That may be the longest blog title ever.
I will soon be starting a new venture and wanted to share some tips and experiences of the things I encountered while I was recently looking for a new opportunity. I hate speaking about myself and please don’t take any of this as ‘look at me’, I just want to share some success I’ve had that would have came much sooner if I had a different method up front. If you are reading this and have any opinions of your own please do provide.
Having not looked for a new opportunity in almost 4 years my first attempts at even getting a chance to talk with someone about a job resulted in zero success. This was despite the huge efforts I placed. I did however have a bit more luck once I changed the methods I used, in fact I had more success than I’ve ever had by far and spent much less time. I’ve never found looking for a new job to be particularly fun at all so I thought I’d share some things that may aid anyone else out there looking. Additionally if you are particularly looking for a VMware/Datacenter type position please let me know and I will forward you anything additionally that comes along my way.
A little background on what I was seeking. I have been questioning in recent months whether I wanted to do something different than being a design or implementation engineer. I won’t drag you through my whole thought process but I decided I really wanted to do something that was more R&D or marketing related. The first thing I needed to get around for this is knowing that I could not get the job I wanted where I was located. Additionally I have zero willingness to move right now. And to be quite honest I wasn’t looking to travel that much. Of course my initial thoughts were I was probably not going to have much luck.
The Way You Shouldn’t Do It
As many people know, the traditional ways of applying for jobs and waiting for a call back are not likely going to yield good results. I know for me this was the case. I spent a lot of time researching and applying and wasn’t getting calls back for anything. I feel like I’ve done a good job of generating a resume and being fortunate to have the opportunity to co-author a book last year as well as being provided with training and experience opportunities that have given me some good credentials. Additionally I have all the checkboxes checked having my Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree. I state all this not to say look at me and look at what I’ve done, but rather to establish that I felt like I had everything I needed to have at least a little success.
I can only speculate why I didn’t initially receive any calls back, but a few common items became apparent as I talked to more and more people. For starters, there are a ton of people that are going to apply for any job you are applying for. Secondly I was applying for jobs not where I was located. Although employers didn’t know I had no intention of moving, I have heard that many places are not paying for relocations these days so it is likely this will throw you to the bottom of the list, if you aren’t already there from someone just not having had a chance to look over your resume.
I spent almost two months doing this.
A Much Better Method
The good news is I stumbled upon a bit of dumb luck when I saw a few individuals that I followed on Twitter speak of leads they had. I contacted several individuals for several positions with several different companies and at least got an insight as to what the job was, who it was for, and in some cases even got them to refer me directly to the hiring manager. This only goes so far though as you have to realize you obviously aren’t the only one seeing that twitter posting, nor are you the only one being referred. You really have to find a way to differentiate yourself.
One thing that inspired me a bit was this sliderocket presentation created by someone trying to land a job at Sliderocket. I knew that if I wanted the best shot I was going to have to at the very least send along introduction and follow up emails to anyone I needed to convince and make sure they knew not only my technical capabilities, but also my desires to work in the role I was interviewing for. For the position I really wanted, and the one I ultimately accepted, I ended up creating a relevant technical write-up of around 12 pages to show how I could fill that role. While it was nice to be able to just send over a chapter over from the book I worked on I still felt the need to really target the position itself. For other roles where the opportunity to work remote was questionable, I emailed both the hiring manager and director to explain to them my remote work experience and my capabilities to succeed working remotely. I could dedicate a whole series of blog entries to working remotely based on my 2 years of experience of doing it before.
Fast forwarding a little bit to two months later I now had been actively talking with around five different positions. If I was a little less picky I probably could have had even a little more success but I was strictly focused on technical marketing type roles that were home based and didn’t involve a ton of travel.
Like my original efforts, I spent almost two months doing this as well. The difference being I had multiple offers and opportunities from companies I wouldn’t have thought I’d have a shot in the world of working at because of my location. The above mentioned is definitely an effective way to jump to the top of the line.
Some Other Tips
- For VMware jobs, if you’ve applied take the REQ number and contact @VMwareCareers on Twitter and ask who the recruiter is and for their email. Once you have this contact them directly and let them know you’ve applied and you’d like to talk.
- Always follow-up interviews with an email
- Always make sure you’ve prepared a list of questions. Interviewing is a two-way street and it is just as much about you finding the right fit and opportunity as it is for them. If you don’t ask questions you will probably come off as either not interested in the position or the company.
- If you don’t hear back don’t be afraid to follow-up. I hounded quite a few people. In my opinion if this ends up annoying someone it probably wouldn’t have worked out anyways.
- Use Twitter searches to look specifically for certain types of jobs. I tried a bunch of different searches but found it most relevant to search through the list of vExperts for things such as job, opportunity, or position. This way you aren’t getting too much of the contract stuff from random recruiters.
- If you are really trying to limit your time spent searching and maximize your efforts, don’t bother applying for jobs you don’t have a lead for. I only got one or two calls back and it took months for that to happen.
- Utilize your contacts, even if you don’t know them outside of Twitter or the VMware community. Heck, even if you don’t really know them that well people were very willing to help pass my resume along and provide additional information. I can’t thank enough all the people who provided me various leads and insight into the positions and companies those positions were for.
Some Companies that I know will hire you remotely if you are the right candidate include the following:
VMware – For the right candidates they will hire you to work remotely and some positions have little to no travel.
EMC – These mostly seem to be home based with a bit of travel
Dell – These mostly seem to be home based with a bit of travel
Nutanix – Opportunities exist here for working remotely for the right candidates.