Today I want to share with you my thoughts about getting job offers. Through the years of being on the market, I started with applying to jobs, and at some point, it turned out that I don’t have to do it any longer as cool companies contact me and ask if I’m interested in applying. Of course, the market has changed, and I’m more experienced, but that’s not the only reason. Every time I get an interesting job offer I ask how did they find me and why they think I might be a good fit. There is a pattern in those answers and I want to tell you about it, so let’s start!

First and foremost, I made an experiment and applied last year to a few well-known companies, even those which previously asked me to apply. I applied with a normal CV with a list of my past companies and job positions. To be surprise, only a few out of probably 20 companies responded, which convinced me that the simplest way of getting a job in IT is not the most efficient one. It’s not a tip, it’s just a reminder, that there are a lot of Software Engineers on the market and it’s not that easy anymore.

Ok, let’s go back to the tips on how to actually get those job offers. In my case, the most efficient way of getting job offers from FAANG companies was actually having open-source repos on GitHub. When I released an app based on Parse, which was acquired by Facebook, guys from Facebook London were pinging me every 3-6 months for about 2 years. When I started playing with Google App Engine (it was probably the first name of Google Cloud), guess who was sending me job offers? Google. I’m less active on GitHub in recent years, but even my tutorial on exporting playlists from Spotify caused a person from Spotify to ask me if I’m interested in moving to Sweden. I’m not saying this is a rule, but at least in my case, it turns out to be one of the best ways to get noticed. So if you are learning something, hacking, or simply playing with new technology, don’t forget to open-source it and mention it on Twitter using proper hashtags.

Talking about Twitter is a surprisingly very popular social media platform among engineers, so it’s definitely to have a social presence there. I did not get a job offer exactly because of any tweet, but I met there few guys working in well-known companies so in case of looking for a job I would definitely have someone to ask for a referral, and referral is usually a very well efficient way to be at least invited for a tech interview. Except that, a Twitter profile actively participating in discussions about topics you are interested in can help you get noticed and create a relationship with experts in some domain, in some cases it can even help you get well-known as an “expert on some specific topic”. And… you know, companies like to look for IT superstars, and experts in some domain, so… Twitter will definitely help you to not only be up to date with tech news but also to meet people working on similar things as you.

Just as in the case of any marketing, simply allow others to find you even if you are not an IT rockstar. Clean up your LinkedIn account and make it attractive, it’s really valuable. First and foremost ask for recommendations from any people you were working with, they might be promoted in the future and you will have recommendations from directors, executives, and even “just” engineers, it turns out some companies really look at it. Except for that do not forget about just putting all projects and technologies you were working on, but don’t put everything you just touched, mention only things you really know and feel confident. LinkedIn is currently just a Google for recruiters, so make sure your result looks interesting on the list of tens of other devs.

Last, but not least… find a niche for yourself. This is something that I discovered not so long time ago. Actually, I found it when I joined Around. After a few months of working with a lot of video-related stuff, I started getting a lot of job offers from companies working on similar things, like zoom. It’s hard to be a jack of all trades, so if you like some specific topic, make sure you are better at it than the average developer. It can be anything, video processing, sound processing, electron apps, you probably know what kind be a niche in your domain 🙂

I hope my observations will turn out to be helpful for you. Just as the last reminder, remember to learn and share your knowledge with others, this can open many doors!