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Gildiss posted:Recruiters typically only help those that already have experience. I get calls all the time now from them, but before I got my first job by myself they were of no help. Depends how many prospects they have, I guess. No harm in trying.
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Jan 4, 2017 15:41
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If you were giving your resume to a friend, to be passed off to his boss, would you bother writing a cover letter? In my opinion I think the simple fact that the resume comes with internal recognition is "equivalent".
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Jan 4, 2017 16:59
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Hey guys, couple quick questions here. I'm looking to get back into programming hopefully as a career and have a few questions. I used to code websites for myself and friends using PHP and MySQL so I'm fairly familiar with those (and html and css of course), but I'm kind of lost on which other languages are in demand these days- I was thinking of learning python, then maybe JavaScript or C#? Any advice there? I've never really enjoyed the web design side of things, I was more of a database nerd, so I'll probably brush up on my mysql as I doubt that's not in demand. Also, I live in western massachusetts where the largest city is Springfield, am I gonna have to move to Boston or something to find a decent job? I doubt there's much of a tech sector here, haha. I'm sure these questions have been asked many many times here so apologies in advance. I'm sick of working jobs I hate for lovely pay, and I enjoy programming, so why not get paid to do it? Also. I only have a GED, will this be a problem? Should I be looking into actual schools? I'm pretty good at teaching myself with the internet so hopefully a college diploma isn't 100% necessary.. thanks guys, any help is much appreciated.
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Jan 4, 2017 17:18
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Sab669 posted:If you were giving your resume to a friend, to be passed off to his boss, would you bother writing a cover letter? Why wouldn't you? It takes 10 minutes to write a cover letter. That resume may change hands a bunch of times. Having a cover letter that said, "Bob referred me to you and tells me great things about the company" would help keep that connection throughout the process.
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Jan 4, 2017 17:22
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zeldadude posted:Hey guys, couple quick questions here. I'm looking to get back into programming hopefully as a career and have a few questions. I used to code websites for myself and friends using PHP and MySQL so I'm fairly familiar with those (and html and css of course), but I'm kind of lost on which other languages are in demand these days- I was thinking of learning python, then maybe JavaScript or C#? Any advice there? I started my career in nearby Albany. Don't go to Albany. But if you can find a boutique web development firm near you, apply. They're always looking for code monkeys to make contact forms and manage Wordpress sites. A diploma isn't required for web development. At all. I suspect JavaScript is the most future-proof language skill to have in terms of employability. But pick a language that you enjoy using, you'll keep your sanity longer.
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Jan 4, 2017 17:33
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:
That is the appropriate response to getting such an email, but I'm not sure it says anything about whether you should use that tactic or not. Just because you trash it doesn't mean a significant-enough portion of recipients would trash it and it sounds like the guy was describing that at least for him it was a significant-enough portion of the recipients.
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Jan 4, 2017 20:17
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Thermopyle posted:That is the appropriate response to getting such an email, but I'm not sure it says anything about whether you should use that tactic or not. Do you think it's more likely to work or be ignored by someone who doesn't want to bother with applicants who can't follow the instructions? I'd guess it's the latter.
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Jan 4, 2017 21:32
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Do you think it's more likely to work or be ignored by someone who doesn't want to bother with applicants who can't follow the instructions? I'd guess it's the latter. Right, but what's the cost to the applicant? Very little as far as I can tell.
