My experience with Talently
Tags: beginners, talenty, webdev, jobs
Published: 2023-09-06 04:03:53

With this post, I want to share with many people who have asked me about my experience with Talently and whether what they promise actually works.

## My experience
My experience began in the year 2020, in the city of Bogotá. I was a junior developer at a software factory. I didn't feel like the best developer or the least experienced. Just one among many. I didn't have good English, and I felt like my professional life was already settled. In short, I had no aspirations.

I can't exactly recall where I first saw Talently's advertisement, but their offer of "double your current salary" caught my attention. I'm always curious and very cautious about such offers. So, I scheduled an interview with them without much enthusiasm.

## Interview
The first impression was pleasant. The person who interviewed me said that my profile was a perfect fit for what they were looking for and mentioned the price: an initial $300 to enter the program and 50% of my new salary once I had a new job. I did the math and decided to take the risk. After all, if I could double my salary, paying 50% wouldn't be so painful.

Once I made the $20 payment to secure my spot and divided the $300 into 3 payments, I gained access to the platform. My first impression was of a young team, all full of energy, motivating each other to find jobs. They assigned me a mentor, and I started with the course.

## The Program
The course was very comprehensive and beginner-friendly. It had templates for just copying and pasting to make contacts on LinkedIn, creating bios for job portals, and explaining my experience to recruiters in a way that sounded better, and more.

In a matter of 2 weeks, I had completed the course and had my LinkedIn, CV, and Cover Letter highly optimized for my job search.

Something I was told several times was that I needed a goal.

> "When you don't know where you're sailing, no wind is favorable."

This quote made me think and define exactly what I wanted: a large company with a robust and substantial project where I could learn a lot, and it would be a valuable addition to my CV, enabling me to take the next step, internationalize my work. SPOILER: Today, 3 years later, I can say that it was achieved.

With that in mind, my job search began. The changes I made and the motivation from the program pushed me to send up to 10 applications a day. I had the texts ready, and it was just copy and paste to reach out to recruiters. According to the statistics they provided, out of 100 applications, only 15 moved to a second stage, 5 to a third stage, and only ONE led to a job offer.

Something important, and a subject of debate, is that Talently did not apply on my behalf. They gave me the tools, but the applications were my responsibility.

Recruiters began reaching out almost immediately. I had focused my search on my home country, Colombia. I ruled out small businesses, startups, and small companies. Some large companies contacted me, but when I asked for information about the project, I wasn't convinced. I remember a small business that put in a lot of effort and offered shares and a good salary (double what I was earning at the time, a point for Talently), but the project didn't excite me. It relied heavily on investors, and I couldn't leave the company for 3 years without losing the shares.

In the end, I had two offers on the table, Global Hitss/Claro Colombia and a bank. Both offers were similar, but Claro's project was much more interesting and significantly larger. The decision was easy.

I worked at that company for about 2 years and learned a lot, enough to take the step of working in Canada, but that's another story.

## Summary
The program worked for me; it helped me focus and improve how I presented myself to recruiters.

But it's not magic; you have to put in a lot of effort to carry it out, send many CVs, and learn to accept negative responses.

## Postscript
I don't work for Talently, and I'm not being paid for this post.
My experience is from 2020. Whatever changes, additions, or removals the program has made, I haven't seen them myself.