Things I’ve learned during the job hunt
By: Lukasz Raczylo
Tags: Careers, Programming, Interview, Recruitment, Job Search

I’ve recently lost the contract. It was unexpected, and a few long minutes of shock followed the Slack call during which I’ve been informed about the situation. It felt like hours when we just sat down with my wife and kept silent trying to figure out how much savings we have and how difficult it’ll be to secure a new position in the current mid-COVID world.

There was no time to lose, so after making the coffee ( this time a bit stronger than usual ) I’ve headed towards the LinkedIn to send the bat-signal out, found my CV hidden somewhere on one of the devices and started browsing the “jobs” category.

Your CV — things which matter

It’s been a while since I’ve touched it, and last time I added my current role to keep it up to date as possible. My wife put her “very serious but loving face” on when I told her my CV was quite a few pages. It was a sign of disadvantage of highly technical jobs from your past vs recruitment or hiring managers who quite often are not involved in the technology world but look for the specific buzzwords, keywords or technologies matching. “Shorten it up, leave last few roles with things you’re proud of, remove description bits and compress everything else into the smaller, quick to browse through chunk” — she said. The WIFE is always right, so who am I to argue? After half an hour of cutting, trimming, extracting keywords just to make sure I’ll be “discoverable” by the recruiters, the summary of my past 20 years of experience was ready to be shared with the world.

Next step — laying foundations.

Following the “no time to waste” — I’ve sent the new version of my CV out to the recruiters I completely trust for the proofreading and bug hunting. With their input, I was able to tailor it even better to the current market requirements. I’ve lost my contract on Wednesday around 2 PM. By 4 PM I’ve managed to upload the newest version of my CV and profile to the top 15 job search websites in the United Kingdom, and I’ve spent next half an hour on searching and applying for the jobs posted within last week on LinkedIn — just to make sure. I’ve had first few calls and messages the same evening, which together with the well-wishing community of the LinkedIn boosted my mood and left me with a compelling need to push for more.

My wife made the whole job search a really amazing experience. She supported me on all possible levels, high fived every recruitment call and cheered every interview I’ve had whilst working remotely her daily job from our “office” room. I can’t even express how much happiness, joy and energy her support gave me from the beginning until the end. She never allowed me to hang my head, always smiled and been the best advisor. I can only summarise it with — trust your loved ones, believe the others.

Maintain your presence.

There are few tricks which nobody mentions, maybe not too many people are aware of, and recruiters do not disclose that quickly, and I’ve learned about in the past few years.

Most of the recruitment companies and software operates on keywords — think about your CV as a document which you want to be easy to find in Google. Throwing in too many or unpopular keywords won’t make sense, will make it less engaging and challenging to read as well. It can also send the wrong type of job offers your way. If you, for example, have five years of experience with Ruby and Python, but you’re a DevOps engineer who doesn’t want to be a developer (trust me, you’ll get a lot of calls for the dev roles ) — avoid specifying those in your resume, add “programming in multiple languages”. On the other hand — if you worked with Cloud technologies — quite often you need to list them one by one to make yourself easy to find.

Talking of the presence and software used by recruitment companies — you will need to wake up early on Mondays and Wednesdays with all the job offers websites links ready to re-upload your CV, as that’s the time when their software imports CVs from the websites business subscribes. I’d recommend the start of this process around 7 AM to make sure your resume lands in the recruitment companies databases as one of the first ones.

Start posting regularly on LinkedIn and make sure your posts are visible to the public. Loss of job isn’t anything to be happy with, that’s for sure, but posting about your progress in the search, any new things you’re doing to improve the process and maybe side projects you work on — will increase your visibility and encourage others (even from outside of your network) to interact or help you out. Use appropriate #hashtags within your post (in moderation, don’t overdo it) to increase the size of the audience and don’t forget to engage with other posts.

The last thing, really often ignored — make sure your picture in social media, job search websites and so on is recent, bright and you are the only visible subject. Avoid photos from holidays, masks on or “cool parties” — you can leave it for your Facebook and Instagram friends, and we are here to find the new role which will allow you to thrive. Pick a picture which shows you the way you are — honest and trustworthy person who’s capable of bringing experience into the business.

They’re calling, and they’re knocking.

Make it your goal to answer every call, reply to every message and e-mail. Leave your social media behind, you’re on the hunt, and you must avoid any kind of distractions. Yes it’s quiet but forget about the “few minutes of Netflix”, you need to be ready to pick up the phone when it rings (keep it on loud).

Do you remember when the last time you called your best friend, family member or spouse was? You most likely were able to pick up the vibe or feelings of the other side. Recruitment specialists spend most of their time on the phone. They are in most of the cases extremely friendly and easy-going people (those who are not, usually leave the business quite quickly), so if you’re an introvert like me — I am sorry, but you must smile when you answer the phone. Every time you have a call to answer — think about your dream job, best moments with your spouse or friends — doesn’t matter — do everything to take every call as a chance to find yourself in that happy place over and over again. This will set your mind for success by default.

The last thing you want to do during the job search is to fail with scheduling. It doesn’t matter if your profile is popular or not — using traditional e-mail invites can be a burden, it’s challenging to manage and navigate, and most likely, you will find it extremely stressful. I’ve decided to use 2020’s technology to help me out a bit and created calendly profile with availability slots. Scheduling meetings, longer calls or interviews is as easy as sending out your personalised link and letting the other side to pick slot which suits them best. It’s a real lifesaver and helps me to focus on communication while having enough time between meetings to either refresh or allow a little bit of delay without destroying the schedule.

An additional tip which some may not agree with— treat every contact with recruitment specialist as confidential and with respect. Never disclose businesses you’re already in progress with, never apply on your own. Always ask for the name of the business and keep notes to prevent duplicate applications. Trust works both ways and disclosing this information not only destroys your chance to get hired, but also takes recruiters job away.

Finally — no job is your new job.

Do you remember waking up, getting ready, commuting, starting the work, having a lunch break and coming back to your tasks just to call it a day? Maintain and cherish this schedule, even during your unemployment. Don’t leave any space for the laziness and possible depression to sneak in. Your new job is the job search and treat it as full-time employment. It will not only keep you ready for the unique opportunity whenever it appears but also keep your mind safe from drifting away and allowing the “new reality” to take over. Be your project manager — use post-it notes to track the progress of your applications, contacts or go even more high tech with free Trello or GitHub project board to automate the process. Have regular lunch breaks and finish your daily hunt at the 5 PM to give yourself some time to relax, recharge and wake up ready for the new day of challenges, calls or interviews. Be on top of every contact, every signal of interest, don’t be afraid to chase up for updates or ask for the feedback — that’s the way to improve, and all you want now is to be best from the best.