|
More "real work" gets done when infrastructure is well funded because there is less common work for people building applications to do. They will be a multiplier on your companies output both in terms of speed and quality. Lol if you work somewhere that doesn't realize this.
|
#
?
Aug 21, 2016 04:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 06:25 |
|
|
Necc0 posted:I mean yeah you as a tech person realizes this and it's the correct way of thinking about it. The bean counters aren't techies though. I highly recommend a book called The Real Business Of IT to learn the sales skills necessary to convince the rest of the company that what you do is actually a good investment
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2016 15:11
|
|
|
How do you go about finding a job in another city? I might have asked this before, but I forget. The city I'm in isn't great for tech, but trying to apply in other cities is very difficult. A lot of places just immediately toss out my resume just because I'm not local, it seems. The ones that do contact me immediately ask why I'm applying out of state, and I don't have a great answer. Going through a recruiter isn't ideal here, I imagine it's even worse trying to deal with one in a different city. Most of the craigslist postings I see are just from recruiters anyway. I have a bit better luck with stack overflow careers. Is there somewhere better I should be looking?
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2016 20:20
|
|
|
Zero The Hero posted:How do you go about finding a job in another city? I might have asked this before, but I forget. The city I'm in isn't great for tech, but trying to apply in other cities is very difficult. A lot of places just immediately toss out my resume just because I'm not local, it seems. The ones that do contact me immediately ask why I'm applying out of state, and I don't have a great answer. Going through a recruiter isn't ideal here, I imagine it's even worse trying to deal with one in a different city. Most of the craigslist postings I see are just from recruiters anyway. I have a bit better luck with stack overflow careers. Is there somewhere better I should be looking? Having just gone through this, here's what worked for me: My wife and I set a deadline to move, so that when applying to jobs, I could tell prospective employers that I would be in town on x date, regardless of whether or not they hired me. When they asked me why I'm moving, I could truthfully say that I was moving to be closer to family, but "I like (city, culture, career opportunities) better", are all perfectly valid reasons. When looking for tech jobs check out dice and indeed, Craigslist in my area only seemed to have the entry level help desk or the small business underpaid to do everything postings. Also, get an idea of what large companies have offices in the target city, then look at the career sections on their respective websites. There are usually jobs listed there that haven't made it onto career sites yet.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2016 20:32
|
|
|
Star War Sex Parrot posted:Depends on the role. I've got some friends there that are quite happy but maybe they're just naive and about to get blindsided by layoffs.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2016 22:04
|
|
|
Zero The Hero posted:How do you go about finding a job in another city? I might have asked this before, but I forget. The city I'm in isn't great for tech, but trying to apply in other cities is very difficult. A lot of places just immediately toss out my resume just because I'm not local, it seems. The ones that do contact me immediately ask why I'm applying out of state, and I don't have a great answer. Going through a recruiter isn't ideal here, I imagine it's even worse trying to deal with one in a different city. Most of the craigslist postings I see are just from recruiters anyway. I have a bit better luck with stack overflow careers. Is there somewhere better I should be looking? I could be wrong but if an interviewer's answer was "there aren't jobs for me here" I'd take that as a decent enough reason. I mean, it sounds perfectly legit. "Well I'd like a job and nobody has a job for me here. Not much of a tech sector, you know? So I'd like to go to a place where there is one."
