Sarah's Non-Traditional Job Search Experiment | Hacker News Reader

Sarah's Non-Traditional Job Search Experiment

livorna.com

34 pointsdisaster7733 comments

So what I learned was that Sarah is not a team player. Maybe not by choice, but there it is.

She also doesn't think her resume/CV/whatever that is should actually talk about her qualifications, or at least show them off.

She claims to be extremely passionate, and yet hasn't tried to show any of her portfolio.

She thinks she's smarter than almost everyone she's met.

And she's only willing to look for jobs in a small area.

The bottom line is the team player bit, though. You can't ask to join a team after saying you aren't a team player. That you're non-traditional. After you buck the entire system and then fail to sell yourself.

Sorry Sarah, but if I were in a position to hire you (I'm not, mainly because of the location specified) then I wouldn't take the chance on you. You show a lot of promise for disruption, and not a lot of promise for productivity.

How did you get "not a team player"? I read it that she was fed up of being the only "dev" person, and wants to join a team of dev's. Not having being part of a team is not the same as not being a team player in my book.

She says she's the smartest engineer she's worked with. Not at all "smarter than everyone she's met". I took that, from the rest of the text, to be saying that she hasn't worked much with other passionate and experienced engineers/devs and wants the chance to. I don't see it as a negative.

She knows she likes the Boston area, and doesn't want to move. It limits her options, but otherwise I don't see how that's negative?

If I was in a position to hire people and in the Boston area I'd definitely invite her to the office for a coffee and a chat (read: informal interview) as she's precisely the sort of person I'd want to work with. I wish her luck finding the right company.

"Not a team player" comes from the fact that she's got -no- friends who do what she does. Not even people she's worked with! She hasn't gone to any meetups, or attempted to find others like herself. She hasn't looked for a mentor. She thinks she was smarter than any engineer she's ever worked with, and could learn -nothing- from them. ... I've worked with people far dumber than me, and I've still managed to learn things from them. She's not trying.

She wants a job, but she's more interested in living in a certain area than having a good, interesting job. Everyone has priorities, but this one is somewhat telling.

I don't think it's even necessarily a bad thing that her priority is not "the best job" but living in an area she likes (presumably near her "other" friends). This post makes no mention of how active her social life is outside of geekery/engineering and I think it would be wrong to make any presumptions.

Just because "the best job in the word" isn't her priority, it doesn't mean she wouldn't like it. This is her saying "I'd really love a job that matches the following criteria, and is a little outside the box". It'd be bloody awful to be constantly surrounded by people for whom their day job was the most important thing in their life. I got the impression she was currently employed, and just looking for something a little more exciting and suitable for her - if it's out there.

I'm not saying your job has to be the most important thing in your life, but you're going to be doing it for 8 hours a day, 5 out of 7 days each week. As you sleep another 8 hours a day, that leaves 8 hours a day (16 on weekends) for the rest of your life. It's almost half your life!

For something that takes up almost half of your life, I expect you to treat it as something special.

Also, her note starts out 'I need a job' and that traditional methods have failed her. That almost always means she doesn't have one.

Team-player != team leader.

She seems like someone who gets stuff done without making a fuss. In Belbin's Team Inventory, she'd be either be a Teamworker or a Specialist.

A group of people who are all self-promoters smoothing each other's feathers is not a team.

I'm guessing she's self-taught, with no qualifications to show. Hopefully, she can give some overview of what she's been doing in the last 10 years, though. Maybe she doesn't want to share it on a public CV? I'm guessing she's only worked for small companies / non-IT companies, thus her quip about not having smarter engineers around.

Anyway, she seems like a team player, but not much of a career-builder.

My main issue - she says "The traditional job search method seems to penalize me because I'm not very traditional." Why? No degree? No connections (um, just cold call people - you don't need connections to google nearby companies, and track down a project manager)? She gets nervous at technical interviews? Or is she just an emo kid who thinks she's somehow different?

I totally agree she's a get-it-done type of person. But she hasn't got any sign of being a team player, and quite a few that she's not. (See my other reply.)

I wasn't even sure what to make of the 'non-traditional' bit. Too many people think that of themselves, and most of them are wrong. The ones that are right tend to be hard to work with, because they won't spend the time to grease the wheels.

> She thinks she's smarter than almost everyone she's met.

I understand the trepidation about that one, I really do, but yet I can almost understand. I'd like to think that I have some programming chops, but I have no deliusions that I'm an elite developer. Yet, if we take that statement to be limited to the context of a workforce, I can largely relate. Outside of a scant few people I've had the privilege of working with I haven't really been the recippient of much knowledge. I don't take this as a compliment to my self so much as a commentary on the relative lack of knowledge in the majority of large IT organizations.

That being said, it's incumbent on her to expose herself to the elites. I've met many in the meetup scene and have benefitted greatly from their expertise.

If I may adopt your strategy, I've learned from your post that

- you're quick to jump to unsupported conclusions. Perhaps you could create some kind of mat for this.

- you're a bit of a traditionalist,

- you think resumes are better than actual contact

- Sarah has done a smart thing by allowing your type to self-select out of the game

[I await the downvote frenzy with a considerable amount of pleasure!]

- somewhat

- yes

- No! I think they a precursor to contact for a reason. Why would I let her waste hours of time (mine, or other employees) without even having an idea if she's qualified or not?

- Possibly... But I thought the object of this exercise was to find a job, not to eliminate options.

For the record, I upvoted you... Mainly because the first one seems to be self-referential. ;)

Resumes and CVs are a crapshoot, and typically add little real value - for the most part they give you almost no idea whether the person is really qualified or not.

