolio (or build one if you don't have one already).

2. Meet people. Go to networking business events in your area. Volunteer to speak/present at events and expert panels on marketing and web design.

3. It's a numbers game. The more people you send your resume/portfolio to, the better your chances of finding something worthwhile. Subscribe to RSS feeds for industry-specific job boards, read your local papers for potential opportunities with new companies, etc. You may even finding yourself developing software that automates this entire process to allow you to spend your time working instead of lining up new work. That's what I did anyway ;-)

Thanks!

I started looking beginning of this month. After a week or two of sending resume into what felt like a black hole, I thought to use Facebook to find employees who listed they worked there; companies Fan page is best place to look. From there I looked for mutual friends we may have in common. This so far has landed me two interviews, but as of today I can no longer send messages to non Facebook friends. I guess someone did not approve of this method and reported me as abuse?

Strange, as all messages (5) sent were to people where there was a mutual connection.

Someone you know in person is better than a Facebook connection. Try friends, relatives, former coworkers/bosses, etc. They might even get a cash bonus for the referral (my company offers $1000 for referrals who get hired).

Remember that you don't have to work for a tech company to be a web designer. Many large companies have in-house web development teams.

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