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 00:21
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:I could be wrong but if an interviewer's answer was "there aren't jobs for me here" I'd take that as a decent enough reason. I mean, it sounds perfectly legit. "Well I'd like a job and nobody has a job for me here. Not much of a tech sector, you know? So I'd like to go to a place where there is one." This was more or less the answer I gave when I looked for jobs on the other side of the state. No tech sector, no community, no peers, no opportunities for both interesting work and career growth. Seemed to satisfy people.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 09:11
|
|
|
Do cover letters really matter that much? Because whenever they've been listed as "optional", I didn't submit one. My assumption has been that resume + GitHub is vastly more important, and that a few paragraphs don't matter one bit. I mainly hate writing them and can't seem to find a way to do it that isn't all "I [verb...", which is pretty bad writing. I've been applying hard for the past several weeks and only have five "we went with other candidates" emails with zero interviews. I'm getting a more than a little discouraged by the whole venture. At least next time I'll know that web dev and JavaScript is the route to take over .NET.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 20:25
|
|
|
There's probably plenty of C# jobs around. The way you've got to theorize the hiring process is to think about what you can do at each step that'll make you better than the other candidates. Writing a cover letter, really just a paragraph or two in an email with an attached resume, makes you look like you're interested. It proves that you know how to write, at the very least, and gives you important space to sell your skills. Take care to mention how you conform to their bullet points, then add a little flavor about things you've done or approaches you like to use in designing software. At most places, nobody will really read your resume, so use the cover letter to do the important stuff like list your phone number and explicitly tell them to call you.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 20:46
|
|
|
I used a cover letter to dog-whistle that I am a real programmer, put my phone number at the end and got a call to schedule a phone screen within minutes (edit: yes! Explicitly told them to call me at (911) 867-5309.) Lots of cover letters I've seen were just, "Hi, I'm interested in a job at company. Attached is my resume." and that worked too for those people (since I had to phone screen them) but they also had a resume with job history to speak of. If a cover letter is optional then you should include one. It lowers the probability that you're spamming resumes, from their perspective.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 20:47
|
|
|
BirdOfPlay posted:Do cover letters really matter that much? Because whenever they've been listed as "optional", I didn't submit one.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 21:07
|
|
|
sarehu posted:Explicitly told them to call me at (911) 867-5309.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 21:54
|
|
|
No Safe Word posted:If I saw this on a resume or cover letter I'd trash it so fast without taking a second look. I used my real phone number...
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 21:59
|
|
|
rt4 posted:There's probably plenty of C# jobs around. There totally are; we have a .NET user group that meets once a month at Microsoft's local office. I'm surprised that resumes matter less than I thought. Thanks everyone for correcting me on that. Sarehu (and others that have rotated through recruiting/interviewing), I do have a direct question for you: what's the best way to handle not having a degree, in terms of a cover letter? I've worked with two approaches, but both seem off. One way is to mention it early and directly as in "While I do not have a degree, I have been teaching myself..." and so on. The other is to mention that I did go to college but never mention graduating, so it might imply that I have a degree without explicitly lying. And yes, I have considered explicitly lying about just to be able to talk to someone. Of course, I would immediately say "jk, I'm a droppout" if I got an interview, because I'm painfully honest.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 22:38
|
|
|
E: I was very tired when I wrot this post
bomblol fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Aug 24, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 22:44
|
|
|
BirdOfPlay posted:what's the best way to handle not having a degree, in terms of a cover letter? If you have more than a couple years of experience, nobody will even ask about a degree. Nobody ever asks me about my bachelor's degree in CS or my very good SAT score, much to my annoyance. On the other hand, they also don't ask about my very bad GPA... About half of the programmers I've worked with don't have a bachelor's degree. Half of the ones that do have degrees don't have one in CS. That said, I live in the south and all the work here is easy boring stuff. People do interesting stuff in other parts of the US, right? Or is it just higher-paid boring stuff?
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 23:48
|
|
|
BirdOfPlay posted:There totally are; we have a .NET user group that meets once a month at Microsoft's local office. Well, like, the resume is more important. The cover letter can be important, or a way to get yourself rejected, or the opposite. There are plenty of companies where it is immediately discarded, disregarded, or for which the only real purpose it serves is to identify what position you're applying for. BirdOfPlay posted:Sarehu (and others that have rotated through recruiting/interviewing), I do have a direct question for you: what's the best way to handle not having a degree, in terms of a cover letter? (You should ask somebody who is distinguishable from a big gigantic sperg about that.) I wouldn't mention your degree/lack-thereof at all in the cover letter. Nobody wants to get an email from somebody apologizing for not having a degree yet deigning to seek a job. Like, if you were a single girl at a bar and a cute guy walked up to you and said "Hey, what's up girrrl, I didn't graduate from university, but --" Just no, what a betacuck move that is. You want a man to walk up and say, "Sup biatch, check out my mad dot NET skillz." And they reach into their crotch, whip out a laptop and as you watch them type out the URL to their Github page you realize they're proficient in a one handed Dvorak keyboard layout.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 23:50
|
|
|
sarehu posted:You want a man to walk up and say, "Sup biatch, check out my mad dot NET skillz." And they reach into their crotch, whip out a laptop and as you watch them type out the URL to their Github page you realize they're proficient in a one handed Dvorak keyboard layout. ... go on ... 
