[HN Gopher] Takeaways from looking for a new senior role in tech ___________________________________________________________________ Takeaways from looking for a new senior role in tech Author : braza Score : 77 points Date : 2021-12-27 19:49 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (philcalcado.com) (TXT) w3m dump (philcalcado.com) | lordnacho wrote: | Definitely get comfortable with independent recruiters. I've | written a few blurbs about this to people who've contacted me | here on HN. | | Basically the incentives make sense, to a point. They get paid a | quarter of your first annual compensation. So they want to place | someone, and they will do a lot for you if you are a profile that | seems like a match for the roles they are covering. | | Note it's important that you find people who actually have the | goods. There are a lot of recruiters who seem to think spamming | peoplev with crap is a way to get placements. | | The thing to do is look at the jobs you like, for finance that's | on efinancial and one or two others, and then call the most | pertinent recruiters. Don't use the application systems, they're | a black hole. Get the person on the phone, sell yourself, | hopefully get some interviews lined up. | | The really good recruiters will keep the relationship open. They | call me now and again to check my status (I'm also a hiring | manager prospect), they call to ask me technical questions, and | they get me to refer people I know as well. It's actually a lot | of work if you consider the average candidate is only going to | change jobs a few times in their life. | | And yes, keep organised, try to know where you are with each | firm. It's important not to get introduced by different | recruiters to the same firm, it messes with that incentive I | mentioned and the recs are scared of being the second person to | intro someone. | master_yoda_1 wrote: | I ignore all of this. The OP is coming from a no name company and | don't have any expertises. If you are senior and you don't have | any expertises or deep experience in a domain, you will have | tough time getting a job even in this hot market. | daok wrote: | You should a little negative but I read you twice and there is | some truth in your message. I am actually working in one of the | popular FANG company. I receive solicitations every day (3-10). | I have no time to answer everyone. I have over 15 years of | experience and the few times I decided to reply I realized two | things. First, once you start giving a range of compensation | the discussion stop rapidly for 90% of the recruiters. The | market is "hot" but for folks that are not that senior (or with | lower expectation that I have maybe). The second thing is that | when it goes well and we start the process that everything is | super slow motion. Positive feedbacks but every step take weeks | to move on. At a point where I lost any excitement. Hence, I | suppose my field is not such in demand... that engineers with | less years of experience get these positions faster than me | since I am strict about my expectation. I might have the wrong | conclusion here but I found that this "hot market" is not "hot" | for the whole range of expertises and years of experience. | decafninja wrote: | I've been actively interviewing for almost the past five | years. I recently concluded my job search and basically | landed my dream job (or very close to it). However I was | extremely picky about what I was looking for which probably | made my search take so long. | | If I was less picky, I could probably have gotten a new job | at a decent, but not spectacular, company, with probably at | max, ~3 months of active interviewing. | | Likewise one of my friends is what I'd like to describe as a | "master networker". The way he can easily and quickly network | his way into a new job is shocking - often times without an | leetcode interview. These jobs typically tend to pay at least | above average (hedge funds). However the caveat is that he | has to be very unpicky about the exact nature of the role, | sometimes working with very boring or unsexy tech stacks for | example. | datavirtue wrote: | I spent two years looking and then just threw in the towel | and took a job at GE. They turned out to have a far more | inflated view of themselves than was warranted or even | healthy...so that only lasted a few years. Consulting now | with one of the few boutique firms in my city...which has | been fairly nice. | lkbm wrote: | Yes, I suspect there's a lot of title inflation going on in | the industry. | | I have a Senior title (at a "no name" company) and can | probably get a Senior title elsewhere (I also get recruitment | emails for those all the time), but perhaps only for some | values of "Senior". | [deleted] | sombremesa wrote: | +1, but that's the audience which makes this an article worth | writing. | | For people with strong resumes, it's hard to leave home without | tripping on the offer letters jammed under your front door. | Apocryphon wrote: | Size matters not. Luminous beings are we, not this crude | matter. | martinky24 wrote: | How is SeatGeek a no name company? | lkbm wrote: | I hadn't heard of it, but he also had Director titles at | Meetup, WeWork, and DigitalOcean, which I very much have. | (Also Buoyant, but I don't recognize that one either.) | juliansimioni wrote: | Phil is a great person and previously had director of | engineering/product roles at Digital