Comment by jerrya | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jerrya | Hacker News Reader

I enjoy Nick's work, but I am not sure how applicable it is to many software jobs:

  People must stop begging for jobs
  
  It’s time for people to stop thinking about jobs, and high time
  to start thinking about how — and where — they can create profit.
  
  If I run a company, I’ll hire you to do work that pays off more
  than what I pay you to do it. Today, virtually no employer knows
  whether hiring a person will pay off. That’s why you need to know
  how to walk into a manager’s office and demonstrate, hands down,
  how you will contribute profit to the manager’s business. That’s
  right: Be smarter than the manager about his own business. Stop
  begging for jobs. Start offering profit.
  
  Because if you can’t do that, you have no business applying for
  any job, in any company.

I haven't seen too many software development positions in large companies where you can walk into a manager's office and demonstrate you are smarter about the manager's own business than he is.

  I know more about your specialized domain than you?

  I know more about design for your specialized domain 
  than you or your designers?

  I know more about the algorithms developed in your 
  specialized industry than your engineers?

  I know more about database design used in your 
  proprietary application?

  I know more about the customers for your specialized 
  domain and their needs than you do?

And I'm supposed to be able to claim that for any software development company I interview with regardless of industry?

I enjoy working in software, and I think I am pretty good at it, but one aspect I enjoy is that moving from company to company I learn about new domains, new industries, new algorithms, etc.

Pretty much every job offer I've gotten has involved walking into a manager or interviewer's office and pointing out things he can do better with his business. It's often not core stuff, but I'll frequently point out UI improvements they could make, or new technologies they may want to take a look at, or new algorithms & data structures that can solve their interview questions. And on the flip side, I enjoy learning about new businesses and new techniques they're using to the greatest extent that they'll share them with me.

A-players are not threatened by this. B-players are. I've found that it is generally good for your career to try to work with A-players whenever possible and avoid B/C/D/F-players.

Yeah, if you cant do SOMETHING better, then you are a supplicant. Or a cog. I wouldn't want to be either.

I've had a similar experience. I've found out, though, it isn't really what you say, it is how you say it. Be assertive without sounding arrogant and pushy. If you go in to an interview and pretend you are a consultant selling your services, and not someone who is desperate for a job, then chances are better you will get an offer. Now part of this is reading body language, to see if what you are saying is triggering a happy emotion in the person interviewing you. For example, in my current position, it was apparent that things were in chaos. I started mentioning some automation tricks, and that lead into a strong emphasis on repeatable processes. Turns out, that was the key phrase that got me hired -- I found a dozen ways of giving the same message of automation, repeatability, and trackability. In a previous position, I had sold the hiring manager on a design for a web based user account automation system (kind of accidentally). Turns out that was their biggest pain point at the moment, handling a huge stack of account request forms. So either I was very insightful during the interview process, or extremely lucky. Or, I happened to take my vitamins that morning.

Also knowing what you can contribute to their business is much easier than knowing what you can contribute that they don't already get from one of their current employees.

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