The best way to get hired by a company is always with a warm introduction. But what if you’re new to software engineering (I have less than 2 years of professional experience) and don’t have a large network of people who can refer you into the company? Or, what if there’s a pandemic on and your job search just got infinitely harder?
My job search overlapped with the pandemic, but I recently got hired as a software engineer at a company called Solv, working as a software engineer on software to book same-day doctor’s appointments and urgent care visits. Below, I’ve compiled the resources I used and the processes I created to maximize the chance of getting hired as a software engineer during the pandemic.
If you are interested in learning about the types of software engineering interviews and how to technically prep for them, refer to my previous post, Post-Bootcamp Software Engineering Job Types and How to Hopefully Get One.
How to Build Your Interview Pipeline
Let me start off by saying it is MUCH easier to get into a company’s technical interview pipeline with a referral source than it is applying cold. If you have multiple referral sources for multiple companies and you feel confident with your technical interview skills, then I hope your job search goes quickly. But with more software engineers getting laid off and looking for work and the economy shifting quickly, things just got even more competitive. If you are in a position where you are transitioning careers in this uncertain economy and don’t have +10K followers to help spread the word, then keep reading!
My Application Process
Congrats! You recently started your software engineering career and are on the hunt for a new job. Or maybe you want to start interviewing, just in case. Just remember the old accounting method for cutting costs during challenging times: last in, first out. If you’re like me and have less than two years of experience, your job is potentially at-risk during a down economic period, so it’s a good idea learn the skills to build up an interview pipeline.
How do you build a software engineering interview pipeline from scratch?
Everyone points you to those resources above and says, “Go get ’em, Tiger!” and you sit there wondering “How do I possibly differentiate myself from everyone else?” Building a software engineering interview pipeline takes work, it’s literally a full-time job if you are doing it right.
Make Your Resume Unique
To optimize your chances of getting noticed, you need a polished, unique resume.
Build a resume so unique and readable, that it catches the eye of the recruiter or hiring manager and makes them want to learn more about you.
What do I mean by unique?
- Overall: Resumes should be typo-free, simple and fun to read.
- Different Design: I was looking for software engineering and back-end engineering roles, so I converted the resume to include command line arguments to display experiences, projects, etc. I also colored it to mimic my zsh shell. You should try to tailor the design based on the position you are applying for.
- Content: It’s also pretty standard now to have a personal website. As a developer, you should have one and include the link on your resume. In addition to work experience, you should also include links to technical projects that have working URLs with well documented READMEs (getting a 404 error doesn’t set a good impression about your engineering skills). If you don’t have much work experience or projects, do more projects that you can add to your resume!
- Consistency: If you are linking social profiles (a personal website, LinkedIn, Angel, Medium, etc.), it helps if you have a similar brand (profile pictures, copy and design) across all of your profiles for consistency. Feel free to checkout out my profiles as examples:
Refactoring your resume is a very important part of the job application process. Please do not overlook this step. If you haven’t gone through multiple iterations of your resume or haven’t had someone else review it, do these things first.
After about four iterations of my resume, I landed on this one as my favorite:
4th iteration of my resume
Apply to Job Boards
I recommend picking a few main job boards and investing time in those boards, rather than trying to monitor 100 different boards. I found I got a higher ROI on my effort by spending time regularly on a few boards.
With under two years of professional software engineering experience, I found the job boards below very useful for engineers at all levels:
What worked best for me was applying to postings on LinkedIn and Angel.co. I actually found my first engineering job at Wyre through Angel.co and my second engineering job at Solv through LinkedIn. Cold applications work, you just have to put in the time of building a good resume and a clean personal website and writing a personal note (each person’s own secret sauce). To prove my point even more, the job posting at Solv was for a Senior Engineering role, and the recruiter said I got an opportunity to interview because she liked my resume and saw potential.
I can already hear all the different opinions of people yelling in my ear: “But you shouldn’t apply to applications on job boards online. You won’t get noticed so it’s a waste of time. No one looks at them, you have to go through someone you know.” But once you’ve tapped your network and can’t go out to meet people because of stay-at-home orders, it’s time to make job boards work for you.
My goal was to apply to at least 100 companies a week or ~15 companies per day. To make that process more efficient, I tried to reduce context switching by grouping related tasks into one day. For example, I would do all of my initial applications on Sunday and Monday for the week. It didn’t matter if it was a workday application process where I had to sign up for an account for every company I was interviewing for and then going through their 1990’s style application process, I pushed through it and applied anyway.
Lastly, there use to be a script that would allow you to post to literally 1000’s of applications on Angel.co, but it doesn’t work anymore because Angel.co changed their front-end code. If any front-end engineer wants to update/create a new script to batch apply to jobs, that would be awesome!
#software-development #software #interview #software-engineering