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 23:53
|
|
|
rt4 posted:Nobody ever asks me about my bachelor's degree in CS or my very good SAT score, much to my annoyance. That reminds me that we got a resume once where the candidate put his SAT score on there and it was ten points higher than mine, instantly annoying me.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2016 23:58
|
|
|
CPColin posted:That reminds me that we got a resume once where the candidate put his SAT score on there and it was ten points higher than mine, instantly annoying me. Yeah, I always figured listing something I did over a decade ago would both make me look like a jackass and invite other college-related questions that might show me in an unfavorable light.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 00:04
|
|
|
I got an email from a google talent scout asking for my resume and what I'm planning to do when I graduate and if I have time for a chat. Do they send out a ton of these or should I be freaking out? I'm working on my resume now. Oddly enough I sent a resume to them a year ago when I was applying for internships, but the email mentioned stuff that wasn't on it so I guess he must have gotten my info from somewhere else. I've been dragging my feet on career stuff while considering grad school and the like so this really caught me off guard.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 01:57
|
|
|
BirdOfPlay posted:Do cover letters really matter that much? Because whenever they've been listed as "optional", I didn't submit one. It couldn't possibly hurt and writing a good one takes like ten minutes. Why not do it?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 02:32
|
|
|
Puella Magissima posted:I got an email from a google talent scout asking for my resume and what I'm planning to do when I graduate and if I have time for a chat. Do they send out a ton of these or should I be freaking out? I'm working on my resume now. I think so, I got an email that sounds nearly the same as yours. Applied for an internship last year as well and I'm graduating next May from a no-name state school. A couple classmates have had similar interactions with Google recruiting recently. If your experience is like mine, the recruiter will chat with you for about 20ish minutes asking some very simple "tell me about yourself" questions. Afterwards you get put in the application process starting with a coding sample request. Can't tell you much more because I haven't done the coding sample, but judging by my performance on Leetcode this afternoon, I am not ready. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 02:49
|
|
|
When I took my first CS course in college I bought a keyboard with blank keys and forced myself to type my essays using right handed Dvorak. I thought I had to do that to fit in with the leet hacker bros in my class. It was a dumb idea, but now I have the useless superpower of being able to sip my coffee while typing. Having a cover letter did not really change the rate of favorable responses I got, but I also had no internships or Github so maybe if you have those it might be a good idea to talk about them? I never thought cover letters were all that useful honestly. I also got a Google recruiter contact me as I was about to graduate. I told him that I wasn't ready yet, and actually contacted him more than a year later. After the coding sample and a phone interview I got an on-site. The coding sample was similar in difficulty to the phone and on-site questions I got, but the code actually has to compile and pass a bazillion automatic tests you don't know about, not to mention the clock that ticks down every second, so it's kind of a stressful experience.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 03:33
|
|
|
With cover letters I kind of think of it like: imagine you have two guys who have identical qualifications, but one of them says he's thrilled about the work you're doing and the other guy says "hey, gotta work somewhere." Obviously if you're not a strong candidate for whatever you're applying to it won't make a difference.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 03:37
|
|
|
i have like 90 repos on github, most garbage, so i use my cover letter to call out the more interesting/impressive ones
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 04:05
|
|
|
Smugworth posted:I think so, I got an email that sounds nearly the same as yours. Applied for an internship last year as well and I'm graduating next May from a no-name state school. A couple classmates have had similar interactions with Google recruiting recently. That's helpful, thanks. Even if they're just trying to get people to apply, I suppose it can't hurt to get noticed and maybe get some professional feedback. I doubt I'm ready for the coding sample either, but at least since this was out of the blue I don't have too much in the way of expectations.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 04:33
|
|
|
Puella Magissima posted:I got an email from a google talent scout asking for my resume and what I'm planning to do when I graduate and if I have time for a chat. Do they send out a ton of these or should I be freaking out? I'm working on my resume now.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 05:06
|
|
|
BirdOfPlay posted:Do cover letters really matter that much? Because whenever they've been listed as "optional", I didn't submit one. If there are two identical candidates but one has a cover letter and the other doesn't, the guy with the cover letter probably wins. In terms of what the cover letter says, eh. From my own experience involved in hiring, it only matters if you say something exceptionally interesting or gently caress it up. I skim them and if it looks like standard business blather I won't pay attention to the content, but I will check for spelling, grammar, diction, etc. The best ones I've read have mentioned something from the company blog, or that they saw a co-worker speak at a meetup, or have some other interest in something particular about the company. The worst one I've read was a schizophrenic rant against a company that makes an operating system. "BirdOfPlay posted:Sarehu (and others that have rotated through recruiting/interviewing), I do have a direct question for you: what's the best way to handle not having a degree, in terms of a cover letter? Mentioning it in the cover letter would be awkward. Plenty of people in this industry don't have a degree or have a degree in something other than CS. The proper place to address it is in the interview, and only then if they bring it up. If you're worried about it, have an answer ready that talks about how you learned to program, any books/thought leaders you admire, etc. "Yes, I'm self-taught, but I learned by spending 12 years in a cave committing SICP to memory, reciting it word for word and beating myself like a Trappist monk every time I got something wrong. I also read Paul Graham's book about hackers and painters."
