this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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My experience in the past year (I was laid off earlier) is that more jobs come from networking than from submitting applications. My best experiences have come from asking people I worked with, and them referring me directly to a hiring manager.
The best thing you can do for your career is get to know people and give them a good experience working with you. It may not help you today, but it will make a big difference in the future.
Funny, that was true when I graduated in 1985. I saw all my classmates making hundreds of copies of their resume to mail out to every company they could think of and, though my grades were good, I didn't think mine would look that different from a lot of the others. Instead I spent the time asking everyone I knew if they knew someone who worked at a place that hired software people, getting names and addresses, and sending it to targeted people.
I think I sent my resume to a dozen people, got seven responses, three interviews, and two job offers. That was as many interviews as a lot of my friends who sent out giant numbers of resumes.
@AFKBRBChocolate The way I think about it is the currency of business is trust, not aptitude.
Yeah, that's part of it. I've been a hiring manager for a bunch of years now, and I think we're mostly looking for a differentiator. If I have a pile of college hire applications that all look roughly the same, but one comes with a recommendation from someone I know, I'm probably going to at least interview that one. Of course, if a different one has a technical differentiator, like relevant work experience, that's even better.
@AFKBRBChocolate Interesting, thanks for the reply. I don't mean that trust is a bad thing. When I was younger I could never get my head around how decisions were made. It just never occurred to me that there could be other factors in how decisions were made - both at a personal and commercial level - other than finding the cheapest/best stuff.