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I agree @hockeymac. The cold letters i get from internal and external recruiters are literally, "I see you have <insert software name> experience. I have never gotten a bit from the "umbrella" category name. It had to be the app itself. Now the job descriptions are getting smarter and they are looking for the app and their largest competitors in their keyword searches. It is helpful to list as many as feasible.
I am pretty sure no recruiter has any idea what any of the maps do. Unless they are advanced and specialized. I did also work with a recruiter who literally specialized in advanced users of particular apps. So he knew all the keywords and basic applications of the apps so he asked smart questions. He found me because I had the apps, and he knew all the people hiring for the jobs.
HockeyMac and Jade408 have explained what it takes to get hired in a very good way.
Let me present my point of view.
As an engineer, as a out-of-towner , as a immigrant, I have found bay area hiring practices to be competitive and fair.
I have interviewed maybe 40-50 candidates in my years here. NOT once, was any of the following important.
1. Which school he/she went to.
2. Which company he/she worked at
3. Which city he/she presently lives in.
Not once. The candidate came , we challenged them to answer difficult questions. If they did well, we challenged them even more.
We were testing for :
1. How well do they communicate ( regardless of how broken their english/ and how accented )
2. How they break down and analyze problems
3. Can they exhibit their command in their domain they claim on their resume.
I have never seen an unfair and non merit based hire in my seven years. Granted, I am at a middle level engineering position.
If you have the chops, you will get a job.
^ I disagree. I have seen school and even GPA for seasoned people as important things in certain types of companies. I.e. Ycombinator alumni and companies whose primary investors have Sand Hill Road addresses. These are harder to break into, if you don't have a great GPA and top tier school on your resume.
There are of course other companies as well. And founders on their second go round usually know the actual skills required. These are good companies to target. They know the path to success. And understand that school / GPA are not the tells for who will be great. Immature companies need to mature before they realize experience trumps pedigree. Except for Google. They still care about GPA and school for even the most senior employees. If you don't have that don't bother.
The answer for you, P-town, is to work on the social side of this. Meet entrepreneurs, managers, engineers, etc. Become friends with some. I got jobs through friends to start, and later I was able to make acquaintances with people and get jobs through them because I can sell myself reasonably well. I am not an engineer or in sales.
It is not easy to do this, you have to have the right social skills and attitude. E.g. do you have an elevator pitch, for example? can you deliver it cold, with confidence and ease in 30 seconds, what you've done, what you want, and the connection between the two? You have to have an excellent grasp of how your experience can be sold for the job you want. You have to be critical of your "fit."
Ideally you can also hold a conversation about your vertical, have some informed opinions about trends, companies, and leaders that go beyond just reciting news stories. When you can do this a bit, it helps a lot with making those friends.
It's never easy to start at the bottom, and you need to find people to help you. Meetups are a great way to start.
Different tech companies also have different requirements. The top-tier and most selective companies (Google, Facebook, etc)
will be as tough to get into as MIT or Harvard. There are many companies in the Valley where experience will matter more than your degree, as an example. Not all tech companies look for the same requirements.
"In my 27 years, I've had 2 jobs (part time, and years apart. Freelance gigs don't count in my opinion as "jobs", of which I've had a few). Both involved customer service/retail."
-this is the problem, not bias in the tech industry. What were you doing in between? Go get a fulltime job and go get an education. Currently you have nothing to offer a tech company. Sorry if thats not what you want to hear. Someone from, say, nyc, is also not getting a job with your resume.
"Ive grown up watching the dot com bubble grow, burst, and collapse, giving rise to the tech start up industry's rise to fame and current status as king of the hill.
I've grown up being versed in their products, their intimate usage, and have seen where trends are being set and where trends are popping up."
-you just described nearly everybody in your generation in the bay area. Many of whom are working in tech. Not only can they regale interviewers with tales of pets.com, they also may have an engineering degree from berkeley or stanford.
"I could be an HR's wet dream if they saw my drive and determination for the position being applied for..."
-but why should they even call you back when you have NOTHING relevant on your resume?
How would an HR person be able to tell if you're "local" or not (the way you describe it seems to be where a person grew up)? They just see the location of your prev jobs, where you got your degree, and where you live. No one would be able to tell I'm "local" to LA based on my resume, believe me. I only have 1 data point about LA in it. It's absurd that someone would have a preference for this.
If you're just talking about local as in physically in the area at the time of application, I think most places do prefer people local because then they don't need to pay relocation/interview travel costs. But for the right person, if they're the most qualified, this isn't an issue either.
I think your problem is that you are probably shortchanging your freelance experience, and highlighting "real" full-time jobs even though those jobs aren't relevant to what you're interested in (unless you're interested in customer service jobs in tech). Freelance jobs ARE real jobs, and especially in this industry there are many full-time consultants who make very nice livings and built up good reputations trough freelance work. Maybe you should try to re-package your background.
