I was recently offered, and I accepted a position with SecureLink out of Austin, TX as a remote Cloud Engineer (Infrastructure and Security). It became clear to me how good the fit was when the culture-fit aspects continued to line up and gel. There is a lot to be said for being the right candidate/prospect at the right time. Other job processes have dragged out or halted altogether; some with explanation, but a lot of ghosting too. I have weirdly enjoyed having to reject further steps with other companies. To conclude this series of posts, I wanted to review my process to validate what you may be experiencing or to identify additional tactics for your job-hunt strategy at-large.
My process was fast because: I aggressively played the numbers (80%-20% network job connections against cold job application), so I cold applied to a lot of companies given a budding, but still small network. Despite succeeding in cold application, my success rate from a budding network landed me towards a final interview I did not enjoy declining in order to accept my new position. Quick math puts the success rate squarely in the space of networking, but cold application does work.
Advantages to my process: My love and partner, Dr. Krystle Balhan and our daughter, June, for helping this through with me. I had been anticipating the decline of my prospects as an adjunct community college instructor for some time. This facilitated the most difficult part of all, pushing myself through any doubt that this was the right thing to do at this moment in my life. Prior interest in computing made finding my passion in the industry faster and authentic. As I theorized in previous posts, if you are their preferred candidate, they will move as fast as possible, being free from processes that restrict speed. LinkedIn engagement likely helped with overall visibility, however, I want to give a special shout-out to my former instructor, David Lee. His feedback for my LinkedIn profile was phenomenal and I think essential for helping me stand out for recruiters and bots alike.
Disadvantages to my process: Perhaps obvious and not so obvious: I lack experience searching for jobs. Coming from a stale, dead-end career, all of my efforts are compressed into this summer-long process, and not all job-seekers come from this hibernation. Industry-specifics also limit the outcomes, but this is actually a hidden advantage as I pointed out the opportunity in the space I chose is good, about to get great. The doom and gloom made possible by no responses and/or “many fine applicants, unfortunately you aren’t that applicant…” was certainly a looming threat that dominated the front-end of the search, but so long as you’re appropriately positioned and patient, this shouldn’t persist. No responses for a while can be a motivation killer, so it’s important to plan for a slow start, if you’re like me and need to commit your day to this process.
Experience from my years teaching mattered more than I thought they would. I really thought I would have to unlearn so much of what made me a teacher, but I realized there is no need to unlearn that which is continuing to contribute to my success. In particular, I stayed afloat in my boot camp when it came to consolidating information and writing it up as a narrative in a report, I am very much ahead of everyone; the academic standard is hardly a business standard, and while the youth get uneven criticism for TL;DR, something must be said for the TL;DR of corporate America. Frankly, unless you enter an esoteric field after college, you’re likely to crush report writing. Researching and managing a lot of information contributed to this skill as I am much more interested in reading than I am in watching – and even then my watching habits rarely begin with popular tv, but I digress.
I learned from Code Fellows’ robust career-centered portion of the curriculum that helps students transition from whatever industry they are coming from, so they can succeed with current practices in the cyber community. The practice sessions for interviewing and applying gave me a boost of confidence necessary to take on the job of finding a job. This is the most subtle lesson of the entire process: the temporal, moment-specific tactics of finding a job are precisely of the moment and culture of hiring practices for the industry under consideration. No matter when you search and no matter which industry you are in, I am willing to bet there are specific strategies for the time you are searching and for the field you are considering. What seems a common sense observation now, for me, required a bit of languishing first. This is the psychological ways my brain put up barriers to taking the risk and making the change I have recently made. These barriers become the water droplets that distort the image of this common sense job-hunting approach.
To say looking for a job can be a job in itself is true and cliche, and while I certainly appreciate the sentiment, I am astounded by my personal experience with this particular search. I was lucky. I am fortunate. Another cliche: I worked hard for it. However, I couldn’t have done it without my family, the following people from Code Fellows: my instructor, David Lee, VP Brook, Dr. Robin, Courtney (TA), and my classmates Emilio, Carsten, Ethan, Jansen, and Cody; my mentors: Sean Nikkel of Digital Shadows and Raven Robertson of Oracle. The LinkedIn community at-large has been an engaging and thoughtful community from which I have learned a great deal. I look forward to learning more from you all.