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 07:48
|
|
|
The cover letter gives you a chance to say you really want to work at that company. That message can really go a long way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 12:58
|
|
|
I'm about to transition from contract-to-hire to FTE at my job, and it looks like they're going to deny my insurance coverage for two months as part of some trial period. Thing is, I already worked here for three months. I don't think I should have to gamble with insurance just because I accepted a job. Do I have any recourse here?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 15:21
|
|
|
Zero The Hero posted:I'm about to transition from contract-to-hire to FTE at my job, and it looks like they're going to deny my insurance coverage for two months as part of some trial period. Thing is, I already worked here for three months. I don't think I should have to gamble with insurance just because I accepted a job. Do I have any recourse here? Insurance taking 1-3 months to kick in is pretty normal (IME) and you are technically a new hire, so probably not unless you can negotiate for a lump sum payment to get gap coverage. Just remember this next time someone tries to tell you how great the healthcare system is in the US
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 18:17
|
|
|
Munkeymon posted:Insurance taking 1-3 months to kick in is pretty normal (IME) and you are technically a new hire, so probably not unless you can negotiate for a lump sum payment to get gap coverage. Just remember this next time someone tries to tell you how great the healthcare system is in the US I used to work in healthcare billing, I'm already aware. Doesn't mean I can't be pissed off about these guys essentially pulling my coverage. The excuse for denying coverage to new hires is already terribly flimsy, and it disappears entirely when going contract-to-hire. If I were in a better financial situation, I would quit over this.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 21:10
|
|
|
Puella Magissima posted:That's helpful, thanks. Even if they're just trying to get people to apply, I suppose it can't hurt to get noticed and maybe get some professional feedback. I doubt I'm ready for the coding sample either, but at least since this was out of the blue I don't have too much in the way of expectations. I got an email after submitting an application to YouTube a couple weeks ago. I took the coding sample after putting it off for a bit and the first part was insanely easy, the second half wasn't difficult conceptually but was difficult to finish in the timeline. (I ended with just a skeleton for the main function and several helper functions). I still got contacted by the recruiter afterwards to continue the process. e: Where are all the functional programming jobs at?? bomblol fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Aug 24, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 21:26
|
|
|
Munkeymon posted:Insurance taking 1-3 months to kick in is pretty normal (IME) and you are technically a new hire, so probably not unless you can negotiate for a lump sum payment to get gap coverage. Just remember this next time someone tries to tell you how great the healthcare system is in the US Insurance taking 1-3 months to kick in is not normal and would be loving unacceptable to me.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 21:44
|
|
|
Yeah, I've only seen that at particularly lovely contracting companies. I had never considered not mentioning I was still working on my degree. Now I guess I won't mention that I have an AS. I'm really hoping to get a junior job when this contract is up in December. Writing scripts is the best part of this job, and I'm currently making pretty much what I made at my first job two years ago.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 23:31
|
|
|
Munkeymon posted:Insurance taking 1-3 months to kick in is pretty normal (IME) What kind of lovely companies have you worked at 
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 23:45
|
|
|
Cicero posted:Google is pretty liberal about who it starts initial talks with, they're just very aggressive about weeding people out during interviews (and I think now sometimes they have a pre-phone screen stage with a code challenge or something for some candidates). My ~google recruitment experience~ started with the google foobar thing. One day I was searching and got an automated invitation to a coding challenge, a recruiter contacted me after I passed that
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 23:47
|
|
|
CPColin posted:That reminds me that we got a resume once where the candidate put his SAT score on there and it was ten points higher than mine, instantly annoying me. When I graduated like 8 years ago, Google's online application form at the time literally asked you to put in your SAT and college GPA. According to Google I got 1580 and a 3.8.  I actually wonder if those numbers are still attached to my info packet everytime a recruiter from there looks me up.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 14:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 06:25 |
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Yeah, I've only seen that at particularly lovely contracting companies. The contracting company is the one who gave me insurance, actually. It's the company they contracted me with that isn't going to give me insurance after becoming an employee.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 15:05
|
|