It’s now been about two and a half months since I was given notice and decided to blog about my job search. This is update number 4 (update 2, update 3) and still no job but I also still have two months left. I’m starting to get fewer We can’t wait that long and more The hiring process will take long enough it shouldn’t matter.
I have been learning a bit so far though. Both from interviewing (more remembering old advice there but still) and from helping a friend with his resume. He was getting some advice from someone and I was helping him work through it.
- If the job doesn’t sound all that great to you the interviewers are probably going to notice and will probably not want to hire you. I’m not saying don’t take the interview though, you never know it may turn out far better than you think it will.
- The corollary to that is something my wife (who is amazing at interviewing) once told me. If you want a job, you are really excited about that job, tell them. Excitement will come across in the interview anyway, (just like the lack of it will), but if you want the job, tell them you want the job. If nothing else this tells the hiring people that you’ll come to work excited, rather than just oh well, another day at the grind.
- Your resume shouldn’t have fluf. Every word in your resume should have a purpose.
- Your resume should be directed to the job you want. It’s all well and good to talk about your experience doing backups, but if you are applying for a management position it’s not the most important thing. The part of your resume talking about your leadership skills should be longer than the bit talking about DBA skills. Even if you’ve done less of it. I’m not saying to exaggerate, I’m saying be more detailed. Also list those skills first.
So for example let’s say you have 5 sentences talking about your current job. If you are applying as a manager make three of them about management skills, put those first, and then the other two can cover your DBA skills.
- It’s ok to have multiple resumes. If you want to apply for both management and DBA jobs (and there is nothing wrong with doing that) then have one resume tailored for management and the other DBA jobs. Again, we aren’t lying, or even exaggerating. Just emphasizing.
- Take notes! This one is super important. Unless you have a fantastic memory and/or plan on only going on one interview you are going to need notes. I started a OneNote notebook with notes on each job, including a link back to the job posting, how much do they pay, notes on benefits, vacation, etc. I also made a note on each interview I’ve done so far, who it was with, what I thought of them, what I think of the company etc. I then review those notes (and the job posting) before any subsequent interviews. This has the added benefit of telling me if I’m getting submitted to the same place twice. It hasn’t happened yet this time but I’ve had it happen to me in the past.
- Keep a list of the recruiters too and which jobs they’ve sent you on along with anything you might think about them. There is nothing wrong about calling a recruiter every now and again and see if anything new has come up. Historically I’ve made a point of calling each recruiter at least once a week. I can’t tell you how they feel about it but it makes me feel better.
- Networking is everything. I know you probably hear this all the time but it’s really true. More than half of the interviews I’ve been on so far have been entirely through networking. I’ve literally had people come to me saying Joe Smith commented to us that you are looking for work, do you have time to talk about job xyz?
If there’s anything I didn’t cover that you’d like to ask about feel free. If you want to leave a comment or hit me up on twitter I’ll do my best to answer whatever I can. Also, I’m curious if you think these are helpful or not? The idea was to help other people who are looking for a job, or might be in the future get some ideas for themselves.