Ocean, Meetup/Wework, and | Soundcloud. It's not worth dismissing his advice out of hand :) | decafninja wrote: | I recall having a brief chat with him at a QCon; believe he | was at WeWork at the time. Great guy! | [deleted] | master_yoda_1 wrote: | whiplash451 wrote: | A more constructive approach would be to elaborate on what you | find misleading in the article. | smolder wrote: | I did the exact same thing with a spreadsheet. Pursuing only the | few roles I could keep in my head at a time was not keeping me | busy and was letting a lot slip through the cracks. It was | incredibly helpful to take a systematic approach, to track who | I'd talked to, save references to job descriptions and background | information, and to separate by tech stack, locale, etc. | thr0wawayf00 wrote: | > Independent headhunters and recruiters are a valuable resource | | I had an experience with an independent recruiter that went so | poorly that I haven't been able to take those kinds of people | seriously since. | | A few years back, I was recruited to an up-and-coming startup in | the healthcare space in a senior role. It was a massive pay | increase, meaningful equity, and a company name I was proud to | put on my resume. | | An independent firm reached out to me about the role and I was | definitely interested. One thing I noticed while doing my | independent research was that lots of people had very poor | Glassdoor reviews of the company, basically comparing it to | Theranos in terms of its culture, constant firings, cult-like | CEO, etc. I reached out to several former employees to discuss | their experience and could not get one to talk to me about | working there. Meanwhile, I was hearing from the recruiters that | they hired a new exec team and most complaints were not relevant | to the current situation there. | | I brought the complaints up with the recruiter and the company | during my interview process, and they both told me it was just a | couple disgruntled former employees trying to make the company | look bad. The recruiter offered to put me in touch with others | they placed at the company, but I couldn't view them as objective | sources. | | I started the gig and it took me all of two weeks to realize the | company was in fact firing people constantly and I had been | completely lied to by the recruiter and the company. | | As much as I want to believe that there are recruiters out there | that look out for devs, the reality is that software talent is | the product in that relationship and there aren't a lot of | financial incentives to ensure transparency going into these | professional relationships. Recruiters get paid when you sign, | which creates an inherent conflict of interest when you're | looking to them as a trusted resource. | throwaway75787 wrote: | You could have done worse than two weeks. The former employees | who would not talk were probably under a non-disparagement | agreement from their severance - and that agreement under a | non-disclosure agreement. | to11mtm wrote: | In this case however, the relative silence is a good | indicator. | | Usually, even if one leaves a place and can't share their | grief they will at least try to point out a positive. | | That said, phrasing such as "You'll become a world class VB6 | Developer" is a lovely way to let people know what they are | in for in a way that is not disparaging, per-se. | pjc50 wrote: | Yes, it's a two-sided market like estate agents (realtors) and | used car salespeople. But without enough turnover to do | statistical satisfaction management like Uber. And the dating | company problem that satisfied customers don't come back. | | Most of them are just trying to churn you through the sales | process quickly; some are outright scammers (if you've not had | to blacklist a recruitment firm you've probably not done much | hiring); and a very few are absolutely gold who will matchmake | better than automated systems. Those people deserve positive | word-of-mouth. | libraryofbabel wrote: | To clarify, "senior role" here means a senior management role | (the author is a Senior Director Of Engineering) rather than | Senior Software Engineer, as probably most folks will read it. | Might want to update the title to "senior management role" to | make that plain. | qrohlf wrote: | > Recruiters love phone calls and don't like doing things over | email or text. This means that it is very easy to get overwhelmed | by the number of recruiters trying to call you, and we will | explore time management a little further down the text. | | This has been my experience as well, and while I understand the | desire for introductory "sales mode" type calls, I think it's | progressed past that point to something nearly pathological. | | As an example, I recently had a recruiter that I was previously | in contact with over email cold-call me while I was skiing, | trying to schedule a meeting with a hiring manager (I picked up | the call because I thought it might be one of the people in my | group that I didn't have in my contacts). When I requested she | please send me an email to schedule the meeting, as I was out of | the office, I got an email where she _sent an email to schedule | the phone call, to then schedule the meeting over the phone_. It | was 100% the least efficient way to do this, and only happened | because of this illogically strong preference for phone calls | that recruiters seem to have... | afarrell wrote: | The goal isn't to maximize