My little brother was recently in town for the holidays. He’s about to graduate from college with a CS degree, so naturally we talked about searching for a job.
I figured I would share the advice I gave to him here in hopes that it might help others.
- Don’t be discouraged when you get turned down. Having hired many employees over the years, I have learned that there are so many reasons to not hire a candidate. Much of the time they don’t even have to do with qualifications. In the past, we would just interview with no intention of hiring to test the waters.
- Work with recruiters there is little downside in working with recruiters as a job seeker. Give them tight parameters about what you are looking for (position, location, etc…) and tell them not to bother you unless there is a match. Often, recruiters will have better “ins” with hiring managers, so your resume won’t get filtered as often by some algorithm.
- Network I almost wrote that in all caps. Attend local meetups, take people out to coffee, and get connected in the local tech scene. Don’t give me that “I don’t live close to tech” nonsense . I live in a suburb of ABQ (not a big tech town) and still managed to build a killer network of tech locals.
- Always be searching for a job (especially if you already have one). Part of your job, is to find a job/a better job (or at least leverage to get paid more in your current) (longer post on this later).
- Shoot for the stars, but be ok landing on the moon This is more for new grads. Landing a job will give you that confidence boost you need to begin your life outside college. So, don’t stress about landing the dream job at Google on day one (by all means apply though). Just take a job and then see the previous bullet point.
Happy job hunting!