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Jan 4, 2017 23:44
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Do you think it's more likely to work or be ignored by someone who doesn't want to bother with applicants who can't follow the instructions? I'd guess it's the latter. Obviously it's going to be ignored in your scenario. But you'll also get your resume read by people who might otherwise never have seen it; those who are being hamstrung by bad HR/Computerized Screening for instance. There's also the people who aren't obsessed about THE HOLY PROCEDURE, who may or may not be a better kind of boss for you (some people like more structure. I appreciate some flexibility.) There are some job listings that go out of their way to tell you that THIS is the ONLY way to apply and all other applicants will be rejected, period, and in those cases I would just follow their one procedure. Otherwise, it's a judgement call. Edit: I'm more likely to try to get around the official process if it's incredibly laborious or asinine, like if it's one of those horrible centralized job application processing things. You know: "Thank you for uploading your resume. Now please fill out this 17-page web form hosted on a Pentium 1 in Malawi, with all the same information that's already contained in your resume, plus your last 5 salaries and a minimum of 8 professional references. Expect the form to crash without retaining any of your information, forcing you to start over from the beginning, at least once." Yeah, no thanks, let me spend 5 minutes looking for someone I can send a nice email cover letter with my resume attached, and they can decide if they want to hire a professional who doesn't have time for bullshit. I'm not a newbie though, and I find myself less and less willing to put up with that variety of bullshit as my career progresses. Che Delilas fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 02:58
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What the best way to answer "Why did you leave your previous job?" when the answer is "I successfully lobbied for a title change to 'Architect' and then the company decided it no longer needed an Architect"? The only concrete reason they gave me was "business needs," so I want to spin it as "times are tough," instead of "they decided their employee with ten years of experience wasn't worth it any more," but I can't figure out exactly how.
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Jan 7, 2017 17:10
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CPColin posted:What the best way to answer "Why did you leave your previous job?" when the answer is "I successfully lobbied for a title change to 'Architect' and then the company decided it no longer needed an Architect"? The only concrete reason they gave me was "business needs," so I want to spin it as "times are tough," instead of "they decided their employee with ten years of experience wasn't worth it any more," but I can't figure out exactly how. I want to take the next steps to progress in my career as a software engineer. Unfortunately, the org structure at my previous employer does not provide any opportunities for growth at my level. I'm looking for a new company which is better equipped to support dedicated software architects. Definitely don't say that last thing you put into quotes.
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Jan 7, 2017 18:23
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Beyond romanticizing the dual citizenship with the UK that I've never utilized, are there any chances to use it as a fresh grad, if I already live close to the bay area? I'll be graduating in a year, and have interned in local government maintaining/developing webapps, and want to travel, but if there are job opportunities that sends me over there (not sure why there would be..), I'm all for it.
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Jan 7, 2017 19:49
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hedgecore posted:I want to take the next steps to progress in my career as a software engineer. Unfortunately, the org structure at my previous employer does not provide any opportunities for growth at my level. I'm looking for a new company which is better equipped to support dedicated software architects. Yeah this. "No further opportunities for career growth" to put it more succinctly/generically.
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Jan 7, 2017 23:01
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To clarify, they eliminated my role and laid me off.
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Jan 7, 2017 23:08
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You want your answer to be short and to clearly point at it being related to economics, not politics. IE, something like: "Demand for the product/service my team was a part of fell, and as a result the company decided to eliminate my job as a cost-saving measure."
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Jan 8, 2017 01:19
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I just graduated in December and I've got some job offers now and I'm visiting SF next week to meet another team and hopefully get another, which is the one I'm more excited about. I realized that I don't really know anything about what the benefits, especially the financial benefits mean, and how to compare them. i.e. is a $5,000 higher salary worth not having a 401k? They're startups, but they range from relatively small / new ones. Is there a good resource where I can learn about these things that somehow never got covered in 17 years of education?
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Jan 8, 2017 18:17
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I guess what I'm (possibly irrationally) worried about is the interviewer wondering why they let me go, instead of, say, transitioning me back into a general development role. Maybe I could deflect that question by joking, "You know, at the time, I didn't think to ask." I mean, I hope I'm fretting over a situation that isn't likely to happen; I just don't want to have to stammer out an answer, if it does.
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Jan 8, 2017 18:24
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CPColin posted:I guess what I'm (possibly irrationally) worried about is the interviewer wondering why they let me go, instead of, say, transitioning me back into a general development role. Maybe I could deflect that question by joking, "You know, at the time, I didn't think to ask." "Ambition" (along with "money") are valid answers to the question "why did you leave your last job." Good companies respect that.
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Jan 8, 2017 18:38
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lifg posted:"Ambition" (along with "money") are valid answers to the question "why did you leave your last job." Good companies respect that. Are they still valid answers when I was laid off?
