Journal Com2Kid's Journal: [Getting a job] Advice request + complaints 13
I have spent the last 3 weeks working more than 50 hours a week (closer to 60 some weeks...) trying to get a job.
Resume? Super polished. From a visual point of view, the best looking and easiest to read resume on a fair number of sites. You can see it here on my blog.
Spent hours on it.
I am coming out of school with a year of internship experience; I took the internships hoping that finding a job after I graduated would be easier. Is it? Not by much.
I have gotten a fair number of inquirers about my resume. Send back information. No call back.
Here is an example of one such interchange. I really want an opportunity for this company; what in the world did I do wrong? It is a bit long; I was basically asked to give a list of improvements to their website, should I have responded with solely in depth technical improvements?
>Hey Devlin,
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>We are considering computer science graduates that are ready to jump in and get their hands dirty with developing and >testing our site. We want motivated and intuitive individuals that can really thrive and participate actively in the >process of producing the best real estate website experience for our customers. If this is you, reply to this email >let us know how you would improve our website and our customers' experience, and attach your resume.
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>I look forward to hearing from you,
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>xxxx, Ops MgrHi Angela,
It is great to hear from you. Redfin is one of the hot new Web 2.0 companies, and I am definitely interested in opportunities at Redfin after I graduate.
I have been using Redfin since I first heard about it on a "Best of Web 2.0" list. I love the site, and I am really impressed by its usability. With that said, I still have managed to come up with a list of changes that I believe would improve the overall customer experience. I have also attached my Resume to this email.
Thank you for considering me as a potential future employee at Redfin and I hope to hear from you soon.
Devlin Bentley
xxx.xxx.xxxx
devlin.bentley@gmail.comHere is my list of improvements:
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Problem: I love the tabbed interface that Redfin uses, but it can be confusing for new users when they hit the back button. When the back button is hit users expect to go back to the previous page that they were viewing.Solution: It would be nice if the browser's back button, the backspace key, and the mouse back button are trapped by JavaScript when pushed and cause the internal Redfin tabs to switch back to either the result listing or the map, depending on which the user was at last.
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Problem: Some users may want to look at houses built between two given years.Solution: Under advanced search options, let the user select a "from" and a "to" year for the houses' age. This can be implemented with either two dropdown lists or by two text fields.
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Problem: In the Puget Sound region, new house buyers are looking further and further north. At this time, Redfin does not list houses north of Shoreline.Solution: Expand the range of Redfin in the Pacific Northwest, allowing users to search further north for houses.
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Problem: When the "House" checkbox is selected, the results returned include townhouses. Some people may want to look only at townhouses, or not look at town houses at all. Looking through other websites that access MLS, I noticed that the "townhouse" option on those websites worked sporadically, with many properties being listed as Single Family and as a townhouse at the same time.Solution: A checkbox for townhouses is the easy part. The hard part is sifting through a database from which the results cannot be trusted. A simple brute force solution takes note of the fact that a property with the words "townhouse" or "townhome" in its description is most likely a townhouse, with a few exceptions ( i.e. "Tired of living in a town house? Move into your own...").
Dynamic filtering via text matching on the text of all listings being returned to a user is time and resource consuming, and would result in an overall degradation of the user experience.
I do not know how Redfin's infrastructure is setup internally, but assuming that Redfin creates a local copy of the MLS database, then it makes sense to do this costly text matching process during the data pull from MLS. In Redfin's database, have a column called "Townhouse", or preferably a more common purpose name such as "Housing Type". During the data pull from MLS, as each item is inserted into Redfin's database, execute a text matching query on the description field from MLS. If there is a match for "townhouse", "townhome" or any of a list of related phrases, (Rowhomes, "terraced houses", etc), then the "Housing Type" column for that property listing is set to "Townhouse".
This column can then be tied into the "Townhouse" checkbox on the main website.
What is wrong with that response? Initially she sent messages back and forth and responded in a matter of minutes, after that one, a "Thanks Devlin!" and now nothing for 4 days.
To what extent is it acceptable for me to bug people? If someone says they will "get back in touch with me" does that mean it is polite for me to ping them every now and then? Is it polite for me to call someone up on the phone and inquire as to my status?
All the guides that deal with this sort of material are not aimed at the tech world. I have already encountered a (fairly large!) number of instances where manners in the technology world differ significantly from manners in the business world. (Duh, that is why I am in here!) How likely am I to get a job if I just forget it all and act like a typical nerd?
