All my readers (hi mom) know that recently I was on a job hunt. And for the first time in my life I left a company not on my own terms. So it was a crazy week, I was confident but I wanted to work hard to get a job lined up quickly. I gotta say, more than patting myself on the back I think my success is largely due to a red hot job market in Denver. Given that, here's how my stint in un-employment went.
Before the job hunt there are things you're already doing to make a potential job hunt go smoothly.
Keep the resume up to date. I have a resume on my computer under version control. As soon as I do or learn something that is worth putting on the resume I add it. My resume is always available at http://neidetcher.com/resume.html .
Get yourself out there. How Google-able are you? Does it show you give any talks at user groups? Does it show any of your writing on technology? Or does it show you telling a Python noob to RTFM in 2002 (as my Google search results do). Anyways your online presence is something to continually be aware of.
Maintain the network. IM is great for keeping in touch with friends and former co-workers. Lunches are good too, keep those contacts alive with a diverse group of friends. Use LinkedIn, I wish they were more open but whatever.
Don't be an asshole. It's a small world, in your domain (I'm mostly in Telecom), in your city (Denver). I constantly run into people that know people I know.
Day 0, Wednesday
4PM: The hammer falls.
5PM: On the drive home, make a couple phone calls to friends to get the word out.
6PM: Tell the wife, relax.
Day 1, Thursday
Send out an email to have a happy hour in your own honor. Sure it's self serving but if there's any time to serve yourself now is it.
Let more of your network know that you're on the market.
I think by the end of the day I got a handful of leads from people I know.
Day 2, Friday
Now get that resume cleaned up. You keep it up to date all the time but now give it all a real good look. Maybe have a trusted friend review it for you. Get your resume ready in HTML, PDF, Word (I'll put my principles on hold) and even text format.
Update your LinkedIn profile. I'm morally opposed to soliciting recommendations on LinkedIn but if they fall in your lap make sure to thank the recommender.
3PM: Happy hour, press the flesh, keep your chin up. Get the word out.
Also work on a standard letter for job inquiries. Not quite a cover letter but just some sentences announcing who you are and maybe a couple points about your background.
As of Friday I got about another handful of leads.
Day 3 & 4, the Weekend
No humans to talk to or call so now is the time to assault the job boards.
Nothing gets the word out like updating your resume on monster.com. It's an ugly site, they put advertisements in your face but if you want recruiters to know you're on the market it's the site to go to.
There are lots of sites to go to but recently some job site aggregators have sprung into existence. indeed.com and simplyhired.com both show listing from multiple sites. So they are your 2 stop shop for seeing the maximum number of listings. Since I've found a job another cool site, hound.com has come around it aggregates employer job boards.
So yeah, assault the boards. Put in some loose search criteria, java or j2ee or python is what I typically use.
Day 5, Monday
Okay, the flood gates are open.
I don't deal with Indian call centers. It's not a racist thing, I respect Indian people I admire their tenacity, intelligence and ability to kick ass in whatever they set out to do. But if I'm going to go through a recruiter it's going to be an American recruiter. Granted, an American head hunter would probably sell an American programmer up the river without thinking twice but that's how I roll.
Keep track of calls, I like emails better. Keep the process moving go to the next steps.
Day 6, Tuesday I had 2 interviews lined up. The first one was going incredibly well so I blew off the second one. The second one was with a recruiting mill downtown. That's a crappy thing to do but you have to go with your gut.
Day 7, Wednesday Sitting at Panera bread eating soup and taking advantage of the free wifi I get 2 offers by email. They're both solid, great teams and more money than what I was making. Okay, I can relax a little. It turned out that both offers came from personal contacts. Maintain that network young man.
Some thoughts after the dust settled
Going through all this was very affirming. I have great friends that have enough confidence in me to put their own reputation on the line in recommending me for job leads, very cool.
I can't understand why companies have such long hiring cycles. It stands to reason that the folks you probably want are more able to find jobs quickly. So if you have a long hiring cycle you're just missing out on those people. I kept getting responses from companies weeks after I accepted an offer. If I were running a shop I'd make sure to have the process down and I'd be ready to potentially get someone an offer within 3 days.
If an employer wants to stand out I think they should do something drastic. Post on Dice or wherever under their own company name. Don't use a head-hunter. Listings with head-hunters just merge