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Jan 8, 2017 18:49
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CPColin posted:I guess what I'm (possibly irrationally) worried about is the interviewer wondering why they let me go, instead of, say, transitioning me back into a general development role. Me too. "A poor fit" could mean anything. My former boss actually apologized for not being able to explain why he was firing me at 90 days. I told him if he really wanted to help, he should write me a letter of recommendation. Yesterday I received this email: quote:To whom it may concern, I was a little surprised he followed through, but I'm even more surprised by how nice it is. If I'm that good, maybe he just shouldn't have fired me!
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Jan 8, 2017 18:56
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CPColin posted:I guess what I'm (possibly irrationally) worried about is the interviewer wondering why they let me go, instead of, say, transitioning me back into a general development role. Maybe I could deflect that question by joking, "You know, at the time, I didn't think to ask." I think it's a rational concern. If you're already speculating, I'd consider things like the trajectory of the industry/company/deliverable, and any reasonable rumor of off-shoring or outsourcing, ways to articulate the depth of the cuts, etc. Basically, if you failed a lifeboat exercise, you want to articular how few seats there were.
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Jan 8, 2017 19:01
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bomblol posted:I just graduated in December and I've got some job offers now and I'm visiting SF next week to meet another team and hopefully get another, which is the one I'm more excited about. I realized that I don't really know anything about what the benefits, especially the financial benefits mean, and how to compare them. i.e. is a $5,000 higher salary worth not having a 401k? They're startups, but they range from relatively small / new ones. Is there a good resource where I can learn about these things that somehow never got covered in 17 years of education? I don't think you're going to find a whole lot. The value of benefits is highly subjective and in the specific case of a 401k based on future tax rates and rate of return that you don't know and have to make assumptions for. My back of the hand calculation says that access to a 401k is worth about $2k but that could vary wildly. If you get a match the value of that is significantly easier to calculate. I would say in general that small differences between jobs aren't worth worrying about and I would base the decision on which you like better at that point.
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Jan 8, 2017 19:48
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If the 401k doesn't have a match the value is $0 until you are already maxing out your IRA. If the 401k does have a match the value is whatever the maximum your employer will contribute is plus the tax savings above the match. If you're already maxing out your IRA then the value is going to be based on the amount you could save in taxes either now (standard 401k) or at retirement (Roth 401k) If you don't know poo poo about finances buy this book and read it, it's designed for 20 somethings who are making decent money and is a pretty good intro to finances: https://www.amazon.com/Will-Teach-You-Be-Rich-ebook/dp/B004WL4BW6/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1 Jose Valasquez fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 19:54
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Jose Valasquez posted:If the 401k doesn't have a match the value is $0 until you are already maxing out your IRA. I think the first if is kinda silly, since you should definitely be doing that if getting a presumably high paying development job in the Bay Area. It's also possible depending on the job that the pay will be beyond the income limits for IRA contributions anyway, so aside from backdoor roth, I'd say regardless of match that a 401k is worth something (especially because traditional 401k contributions can push you back under the IRA income limits). I don't know how the other estimate of $2k was calculated, but that seems awfully low to me.
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Jan 8, 2017 20:10
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CPColin posted:I guess what I'm (possibly irrationally) worried about is the interviewer wondering why they let me go, instead of, say, transitioning me back into a general development role. Maybe I could deflect that question by joking, "You know, at the time, I didn't think to ask." You were not fired. You were laid off. This is explicitly not related to your performance. Their business was unable to find enough work for you to do. The title history leading up to that is unrelated. My last round of interviews came because I was laid off. "Startup crashed and laid me off" is such a common story in the Bay that nobody really batted an eye.
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Jan 8, 2017 20:24
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rt4 posted:Me too. "A poor fit" could mean anything. My former boss actually apologized for not being able to explain why he was firing me at 90 days. I told him if he really wanted to help, he should write me a letter of recommendation. Yesterday I received this email: It might be a case of him wanting to keep you but his boss's boss eliminating the position. It might also be a budget thing; programmers aren't cheap and the money just may not have been there. The simple fact is that they just plain may not have needed you. That happens sometimes and is just the way of things.