efficiency. It is to increase human | connection. Why? | | 1. They want you to feel a sense of trust to increase the | probability of taking additional steps in the process. | | 2. They are mostly extroverts who want to hear someone talk | about their career aspirations -- for the same emotional | reasons that coaches want to see people learn. | tomrod wrote: | Phone calls are done to prevent paper trails. I just send a | list of questions to be answered when such requirements are not | meaningful. | lordnacho wrote: | Phone calls are synchronous. You have each others attention, | questions can be answered quickly. Also the big one is that | hard to answer questions will die in an async setting. What's | your current salary, why did you leave your last job so soon, | anything that creates a desire to procrastinate with an answer. | tdeck wrote: | Questions like these may be appropriate1 to ask in a | scheduled interview. It's completely not respectful to pepper | a person's week with multiple unscheduled "quick chats" or | callbacks. If they want to schedule something that's what | calendly is for. | | 1The salary question is illegal in some places and kinda | shady in the others. | tarunupaday wrote: | I like the idea of going through independent headhunters. Does | anybody know how to find good headhunters, though? | alxmdev wrote: | I always thought the preference for phone calls over e-mails is | so there's no written account of anything that might be | convenient to backtrack on in the future. | mavelikara wrote: | No. Phone calls are more personal than emails. Some people | like that. | | For everyone complaining here about getting phone calls, | there is another half who'd jibe "Damn, another templatized | email. Why should I be interested if you haven't put any time | of yours into communicating with me??" | | TL;DR: programers are hard to please. No good deed goes | unpunished. | csydas wrote: | I don't think it's that simple really; it seems like people | (not just programmers) are hard to please because the | circumstances and available time differ from day to day, | and different conversations are better sometimes in email | and others on a call. | | I'm very protective of my time in general because I tend to | be involved in many things: sometimes technical, | bureaucratic, sometimes internal-political, and so many | more. Each category requires a different part of my | attention/focus which I'm not always readily able to shift | to, or more importantly, would rather not shift to as I'm | more preoccupied with a different category. | | Most importantly, the majority of the time all these calls | have one common denominator; the requestor wants/needs | something from me, not the other way around. | Wanting/needing my help or input isn't something wrong in | and of itself, but if it's not reciprocal and especially if | it's not something I'm obligated to do, I absolutely tend | to be pretty defensive of my time. | | It's perfectly common in modern business to exploit | people's tendency towards good faith interpretations and | our aversion to conflict, and disengaging from | situations/requests that aren't one's responsibility is | something many people have difficulty with. (Just think in | your work place if you know someone who just has a hard | time saying "no" and over-commits themselves constantly) | And it's a skill to identify these situations and | gracefully disengage depending on the person who is | creating the situation in the first place. | | When there are complaints about a template email, the | opposite of that isn't a phone call, it's taking the time | to state a point clearly and directly and showing that it | has specific relevance to you and justifying your | time/attention. A conversation can be just as "template" as | any email, even more so sometimes when you are listening to | someone who speaks only in aphorisms but cannot go deeper | than that. ("You have a chance to get in on the ground | floor of something truly revolutionary!", "It's a high- | paced high-reward environment that a 10x-er like you can | thrive in, and the growth opportunities are limitless!", or | even we can think of the hey-day of descriptions along the | lines of "the Uber of _____") If the conversation lacks | substance or purpose to someone specific and relies on | general advertisement like attention grabs to keep you | going, it doesn't matter what the medium is, the | conversation simply offers next to no value. | | A phone call doesn't mean personal by any means, it just | means a slightly higher amount of attention and a situation | that is sometimes difficult for people to exit. It has it's | time and place, but far too many people exploit the good | nature of others to peddle some agenda that serves only | themselves. Absolutely, we should be more protective of our | time/attention, and we should be more respectful of other | people's time/attention | 9dev wrote: | I mean, all I expect is a mail written by someone | personally, referencing at least any of my work, offering a | job I'm actually qualified for and would fit previous | experience. Receiving fifty mails for a senior Java | developer is pretty jarring if there's no single Java role | on your CV... Is that too much to ask from recruiters? | [deleted] | indymike wrote: | > This has been my experience as well, and while I understand | the desire for introductory "sales mode" type calls, I think | it's progressed past that