Also, I would add that customer service at the lower or mid levels is a category that is moving out of the Bay Area now for a lot of companies due to costs. I.e. cost of living and how much to pay support staff.
The OP could try to specialize in an aspect of customer service that is at least somewhat in demand, such as content creation (assuming OP is a good writer.)
In the end, we don't know enough about the OP's skill set, it may be that the OP really is not a fit for the tech industry - it's not for everybody.
Or OP just does not know where to start, he thinks he should be able to parachute in. Not so. Networking would help; he could have conversations with people about what he wants to do, what he brings to the table, and how he could go make that first step. (assuming it's a "he")
Quote:
Originally Posted by boulder2015
"In my 27 years, I've had 2 jobs (part time, and years apart. Freelance gigs don't count in my opinion as "jobs", of which I've had a few). Both involved customer service/retail."
-this is the problem, not bias in the tech industry. What were you doing in between? Go get a fulltime job and go get an education. Currently you have nothing to offer a tech company. Sorry if thats not what you want to hear. Someone from, say, nyc, is also not getting a job with your resume.
"Ive grown up watching the dot com bubble grow, burst, and collapse, giving rise to the tech start up industry's rise to fame and current status as king of the hill.
I've grown up being versed in their products, their intimate usage, and have seen where trends are being set and where trends are popping up."
-you just described nearly everybody in your generation in the bay area. Many of whom are working in tech. Not only can they regale interviewers with tales of pets.com, they also may have an engineering degree from berkeley or stanford.
"I could be an HR's wet dream if they saw my drive and determination for the position being applied for..."
-but why should they even call you back when you have NOTHING relevant on your resume?
Most transplants I know already had experience before moving to the Bay. You need to think more practical. It's just business... you need to bring value. Top tier firms can be picky -- they get to choose from endless candidates -- a bunch of people already trained in their specific field/expertise able to bring value to the company on day 1.
You're not going to work at a top tier tech firm right off the bat because it's risky and unwise from a business perspective to hire you. Inexperienced people don't bring value, they cost the firm money in training and mistakes made. You need to indicate your future potential to get an entry level opportunity.
Here is what worked for me:
Figure out what industries are expanding rapidly/in demand (machine learning, healthcare, etc.). Market your "potential" based on your past education; stereotype yourself and make it easy for the recruiter (they're only going to spend max 1 min. on your resume, so make it easy). Your resume is a marketing doc., so tailor appropriately; it doesn't need to include everything you've ever done -- just skills relevant to the role and anything that stands out (say you went to Harvard). No one cares if you cured cancer if you're applying for an admin role at a bank (get it?).
Move to say Austin or somewhere you can actually do ok on a normal starting salary (or accept you're going to be living in a sh** hole in the Bay). Go to a temp firm/staffing firm and get some sort of "temp to hire" in your desired field. Get hired full time. Stay there for 6-12 months and jump. Keep jumping and building your value -- eventually you'll be getting interviews at top tier firms.
This is assuming you have appropriate education, although many tech firms don't really care as long as you have a specific in-demand/needed skill.
OP your premise is flawed. Speaking for myself I prefer to hire locals, meaning people that already live here. It's just more convenient, there is a lot of local talent (Engineers). It's much easier and cheaper to bring them in for interviews. When I'm screening resumes, I look for local addresses first. If I can't find any good candidates then I start looking out of the local area.
Also I don't care what university they went to. A candidates success on the job has much more to do with who they are as a person, their drive, willingness to learn, take ownership for problems. What school they went to has very little correlation to job success in my experience. I recently hired a Cal Poly grad over an MIT grad, the Cal Poly guy just had more relevant experience, and was able to convince me that he is a go getter and can solve the problems I need him to solve. I never ask people about their GPA, who cares. Too many variables, maybe someone had rich parents and was able to focus on their studies.? Never worked a day in their lives, but is book smart. I'd rather take a person who had to work through school, and got a B average.
This is the mecca for tech, so the best from all over the world come here, so obviously there are a lot of people from out of the area. Doesn't mean there is a preference for out of towners. There is a preference for talent, no matter where it comes from.
Probably your job search strategy isn't good. you can't just submit applications and hope to get a call back. THis passive approach is very ineffective. I'm also getting a sense that you have a chip on your shoulder, maybe this comes across in interviews? Like someone owes you a job because you've lived here all your life? Not sure if this is fair a assessment, but maybe. That kind of attitude would be an instant deal breaker for most hiring managers.
BTW I'm a bay area native, but I don't see why that has any relevance.
Last edited by simboticus; 04-03-2016 at 09:44 AM..
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