this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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I'm a fullstack web dev with 7 years of experience, and been casually searching for the past year or so, but most applications don't go anywhere, when I've had no problems with resumes in the past.

How have your experiences been, anyone having any better luck?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@AFKBRBChocolate The way I think about it is the currency of business is trust, not aptitude.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

@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.

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