At this point, if I was hiring and in Boston (or wherever), I'd be tempted to shoot her an email asking her for reference sites, and then on looking at the sites, perhaps grabbing a quick coffee with her. Time taken (1 minute to 1 hour)

As for removing options, I think that's fine - she clearly doesn't want another development McJob, so having a filter (for her and you) is actually a time saver - I mean, you didn't even have to spend 5 minutes reading her resume (although you've probably lost way more time out of your busy schedule reading the comments on HN ;-) )

I think she's done a great thing and gotten some discussion going and some name recognition.

Maybe she's not 'presentable' to a traditional recruiter (piercings, whatever). Maybe she's self-taught (is that really a big deal now?) Maybe she has children in Boston (I have friends who would LOVE to move but family keeps you in one place).

She's probably been working solo or in small teams where she's not exposed to team engineering. It sounds to me as if she's really keen to try this and will give everthing she's got to whoever takes a chance and interviews her.

I don't think physical appearance means much when it comes to tech jobs these days, so I wasn't even worrying about that.

And self-taught is a bonus in my book... Partly because that's what I am as well. But also because most of the elites I've met were self-taught.

She actually said 'Boston Metro'... That's a bit smaller area. I can imagine loving an area, but specialist jobs (and most tech jobs are) require a bit of flexibility to find the best ones.

As for the interview, she has said she doesn't want one. She wants a trial period without an interview or resume or portfolio. That's one of my main issues. Who in their right mind would put someone to work without any idea of their qualificatiions?

She never said she doesn't want an interview, can you quote that on her site? And of course she would send her resume/portfolio to a potential employer. I can't imagine anyone is that cut off from reality.

"I don't want to wear a suit and sit uncomfortably in your office for 4 hours trying to impress you with my words. "

Who does? She makes a fair comment about the state of interviewing. I'd hope she finds a position with a small team who can interview in a more relaxed manner. We hire on a trial basis, after interviewing on personality fit and seeing a good resume.

Sir wccrawford, Thanks for proving your almightyness in a very humble way by picking on a girl who tried to distinguish herself from the hordes. Unbelievable grace Sir. The world needs more people like you.

I don't see a reference to relevant experience, an indication of what kind of job you want, links to projects, or anything that could show a potential employer what you can do. I'm all for defying tradition, but you need to at least be aware of why the tradition exists.

All I see on the root of the domain is a test page for something called OpenPanel. That looks interesting. I passed it along to my web host.

Clearly she's a minimalist front-end developer lol

I just don't know why an employer looking for a good front end dev would hire someone based on this, It does not prove any skill and mostly talks about how great she thinks she is, I am confused as to why this is even on the front page?

For someone who has done 10 years of front-end web development work, this page is awfully sparse.

I eventually came around to doing the same thing on my domain after about a decade of web development work, too.

I wonder how many other web developers have spartan pages like this.

The cobbler's children have no shoes.

If I said I was a writer then used a disposable biro and the back of a receipt to show off my writing skills. Would you hire me?

The page needs design.

Reduce your LinkedIn page to a plain-text with no links to a portfolio/recommendations/concrete work experience (10+ yrs of * doesn't cut it) and ask to start working without an interview and voila, it's 'non-traditional.'

As a fellow hacker who has trouble being verbally eloquent during interviews with technical details, I must say: get over it. Interviewing is a skill, and you have to actually prepare, rehearse your responses and talking points, and develop an ability to talk at length about your technology of choice. It's not an inherited trait.

That kind of thing works better for designers with mad design skills, I suppose.

Are there examples of programmers doing an impressive "hire me" page?

I am toying with the idea to turn my crappy web site into an Ultima clone. Instead of clicking links, visitors would have to walk through my realm.

I considered making one, but in the end, I decided my work history and GitHub account were much better than anything I could make up just for job hunting.

Sarah needs a portfolio.

As she said, she has a portfolio. I think her goal here was to try to get interest from people based off of more than just her portfolio, rather what she wants and needs in her next opportunity. Perhaps she feels that the wrong opportunities may have come from posting a portfolio. Perhaps she feels the best opportunity will be from someone who simply gets where she is coming from. Some of the best working relationships come primarily from a personality click, the work in some cases can be secondary consideration once you know the passion is there.

When I first read Sarah's post, I was intrigued by the proposal that she is willing to just come in and start working so somebody could get to know her skills and personality in a real work environment.

However, bringing on a new person, even in that kind of role, consumes resources from the entire team as we get her up to speed. How long does it take to evaluate somebody like that? A few days? A week? I would pay her for her time though.

But why bring in Sarah? Why not somebody else who I have more information about? We often bring on contractors and sometimes end up hiring them. That is essentially a get-to-know-you-first relationship too.

So it would help to see some kind of work history, even if it is non-traditional. When hiring I look as much for self-direction as experience.

The good thing for Sarah and this approach is that she has been noticed, and we are talking about her. If she was located nearby I would just email her and ask for more details.

Let us know how it turns out, Sarah.

I like this. It get's straight to the point. It's unconventional. It seems honest.

We're not in Boston and we're not hiring, but were that different I'd definitely talk to Sarah.

I recently heard of an old persian saying that goes something like "Try to learn something from everyone or you will always stay dumber than them".

I think that this Job Search Experiment shows what kind of person Sarah is, and that is of great spirit and definitely great humor. Must be quite fun to work with Sarah. In the opposite side, wccrawford way of approaching the problem is somehow steroitipical of what a boring job offer to work with boring people can be.

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