Humor? Sure, some, why not? On my dice.com resume I specifically state I am looking for a full time position. I actually state this twice. Under "job types" I have selected "full time" and on my resume's objective I specifically state "full time non-contract position". I only added that after *three* head hunters from contracting firms contacted me in the same day! Everybody wants to contract my arse out to MS. If I didn't have medical expenses, I wouldn't mind, but I do, so I need good medical coverage, and from what I have read, very few contracting firms offer those.
For next time ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Next time someone asks you for such detailed proposals, tell them you're quite happy to talk with them, but only in person. This separates the BS from the serious, and also shows them that you're serious and at least a bit savvy. Give them a phone number to call. If they don't call, they were just using you.
Also, remove the bit about graduating soon. Just list the school - let them assume you've already graduated; list the employers you've had w/o saying that they were internships.
Also, don't give them a link to your blog. Its the same as any other selling job - the less information they have, the less reason they have to say NO before interviewing.
The place I'm at now, instead of playing email and telephone tag, I said "look, I pass by your place at least twice a week. Why don't I stop in and we'll get a feel for each other and see if we're just wasting our time?" First time I said this was by email. That got it bumped up to phone calls. Then an interview, an IQ test and a job offer (okay, I got the offer before the IQ test, and I just blew it off - its not like I'm worried about what people think ... but I took it anyway, just to show that yes, I can "go along to get along").
BTW, this whole process took 3 months, so don't expect instant results.
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I worry about this to an extent. I am 6 months away from graduating, and I have gotten a number of people call me, do a phone interview, and give me an offer contingent upon me starting immediately.
...
Sometimes they just call up and the first question they ask is "Are you available to start immediately?"
As my Craigslist posting so blatantly states [craigslist.org], no I am not ready to start immediately.
I usuall
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You're probably better off with smaller companies. More flexible, esp. in their hiring practices. They're more likely to be able to wait a few months if the fit is good, or get you in part-time at first, while you complete your studies, as opposed to a large company that *just needs a warm body with x, y, and z, now*.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with dropping out now if the right offer comes by, and maybe finishing up later. Last I heard, it worked for some guy named Bill Gates.
Bugging people (Score:2)
At least a couple jobs I got because I was persistent and would ask about it once a week or so. One manager even told me it was an even bet between me and another candidate but I seemed to want it more, so I got it.
It's a fine line, and what attracts some people to you others will avoid. I'ts trite, but be yourself, and don't try to "fit in"[1]. The idea is to find a good match and to see if the position is right for both sides.
Good luck!
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They have a college recruiting program, but I didn't start my job hunt until mid December, their recruiting for June of 07 was over in early December!
Microsoft was hiring students to start in June back in October. (They don't come to my school until Feburary, great, we get the picky teams who ar
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From what I hear Amazon pays about the same as MS, somewhere in the 60s for new grads.
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Check out this: Microsoft Salary Levels [washtech.org]
New grads start at level 59. As you can see there is a big spread between min and max so be sure to negotiate.
Re: Amazon/Microsoft
Be sure to compare base salary+starting bonus+stock+health when comparing offer packages. Just looking at the base is a bad idea. Also, ask both companies (or look it up/ask around) about how they do performance reviews. You might find you're better suited to one style of performance review than another.
A couple tips: (Score:3, Insightful)
B.) The way to talk to the person when you call back is to sound like you don't have the job. "I'm just calling back to follow up. Since I haven't gotten a call back, I assume I didn't get the job. Could you please explain what I was missing so I can improve myself?"
If they haven't picked someone yet, that REALLY looks good...
C.) List technologies on your resume. Languages don't do much anymore. Did you work with any open source APIs? For Java, Struts, Hibernate, Spring, JSF, EJB2 are all HUGE at the moment. Putting it on there can be a big boost if you have experience with them.
Hi from Redfin (Score:2)
I'm a product manager at Redfin. First, sorry that we took longer than expected to get back to you! I know how stressful finding your first time job can be. Like you, for me finding the job was a full time job.
Now while we are anxious and need to hire more folks we're also very busy. I think everyone at Redfin is doing the jobs of 2-5 people so on occasion some things slip and e-mail responses get delayed. Especially this week when the dev team is working 12+ hours/day in preparation to launch
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I just read through your blog last night! In fact, I read the very post you linked to.
It is reasonable that browsers do not allow attaching to the back button. Spam sites would never allow users to leave! The best possible would be attach to onclose and redirect the user to a different site (as many spam sites do!) but this would involve reloading all the tabs just for the sake of changing tabs. Ouch!
With IE7 becoming standard, and Firefox becoming standard, there needs to be a js command to
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If a user wants to open something (like a listing) in a tab then I think everyone knows to right click, open in tab (or whatever keyboard shortcut they prefer). For users who don't know how to do this, well they'll find tabs confusing since it's a paradigm they're not used to.