IMO it's better ROI to get as specific as possible about the BAR role you are looking for and then put in the effort to do these things:
1) really workshop all the text on your resume / LinkedIn to make it clear you are seeking BAR opportunities
2) connect with people who are working on BAR or are BAR-adjacent
3) (if needed) think of easy things you can do to bolster your BAR credibility (small side projects, read a book on it, etc).
If you can do these things you automatically stand out because most people seem to lack introspection about what they want and also communicate poorly.
Doing this also will improve the ROI you get from your own network, because people will be able to more easily understand what you're looking for when thinking about the opportunities they know about.
Bottom line though: If I read over your profile, is it obvious you are actually good at X and seeking Y? It's amazing to me how many applications I see that communicate nothing about what the candidate has accomplished or would like to do next. A keyword spam resume is getting the circular file if it hits my desk.
If you have no friends, discuss it with ChatGPT.
I think it depends on whether you already have a job you're OK with vs. if you're unemployed and have N months until you're living in your car.
I've been unemployed with a family and burning through a very small savings account. When you're in that situation, "finding a good fit" is not a priority. Getting an offer letter from any company by any means is the priority. Embellish and spam. Knock on physical doors if you have to. Let the company decide whether you're a good fit. This is one of those unfortunate "don't hate the player, hate the game" realities.
``` search_strings = [ 'site:boards.greenhouse.io %s', 'site:jobs.smartrecruiters.com %s', 'site:jobs.lever.co %s', 'site:.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com %s', 'site:icims.com inurl:jobs %s', 'site:careers.peopleclick.com %s', 'site:apply.workable.com %s', 'site:jobs.workable.com %s', 'site:apply.workable.com %s', 'site:.taleo.net %s', ] ```
Most of those ATS systems are super annoying. I actually give preference to employers using more modern systems that have up to date user experiences, but regardless, it doesn't hurt to scrape and search all the big ATS players.
This seems like not a great idea.
If you’re actually desperate for a job, you’ll take what you get and rise to the challenge.
A lot of people really don't like resume embellishers.
Soooooooo many bullshiters
A scale of 1-5 is really not helpful. A 2 for me maybe a 3 for you, etc. I prefer being explicit and writing text to indicate what/how much I know.
However, I can barely "hello world" without mistakes or consulting references in any language I've gone more than a week without writing. So if I only listed languages & such that I'm ready to take a quiz over at any given moment, the list would always be very short. I'd miss a lot of job opportunities. Guessing that'd get me DQ'd from your process, but taking the alternative approach of only listing the very-small set of things I'm ready to work in right this second at any given time would surely have had very bad consequences for my career.
So it's not possible to be openly gay and hire-able?
I mean, sure, that must be true for some companies but I wouldn't want to work at those anyway.
My advice is how to get a job when you need one.
>a good candidate doesn’t care about that LGBT stuff
Me:
>a good candidate cares about that LGBT stuff
Call it a different worldview or whatever, but I don’t mind making my profile/timeline suboptimal for anti-LGBT people.
Otherwise it’s just the LGBT folks in my network engaging all by themselves, and it’s a lot harder to ‘other’ and exclude people with vocal allies.
And yes, it’s 100% about engineering. I can engineer under awful heat/noise etc conditions, but if I was being dehumanized and excluded, my performance would suffer a lot more.
Why did you bring up the garbage code thing? The poster and the original poster said nothing about your actual capacities as an engineer.
This has nothing to do with your individual sexuality. Everyone looks ridiculous being overtly personal on LinkedIn.
Being heterosexual is a privilege since it's the norm, so you don't have to worry about it. Being gay on the other hand can be dangerous, even life threatening depending on the country.
You're projecting on to me right now.
> The idea of me declaring my heterosexuality while postering my CV...
But based on your answer you are also making a delineation between "blogspam" and for example someone posting a story about discrimination for being gay (for example).
But, for someone who is gay, by mearly showing a picture of themselves with their husband they'd be "declaring their sexuality", and being "overt"; They don't have to say anything more. Their _existence_ is politicized, and that's the problem.
And when we say "don't show rainbows", or don't show anything that can be linked to LGBTQIA, we're really saying,
"You can't do these otherwise non-political things, because just being who you are is still politically charged". We're better than that HN.
Also, a photo of yourself during your wedding is not a "weird home life". That's like the maximally normal home life thing. I think it would be flagrantly out of bounds for someone to tell a co-worker that their wedding photo is "weird home life" stuff and to keep it at home.
Edited to add: I don't really have anything against the advice of not putting your personal life at work. i.e. photos of kids, spouse, vacation pictures on linkedin, etc. I'm just confused why apparently only gay people can't do it according to OP. That's so bizarre to me.
Once you're hired feel free to do whatever, but leave anything controversial off the interview.