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Jan 8, 2017 20:24
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Steve French posted:I think the first if is kinda silly, since you should definitely be doing that if getting a presumably high paying development job in the Bay Area. It's also possible depending on the job that the pay will be beyond the income limits for IRA contributions anyway, so aside from backdoor roth, I'd say regardless of match that a 401k is worth something (especially because traditional 401k contributions can push you back under the IRA income limits). I don't know how the other estimate of $2k was calculated, but that seems awfully low to me. Investing 18k in a 401k is roughly equivalent to investing 20k (pre-tax) in a taxable account with a ton of assumptions. I made a quick spreadsheet if anyone is interested in the math. One thing this simplified model completely ignores is that some of the return in the taxable account will occur as dividends or interest which are taxable when received and will lower the rate of return. The other is that a big reason the difference is so low is that withdrawals from a 401k are counted as income while gains from a taxable brokerage account are taxed at the capital gains rates which are currently significantly lower than income tax rates. Assumptions: Rate of return: 7% Income tax rate: 20% (split between 15% and 25% bracket) Capital Gains tax rate: 10% (split between 0% and 15% bracket) Length: 30 years
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Jan 8, 2017 20:54
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asur posted:Investing 18k in a 401k is roughly equivalent to investing 20k (pre-tax) in a taxable account with a ton of assumptions. I made a quick spreadsheet if anyone is interested in the math. One thing this simplified model completely ignores is that some of the return in the taxable account will occur as dividends or interest which are taxable when received and will lower the rate of return. The other is that a big reason the difference is so low is that withdrawals from a 401k are counted as income while gains from a taxable brokerage account are taxed at the capital gains rates which are currently significantly lower than income tax rates. Ok, that's pretty fair. I think that taxes on dividends and interest can end up being significant, depending on the investment, performance, and tax rates. For example, I believe holdings in one of my accounts in a target retirement date fund saw about 2.5% gains in dividends and interest this year that would have been taxable if not in an IRA; that could easily end up making a difference of ~20% or so after 30 years. On the other hand, it's possible that the 401k has garbage funds available, and I don't know if that's something you can expect to know before taking a job offer, so that should discount it somewhat. bomblol: definitely find out if there is a 401k match. If there isn't, it might still be worth enough, but there are likely other bigger factors that should make the decision for you.
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Jan 8, 2017 22:58
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Okay. I want to get out of management (IT manager for a small ($25m), family owned manufacturing company, 100 employees or so) and back into a technical role. I previously spent about 10 years in network/sysadmin roles for two similar companies, and three years at small (3,000ish employee) multinational manufacturer as a sysadmin (they acquired one of the previous companies). Last job was about three years of web development for a health/wellness company. I'd prefer to get into a database or programming role. I've worked with Ruby, PHP, Python, VB, JavaScript, but it much in the .NET or Java realm. I love digging through nine layers of poo poo to figure out why things are broken or slow. No CS degree. And I'm open to learning new languages or technologies. Had pretty much not heard of Rails a week before I got my last development job but was able to get up to speed and pass their programming take home assignment and interview. Problem is I'm in the middle of Michigan and there's not much around so I may have to move to the southern or western parts of the state. There's a big local insurance company but they are a Java/MS shop, I am thinking about investigating them some more. I'm thinking about nerding out for a bit and maybe working on some open source bugs or something to just get used to getting familiar with new things.
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Jan 9, 2017 00:57
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Jose Valasquez posted:If the 401k doesn't have a match the value is $0 until you are already maxing out your IRA. Thanks! This helps a lot. I'm definitely going to check out that book. I think also what asur said is right - all the money stuff just hit me for the first time today and I suddenly got worried about it, but I should probably just focus on which place is the one I actually want to work at the most. From this thread + the internet at large it seems like people tend to move around a lot, so I guess in a few years I can re-evaluate my situation and decide what to do once I've established myself a bit.
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Jan 9, 2017 01:26
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Jose Valasquez posted:If the 401k does have a match the value is whatever the maximum your employer will contribute is plus the tax savings above the match. The only modifier to this is whether your employer's 401k contributions are yours immediately or if they are subject to a vesting schedule. At that point you need to consider how long you see yourself at the company and the value of whatever portion of the employer's match that's subject to forfeiture. I once worked at a place that had a 5 year vesting schedule. I stayed there only a year and a half, so I walked away with pocket change from their match.
