News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job. Parent comment

Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by krisroadruck on Monday October 12, 2020 @05:50PM (#24759839)
^ Same. The last time I was out of work my wife was asking why I wasn't pounding the pavement sending out tons of cover letters and resumes and the like. I told her that in the 21 years I've been working, I've not gotten a single job via that route. It's always been networking. At some point about 10-15 years ago I just stopped even bothering with a resume at all. If I can't get in front of a decision maker, I don't consider it a viable opportunity. In contrast, About 75% of the time I've been able to speak directly to a department head, manager, or C-suite executive I've been hired on the back of a 30-45 minute conversation. I'll take a 3 out of 4 hit rate on a pair of conversations over sending out dozens of customized cover letters and resumes any day of the week.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by user5994461 on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @08:24AM (#24764904)
What kind of companies are they? Small companies with less than 100 people?

I've never seen any medium-large company where any single person was able to take a decision. Large companies cut all hiring power from their middle managers, forcing to interview with a whole panel, this prevents manager from favoring friends and building a fiefdom.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by krisroadruck on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @03:49PM (#24769559)
Indeed, small companies. I don't have the right pedigree to make it through hiring hurdles at big companies. Despite industry name recognition and 11 years of experience I get filtered out because I never went to college. HR / People Ops / Recruiters tend to not know enough about the technical roles they are hiring for to gauge skill, so they go the lazy route and use college degrees or BigCo work history as a proxy. If you don't have a degree you can't get BigCo, so you fail on both fronts. Department heads and small company founders can tell if you know your stuff or not with a simple conversation. So that's what I've optimized for when looking for work. Routes to those people and around normal hiring filters.
[ Parent | on HN ]