And yes, your linked in profile is part of the interview.
None of my multiple gay friends have ever displayed a rainbow on their profiles.
They are, however, openly gay on their profile.
No hiring manager wants to deal with drama, so it's not just rainbows, it's literally anything that that has a campaign and political force behind it, like Trump pictures, BLM links, climate change, conservation, nuclear power...
You reading the word 'ONLY' when one example is proffered is a problem in your end.
I literally don't understand affiliating rainbow emoji with pictures of actual political candidates or an actual explicitly political activist name.
I also don't understand saying climate change, conservation, or nuclear power has campaign/political force behind it. If someone had something to do with nuclear power in their profile I would just assume they worked in energy??? I am not reading politics into this at all dude...
It doesn't matter that you don't understand it, the idea is to get the interview over other candidates who focused solely on presenting the value they bring, and at the interview, landing the job over other candidates who are also focused solely on the value they bring.
You may not understand why hiring managers tend to avoid candidates who display non-work-related activism on their CVs, but that's just the way it is.
I have a connection on LinkedIn (garnered from the spam connect campaigns I talked about previously) that talks about his MtF transition experiences as well as the struggle to land a job. No one cares enough to do more than post "You go, girl!" and move on with their day. Good advice would be to tell this person that LinkedIn is not the place to talk about your bottom surgery, vents about potential unsympathetic employers, or your struggles to find a partner. A good hiring manager would check social media for any red flags, and this public venting is a HUGE one.
This is correct, if unfortunate.
>A good candidate who won’t start a Slack pronoun campaign while delivering garbage code
This is vile and slanderous.
Are people on HN getting railed at work with pronoun campaigns? We had one and it was honestly _the easiest thing in the world_
"Hey Daft, can you add pronouns"
*15 seconds later
"Done!"
What's the honest holdup with making the work environment more inclusive to non-binary or fluid people, there are a _lot_ of them. We already call people by their preferred titles, preferred nicknames, why the hangup on pronouns?
The advice is how to get a salary when you need it. Take off anything even slightly controversial.
> Campaigner for pronouns?
Specifically, in a concrete day to day sense? Asking for the smallest of efforts, the most minimal of inclusive actions, in the form of "putting a pronoun on your slack profile" doesn't really feel like a _campaign_ to me. We've spent more time here talking about it then it takes to add it to the profile during the "campaign"!
Do you disagree with the statements:
The advice is how to get a salary when you need it.
Take off anything even slightly controversial.
Anyone campaigning, or proud of campaigning, on their CV will get fewer callbacks. It's unfortunate but true.
Essentially, don’t advertise that you might bring drama to the workplace.
Some people are always looking to pick fights and create drama (they can be gay, straight, whatever) and employers screen for this personality type.
Ha, wow.
Please reread my comment. I’m discussing how an excessive virtue signaler may be viewed by potential employers as someone who creates drama.
Unfortunately for all of us and because of people who are so trigger happy with them, words like “racist”, “bigot”, “transphobe” etc no longer have much meaning at all.
> Openly gay != in everyone’s face writing preachy DEI memos and forcing pronoun campaigns Essentially, don’t advertise that you might bring drama to the workplace.
The points you're listing (DEI, pronouns) are efforts to _address_ people who _do_ have those feelings, but you word it in a way that makes it seem _bad_, using words like "preachy", "force" to describe what's really pretty low effort asks on the part of businesses towards it's employees to be more inclusive.
To put it bluntly, how is asking to _not misgender_ someone "a campaign"? How is asking to reduce biases against people of color "a campaign"? You're right in that you're not saying things like "insufferable", but you're specifically choosing to callout certain items, with certain phrasing, and that makes _me_ think _you_ don't find those items to be good.
If you have been subjected to "campaigns" for those listed items, _please describe them_ so we can better understand.
You could replace "rainbow" with "Ukraine flag" or "Russian flag" or NY Yankees logo and it would still hold to be true. Someone will find an issue with anything about you, so why even post it?
Be a cog in the machine and be employed, or be an unemployed individual that whines on LinkedIn.
This _is_ the issue, making these "equivalent". Here we're drawing equivalencies between posting "the flag of a country interlocked in an international proxy war" with posting a "rainbow flag which LGBTQ people use to create solidarity, to feel normal, and not have their existence deemed controversial in the same breath as, amongst other things..." an international proxy war!
People are dumb. Better be safe than sorry.
What's most wild to me is that here, on hackernews, people are saying "Don't give _any signal_ that you're gay", and making that seem comparable to other actual controversial things on your profile.
I'm going through a huge pile of resumes for a role I have open this week and these are getting thrown out immediately. I have no interest in reading through 6 pages of bullet points with keywords bolded. It's tacky, too information dense, and doesn't call out what you are actually good at nor how you've applied it.