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Jan 9, 2017 02:31
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CPColin posted:I guess what I'm (possibly irrationally) worried about is the interviewer wondering why they let me go, instead of, say, transitioning me back into a general development role. You might get asked "why are you leaving?" or "why did you leave?" to elicit a red flag response ("well I was fired"). But if you respond with "there were no more opportunities for career growth", the most likely follow-up is "where do you see your career going?"
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Jan 9, 2017 06:25
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So, hooray, I managed to land an in-person interview . . . in the email they asked for this:quote:Members of our collaborative team are inquisitive and often share with each other information they find interesting. As such, we are also asking you to be prepared to spend about 15 minutes sharing with the team a technical explanation of either something you’ve just recently learned about or something that you find particularly interesting. If you want, a whiteboard will be available. Please focus on a specific feature or aspect, rather than a general overview. Example topics include Spring Boot Health Endpoints, Angular2 CLI, or a new specific feature of a language; the important thing is that it be specific and something you find interesting. Kind of fun right? Anyone ever gotten, or given, this kind of thing in an interview before? If so, what worked and what didn't? I'm worried about not being "specific" enough for them.
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Jan 9, 2017 20:02
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That's pretty cool. It sounds like they're trying to feel out your personality more than anything with that test.
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Jan 9, 2017 20:12
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HondaCivet posted:So, hooray, I managed to land an in-person interview . . . in the email they asked for this: I had to do something similar once, but the topic requirement was more open. I talked about something I'd been researching. I got really positive feedback on it. The manager loved that, by the end, people started discussing the idea with each other. My advice is standard tech presentation advice. Know your topic one step further than what you're going to talk about. E.g. If you want to talk about using box-sizing in CSS, make sure you know all the parameters, known edge cases, and the history of the box model. Now if they want you to be more specific in one area, you'll have enough knowledge to dig into the details. (But...I didn't get that job, so take my advice with a grain of salt.)
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Jan 9, 2017 20:28
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HondaCivet posted:So, hooray, I managed to land an in-person interview . . . in the email they asked for this: i got this in an interview and i did a mini presentation on how the crdt observed-removed set works. it went pretty well tho i didn't get the job due to a lack of production experience with the stack they were using
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Jan 10, 2017 08:19
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HondaCivet posted:Kind of fun right? Anyone ever gotten, or given, this kind of thing in an interview before? If so, what worked and what didn't? I'm worried about not being "specific" enough for them. I got one of these before. There were maybe four or five people watching my presentation. One of them was the CTO and she asked a ton of technical questions, drilling really deep. She was quite sharp and based on the way she asked her questions I'm pretty sure that she already knew the answers; it was clear that she was probing to see how I explain a concept, and testing my ability to keep a side question from monopolizing the discussion. We had 30 minutes booked for the presentation and I got about halfway through because I was blindsided by this and sucked at keeping the conversation on the rails. So if nothing else, make sure you know how to keep things moving along and actually cover the agenda you've set for the discussion.
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Jan 10, 2017 16:39
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OK, so this is more common than I thought. I wanted to ask, did all of you pick topics that were semi-related to the stack the company was using? Or did you do something off the wall like robot tracking algorithms at a web dev company interview?
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Jan 10, 2017 19:57
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My topic was related to general software development. I think they were looking for anything techy that the team would enjoy learning about. But definitely ask for clarification before the interview. I did.
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Jan 10, 2017 21:04
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I'm working through Hacker Rank challenges and I'm getting a little discouraged. I got through the warmup algorithms fine and a few others were doable but largely it's making me feel absolutely stupid. However, I'm going to a junior college and haven't taken algorithms or data structures yet. Am I being too hard on myself? I feel like I should be able to at least understand some of these problems. Sorry if it's a bit off topic, I'm trying to work on my problem solving abilities so I can fare well in future interviews, whenever that is.
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Jan 10, 2017 21:52
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