Comment by jbm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jbm | Hacker News Reader

n=1, but I've never gotten a job without networking. It didn't matter how well I did at school, or how well I was evaluated at my previous jobs. I couldn't even get IT jobs for less than minimum wage at times, it was truly ridiculous.

I spent a lot of time studying and not networking in university; my family was (and is) mostly asocial (the prototypical hard working first generation immigrant), and no one really clued me in. I didn't get that important context until years later (thank you internet)

Living without a network in a foreign city, I managed to move from tiny 1000$/month contracts to consulting gigs then to a bigco. Every step was accomplished by meeting people, and solving problems, and then having them tell other people about me (and a blog article that weirdly went viral in the small space I was in). This might sound like an RPG, but it was not fun and the constant terror about missing rent was something I'm glad to have moved past. I don't recommend this at all, I'm way behind someone who got hired out of school by a friend at a BigCo.

As a result, I have a lot of sympathy for people without a network and I try to evaluate them fairly when I hire people. Sadly, without a prior relationship, it's hard for the evaluator and the evaluated to really know what to make of each other. It's always going to be easier to hire someone you know or someone a friend vouches for, as you will have the ability to have trust each other from the beginning.

So yeah. Tough problem. I don't have a solution.

I've had ~10 jobs in my career so far. 1 was via my network; the others were all just me searching.

But that said, networking makes it far easier. I've seen people be brought in even when an interview panel was meh, because they had worked with the hiring manager before (and to be fair they were fine, just bad at interviewing), as well as people bypass parts of the process due to their knowing people. And, certainly, people getting landing interview loops (and getting put in the front of the queue) all because of a referral/networking.

First 10 year of my career(am now close to my 25 years into my career). Yup searching and hustling. After that during good economic times I get pinged/called with job offers. During down turns the only jobs came through my own network.

During downturns the more sure opportunities are through my network, definitely. But I've still landed jobs during them just from searching (I've been lucky enough to avoid layoffs during downturns, so job changes have always been my own decision).

Out of curiousity, where do you live?

Even as a senior developer I used to get messages from Canadian recruiters asking me if I'd work for 18 dollars an hour. To this day I keep a screenshot to amuse me.

The US (SW and SE coasts mostly, though some of those jobs were for companies headquartered elsewhere), so yeah, can't speak outside of that.

As much as I would like to blog I am not so keen about sharing my personal life stories and past on the internet. And most personal tech blogs which help people get their next job is just that.

I like my privacy and I am not very social either. But I do like to connect with people and talk tech. Any tips how I could leverage the social media and blogging without really sharing much of my personal life? Am I looking at the wrong blogs for inspiration and ideas?

In my case I didn't blog about my personal life; I was living in Tokyo at the time and wrote a blog about seeing people at (Japanese large company) rebuilding everything from scratch and serious cases of NIH. It hit Hacker News and Slashdot Japan, and it also introduced me to a few people in the local Ruby community (which translated to other opportunities, which - many years later - culminated with my previous job at Heroku/Salesforce).

I don't think social media matters as much as being seen as someone who does things when you are in a real social situation. One handshake from an interesting person, like, say, Paul McMahon (who cofounded Doorkeeper and worked on Ruby) or Patio11, felt more important to me than 10k social media likes. (I purposely picked people who had nothing to do with my work career)

I don't know how applicable any of this is, especially with the invasion of nerd spaces by bullies. However, there are always people who need skilled coworkers, and finding sincere places to show these skills will always be helpful.

Thank you for sharing some details.

I guess here too quality matters over quantity. Publish less, network less but make sure its relevant and valuable.

With so much noise in the field currently, its hard to know if you too are part of it and finding the right platform/places to make sure you are providing value thats appreciated.

You don't have to blog to grow or manage your professional network.

Set a reminder, once a week, to look at your LinkedIn. Ping someone you actually know, just to say hi. This keeps you fresh in their minds as someone who does X, and is still alive.

Finally, if you want to expand your network, just ask these same people if they know anyone else doing X and then send them a hello.

Very low-effort and direct contact is 100x more powerful than a blog post anyway!

Also, n = 1, but I think I got a few jobs early in my career through application, got head hunted midway through a bit and then at the end its all networking. At a certain level of experience, if they want someone really senior it is often because the situation is a disaster and they hope you will be able to turn it around. If things are going OK, they will promote from within. For me, for a long time now, the only good positions are from someone who worked with me and then recommended me.

Meanwhile, I've had 9 since I was 11 years old (am in my 40s) and I only ever got that first job via networking, which subsequently paid me under the table at less than minimum wage (but nothing that an early-morning-while-nobody-is-around fibbing on the timesheet couldn't fix). I make it a point to NOT go to places I know that I have friends and colleagues at, because I don't want the dynamic to be weird.

Do you have any resources for someone that needs to learn to and learn how to network?

I'm not the OP or the parent post's author; however, pre-covid I'd give the usual answer of just join meetups, attend in person, follow the gang to the neighborhood bar or coffee or wherever they go, make friends, birds of a feather, etc. Post-covid, that scene seems non-existent to me. Being an introvert, it was certainly not a game I understood intuitively, outside of the fact that the groups were so small in my city as to be harmless to someone like me with the social skills of a loner. FWIW though, every single gig I've had for twenty years was among friends-of-friends with a common thread, typically art, music, science (OS, PL, DB), or culture (motos, bikes, skateboards).

What on earth is “the gang”. No where I’ve ever worked has there been some mob that followed each other to the same place after work. Mostly people just go on about their own lives after work. I’ve met and connected with many people at bars, coffee shops, and other hangout spots, never regarding work or tech and we usually live in completely different worlds, but that’s never lead to anything besides a pleasant conversation at best.

As for tech meetups, it’s admittedly been quite a while since I’ve gone to those, but in my past experience they were filled to the brim with entry level people with the same idea.

There was a book written in 1936 and it is the only one you need to read.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0...

Here us a synopsis: https://fs.blog/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people/

All the information is timeless. Most people just re-hash stuff from it and make it sound like it is new.

I posted a bit about what I did above, but I don't think I am a good person to learn from. Every single bit of my trip to now seems to be predicated on divine intervention or unbelievable luck, depending on what you believe.

One thing that I did, which I felt helped a lot, was running a board game group in Tokyo. It was not a minor endeavor in retrospect; I had to get a bigger apartment/house, I cooked, and I didn't charge money; I even paid for advertising on FB and Google. However, as a result, I met a lot of interesting people and met a lot of people from backgrounds normally wouldn't (IT of course, but media, manga/animation, caretaking, Soka Gakkai (!), politics, etc..)

However, I really did only do it to play board games, it wasn't a scheme to improve my work prospects. I didn't count the costs when doing it, since I considered them important to my mental health. This also created an organic way for me to get to know people from work better ("Hey, do you want to drop by and play some games with my friends?")

Start tiny.

Set a reminder to check your contact list once a week.

Message someone on there you haven't talked to in a while.

Say something nice, hello, how are you, have you seen the latest tech news?

If you make this as easy and routine as brushing your teeth, you will very soon be overflowing with people who know and like you.

Kindness, consistency, and contact are all it takes.

Agree. Had to work part-time jobs for two years before I could get a contractor to give me a minimum wage IT job. Yes, I am a first generation immigrant, but I guess covid had a lot more to add to my story than yours.

i’ve worked exclusively at large companies (5k+ employees) my whole career. Got all jobs without a referral. It’s tough but very doable! A good resume helps more than most people realize.

Everyone’s journey is unique. :)

n++

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