An example would be if you had 5 years of experience in AWS and only a few tutorials of GCP for experience, but the listing specifically wants GCP skills, you list it.
Not a case where you have 5 years of backend experience and start applying to senior frontend positions because you went through a React tutorial.
Way back when, like in the 1950s and 60s, employment agencies might take a percentage. The shift to more contract work, where the percentage is baked into the billed rate vs. what they pay, has ended this.
We live in a world where you can either compete or wonder why no companies want anything to do with you.
“Fake it till you make it” is a good strategy when you have to pay bills.
* Be human. If you’re posting toxic stuff online, you’re going to have a bad time regardless. Rainbow emojis aren’t toxic. Flags aren’t toxic.
* Do not embellish your resume and work history. You’ll only be wasting your own time when you get rejected after every screener.
* Do start apply for anything you might qualify for. Interviewing is a skill and a process you have to get used to.
* Do not reach out to TEKSystems and Robert Half. Those are garbage recruitment firms. If you want to work with a recruiter, at least use a good one (ask your network or not-fake LinkedIn connections for recommendations if you must).
* Personally ask or DM your friends for leads and references. Be careful not to spam people you don’t actually know.
Tons of great tips in this comment
If you’re not playing the game willingly, you’re still playing the game.
Is that incorrect?
I put my LI profile to "open-to-work" on Monday and had three requests for interviews from various companies/entrepreneurs by Sunday.
The next week, I had at least 4 inquiries about my job status and interview availability. After the 1st two weeks, my email inbox was full of potential jobs/recruiter spam, which I sorted through and followed up on.
I'd agree about most being low-value leads, but getting your resume out there seems to attract all sorts of companies. Sure, I don't want to be a QA or SDET engineer, but my resume helped attract opportunities that I would have followed up on had I been more desperate.
You also have to assume that most recruiters are lazy and are doing the shotgun strategy as well.
I value honestly over bullshit.
I've learned through experience to never list something on your resume you don't want to get asked about in an interview. If you're comfortable saying "I put down C++ because I read a tutorial" that's fine. As a former hiring manager, my reaction would depend on how much I needed you to know C++. If it was a C++ job, it'd be an immediate no. If it was tangentially related, maybe it's okay.
> * start applying for anything you might qualify for. Interviewing is a skill and a process you have to get used to.
Sure, but get used to no replies or no interviews. That's not a bad thing to get used to, but playing the numbers game isn't usually successful.
Here are some ways to stand out, esp if you are a new dev: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2022/09/19/ways-to-stand-...
The effort involved also depends on framework, business knowledge, stack side and a whole lot of other factors, it's not always (or often?) the case you're just swapping in one language for another, and even this latter "simple" case is often a significant undertaking.
That doesn't mean you've got to drop a rank, but it does mean you have to be prepared for the possibility or be able to explain what exactly you are bringing to the table that justifies the money over a competitor applicant who can hit the ground running.
Or learn the new language in your own time and contribute to open source to establish competence you can demonstrate if you don't have the opportunity on the job.
* make the career change internally. Shift to a different department or help with a project using C++. Gain skills without changing companies. You're a known quantity and should have some social capital to make such a move without taking a salary hit.
* target companies/jobs using <tech you use> + C++. Leverage your <tech you use> skills.
* contribute to something non-trivial built in C++; this is the open source path. Start with low hanging fruit (documentation is great!) but build up your C++ muscles. Then you can point to that during interviews.
* do a startup and select C++ because it is the best fit for the job. I did this with rails and a startup. I had minimal experience in rails, but after evaluation, it was one of the best tools for the job (SaaS webapp). Afterwards, I was a lot better at rails. (This is hugely risky and can also lead to 'expert beginner' status, but is an option.)
Chris Rock said something similar to my attitude: a person waiting on the side of the road with a broken car isn’t getting help. A person pushing their car on an exit ramp will get people to help.
Here are better job hunting strategies:
* Connect with anyone (just spam connect requests). You can easily have 5,000 connections. This looks good to people who take a cursory glance at your profile.
* remove anything on your profile that could be a potential liability for your future employer: no attitude, no rainbow emojis, no flags, no political statements
* embellish your resume and work history. If you’ve read a tutorial on a technology, you list it.
* start applying for anything you might qualify for. Interviewing is a skill and a process you have to get used to.
* Set your status to Open-to-work, open accounts on Monster/Dice/Blind/Indeed and start talking to headhunters/recruiters. Reach out to the big players (TekSystems, Robert Half, etc) as well as the smaller shops and see what they have.
* Personally ask or DM your friends for leads and references.
* search for “inurl:careers <your role or industry>” and find open positions to apply for anything
If you can’t get a job after following this advice, you’re doing something wrong.