point to something nearly | pathological. | | I don't pay attention to unsolicited phone calls, so recruiters | might as well be yelling at an empty chair when they call. My | email is spam filtered, automatically sorted and tagged, so | unsolicited recruiting goes directly to the trash. I've had a | few really positive interactions that started via SMS and led | to an accepted call from a recruiter. | gorgoiler wrote: | Every call you take is an opportunity for you to bolster your | final asking price. Use calls to your advantage. | | The recruiter might not be party to the final negotiation, but | they'll be a net positive at hiring meetings if you've got them | in your corner. | | Recruiters will want to talk on the phone at every stage, not | necessarily for long periods of time, but certainly frequently. | They are constantly gauging how you feel as a candidate, and | getting the measure of how to close you once you get an offer. | __turbobrew__ wrote: | I have had many similar experiences. A recruiter contacts me | via email regarding an open position, I ask for details in the | email reply. They send me an email back saying we should | schedule a call so they can answer my questions. I'm not even | asking hard questions just "what is the salary range", "when | are you looking to fill the position", "how many are on the | team", etc. | | I usually don't waste my time with recruiters who don't answer | the most basic questions via email. | datavirtue wrote: | Perhaps it's a filter to make sure they don't move further | with a candidate who is not serious? And like most | things...there are likely few good confluent reasons for it | despite none of the reasons influencing eachother. Some that | others have mentioned so far. | nicholasjarnold wrote: | I have a feeling it's a sales tactic which seeks to purposely | use up a candidate's time with the hope that the candidate | falls victim to the sunk cost fallacy. | | Desired inner monologue I think they hope to generate in us: | "I've already spent 3 calls and a couple of hours talking to | <recruiter>, so I might as well continue on with the process | lest I end up wasting all that time." | | disclosure: I'm a dev and not a recruiter, so take this with a | grain of salt. | whiplash451 wrote: | I would tend to agree. My intuition is also that (1) some | headhunters might use time-spent-on-the-phone as a metric | linked to bonuses (think: click as a proxy for sales in | online advertising) and (2) the phone lets headhunter gather | intel that you end up leaking in the discussion and that you | would not leak via email. Some have great tactics to make you | speak "now that you're on the call". | decafninja wrote: | The worst are the ones that will somehow dig up your company | desk phone # and call you in the middle of the day at work. | | Is this something unique to the personalities of people that | thrive at sales jobs? I've encountered this sort of behavior | with real estate agents, car salesmen*, and of course, third | party headhunter/recruiters. They love phone calls, will try to | get you on the phone no matter what, and actively try to avoid | e-mails/text/etc. | | * although, I recently purchased a car a few weeks ago, and | nearly all my communication with the salesman was done via | e-mail and text. Very pleasant experience, but I wonder if this | is the new norm, or if he was a unique exception. | afarrell wrote: | Firstly: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html | | Secondly: Yes, people who like talking with people tend to go | into careers that primarily involve talking to people. | mqnfred wrote: | Thank you for the wisdom! | whiplash451 wrote: | The article is sound but I am on the fence regarding external | headhunters. | | The arguments supporting their use (e.g. hiring company does want | to leak information) seem weak. | | I would tend to think that a strong hiring company should be able | to bypass this information leakage on their own and own the | process. Using an external headhunter does not prevent the | leakage that much and removes ownership and control from the | hiring company's hands. | | As a senior lead, being approached by an external head hunter has | always triggered a knee-jerk negative reaction with me. | | I would not mind being proven wrong. | nickff wrote: | I am not a big fan of head-hunters, as the ones I've talked to | seem to act like used-car salesmen (deceptive and plain slimy). | That said, external recruiters do make sense for small and | growing companies who haven't sorted out an internal recruiting | system yet. | whichdan wrote: | Keeping a spreadsheet is such a good idea - during my last search | I was talking to a dozen different companies initially, and it | would have been impossible to keep on top of everything without | some sort of organization. | mgkimsal wrote: | years ago I went further and created a full web app to | manage/track. it could manage email templates, send out emails | with link tracking, had some ways to keep track of | opportunities, let me keep multiple versions of a resume on | hand, etc. Was moderately useful, as years before, I'd done | 'spreadsheet' stuff, and that was painful. 3-4 weeks, 120+ | outreaches, very few replies, etc. | lordnacho wrote: | I've got a big Trello from my most recent search. It's the | perfect mix of flexible structure, ease of use, and easy to | scan. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-12-27 23:00 UTC)