Job seeker recommendation

Published on: 2023-08-31

Written by Sacha Nocetto

The reason why becoming a Software Engineer is a struggle.

I may change the title many times until I get to how I feel better to describe this process. Stay tuned??

Job seeking is one of the most difficult and stressful times when you are trying to become a Software Developer.

From the application, to the preparations, seeking of opportunities, job market study, interview preparation, communication abilities, getting to know the possible red flags, the new AI filtering system (Is pretty new, but I’m seeing it more often). And we didn’t even get to the technical interview, and we already have a bunch of layers that we have to cross.

Side note: Remember, this is your first experience, even so, companies often look for people who is Junior yet has >already 1-2 years of experience.

If you didn’t pass the first part, you’re gonna find a message in you mailbox saying… Hopefully, something. Most of the time companies don’t give you any type of feedback about why you didn’t pass the interview process, just a generic message, or even worse, they don’t reach you at all.

But let’s say that you did it, you smashed the first part of the interview process. Now becomes the second part, what I would like to call: The waiting.

The waiting

Depending on the type of company that you applied to, this process can take different amounts of time, I will give you some examples from my personal experiences:

Startups:

Are the fastest when it comes to feedback, my interview process took 2 months, with more or less 4 interviews with a week or less time between them. After my technical interview, there was a long period of time (let’s say 2 weeks because I don’t remember) in which they didn’t tell my anything. I reach them to see if everything was OK, and they responded immediately. Awesome service.

Product companies/Larger companies

Slowest to respond. Since the architecture of the company has a lot more process and people involved, of course we are not talking about FAANG like companies.

If you send a CV to them, and there is interest, they may reach you, being perfectly fine, in a week, two weeks, or even two months. Just to receive, maybe, an auto-generated message. Not feedback.

If they have interest on you, for example, they can give you a automated interview process, in which you have to record yourself answering questions. (Globant does that for example)

Once you came across this part, celebrate it, you deserve it.

The technical interview

Software Engineer’s always talks about this step being screwed, that doesn’t make sense. Why? Because most of the time the interview does not have anything to do with the actual job what we are gonna do.

So, imagine practice, and practice, for algorithms, data structures, problem solving (not just code, but having problems with people), performance, scalability, reliability, and other thing depending on your area, or the role that you’re applying to, trying to make thing right, because it’s a logic process, did I mention being nervous?

Once you’re done with the technical interview comes maybe the final step (maybe because sometimes you have X tech interviews or a cultural interview, yeah, culture is as well other thing they put to test).

Chief Level Officer Interview (CEO, CTO, etc.)

Here is where you are nervous as f***, because you have to negotiate your salary. And of course, you have to practice this as well, because you want as much money and perks as possible don’t you? Well, companies do know this and they will try to negotiate with you to gain as much as possible from you as well, remember, a job is a 2 ways accordance.

And you wanna become really good at this, because you may be sitting at the side of someone who the only difference is negotiation skills, yet the other person doubles your salary.

Conclusion

Job seeking in tech (as well as any other industry) is a job itself.

Well actually is not. Because a JOB is a trade, of value, time, for money. And that makes me think of

What do we get for seeking a job?

It appears like we are all trying to reach something, and we agree in ways to get to the top. But if we really agree on that, why people still don’t get there?

Extra: Recommendation

I found this useful because is more of a 1 on 1 help to get across the interview process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjvJjfsKOZU

There are a lot of good advices when comes to job seeking, the more important thing is to NOT GIVE UP. Always look for a better life opportunity.

Hope to see you later!