How do you end up with a network of the good ones? I have gotten my last job through a recruiter but the process sucked. He took me and my boss for a ride financially. This was in part me not getting many callbacks from any decent companies(Im in the NJ/NYC area) so I was desperate to accept and part my current manager not knowing what he should be paying for this and that type of developer. While I love my job and my team, they won't last forever and I have wanted to escape the dreaded cycle of dealing with these terrible recruiters. Can it really be done with just getting really good in your craft or do you really have to be the well known developer that has worked at a million top tier companies? How do you find these recruiters?

> How do you end up with a network of the good ones?

> I have wanted to escape the dreaded cycle of dealing with these terrible recruiters

Focus on yourself. When you are in a good place yourself you will find non-terrible recruiters. And when recruiters reach out, have a copy/paste response to say thanks for reaching out. +1 bonus points if you have a friend looking for a job and you can share their LinkedIn profile in your copy/paste response.

And don't run away (escape), run towards something.

Its not like I don't focus on improving myself. Who doesn't focus on improving themselves in this industry? You have to keep improving or else you are finished at some point. Imagine a circle of the stimulating inspiring well paid jobs and another circle filled with the painful, boring non noteworthy jobs. The circles don't overlap. Somehow through connections, impressing that one higher up or being in the right place at the right time, some can jump into the good circle and never have to look back while everyone else is stuck. That does not mean all the people in the bad circle are bad developers. I have seen with my own two eyes a lot of brilliance(I know its just my word so you'll just have to believe me) but they are still stuck in that bad circle.

I love this inspiring response but someone who is on the outside trying to claw their way in cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. I guess its a self fulfilling prophecy, don't run away and there is a chance in the distant future you jump into that other circle but if you don't try you have exhausted any chance. But what if you spend all that effort trying never do? What have you sacrificed in order to end up failing to get into that other circle?

I meant something slightly different (and I did not write it very well at all), but to give an example I spent the first 15+ years of my career chasing success, upskilling, focusing on self improvement. And my identity became tightly coupled to my work and each little win felt good for a day or two, then felt empty pretty quickly after that. When I let all that go and found a stronger sense of self worth, I found much more career success than I ever had before without really trying so hard for it. It came more naturally. Therapy helped me with this journey.

> He took me and my boss for a ride financially.

What do you mean? Either you got a bad deal being underpaid which means your boss got a good deal, or you’re getting paid a lot and your boss got a bad deal but you got a good one.

How can you both be losing?

Boss overpaid, recruiter took a bigger cut

exactly

You can reach out to companies that interest you directly, using their career page, finding people who work there and contacting them (LinkedIn, or via Twitter but preferably through an introduction), or some combination of both. You'll usually get a message back if your online presence shows some sort of proof of skills.

Have you found a job using this approach? I just think that if I were on the receiving end, i'd be a bit creeped out if there wasn't an introduction. How would I get an introduction? Thanks for the unique tip though.

I got most of my jobs this way. It becomes easier later as your network grows and can vouch for you. If you don't have an existing network to help introduce you, find some people working where you're interested, contribute helpful stuff to their GH projects and ask them a referral. Takes more upfront work but it creates an internal ally who will be interested in helping you get in.

It's fairly easy to get someone to push your resume forward internally, if that person has some sort of (even benign) reason to think you'd be a good hire. Everyone wants to hire good people and often we're compensated for referrals who pan out.

I know my manager has had people reach out cold on LinkedIn. His profile makes it pretty clear he’s hiring so he doesn’t mind at all. If he gets a good vibe he’ll setup a call between me and the potential candidate. If that all goes well we’ll kick off the formal recruitment process.

Fellow NJ programmer here - have you had much luck finding stuff in Central Jersey? Red Bank to Toms River sorta area.

I'm currently working in Red Bank and have been having a hell of a time finding places that don't seem miserable or just short contract work that I'm not interested in lol

Sorry I've been off the market for 2 years now. Holding onto my job and super easygoing boss for dear life. I found by it pure luck and its at a boring company that does nothing innovative but the pay is good and there is no stress. I wish you luck in your search.