My job seeking process

The 😇, the 💩, and everything 💬

This post details my two months of job hunting after a sudden lay off. I’ve included detailed information about interactions and opinions with interviews while removing specifics around sensitive things like company names. All accounts are of my own experience. My hopes with this post are to provide detailed insight on the job seeking process both for those looking and those providing.

Knowledge sharing is important to me and if anyone can benefit from my experience, I consider that a win. 🙌

🥒 Background

The day I got laid off from my job, I had made zucchini bread for the office. Another co-worker had as well and I thought that that was serendipitous. I had also just come back from a week-long summer vacation and suffice to say, I was in a good mood. So when I sat down with that other zucchini bread co-worker in a tiny meeting room with HR, I was not prepared for the massive wave of anxiety that tore through me as I was being told to turn in my work laptop and keycard effective immediately…

Do you know that teacher from Charlie Brown?

The one that hilariously makes the “womp, womp, womp” sounds? You can imagine how everything in the moment sounded just like that…except not so funny. Right after being told the bad news, my fears were already getting the best of me. I couldn’t stop feeling the sense of dread wrapped up in feelings of failure and confusion. I remember riding home on MUNI, looking all around me and thinking, “I am jobless.”

I’d like to say that most of my fears were irrational but unfortunately I had unexpectedly obtained two cold and harsh realities:

1. I had only worked at the company for four months. I knew that my layoff did not look good on my resume. To make it worse, my position previous to this one only lasted six months. (I had left that position for my most current position.) I knew that I looked like a job jumper.
2. I would need to prove my worth…again. I knew that my transition from support engineering to full time engineering was going to be difficult. Talk to any support engineer out there and I’m certain you’ll hear them lament about being stuck in some kind of tech purgatory; where you might have some tech experience but not enough experience to convince employers of transitioning someone from support engineering to full on engineering. I knew that I would need to prove myself once again.

📆 First days

After I was laid off, I did three things:

1. Generate and foster support. I posted a message on Facebook and Twitter with my unfortunate news. I asked friends for support, networking opportunities, and advice. I started scheduling more coffee dates and check-ins with those working in the industry. I attended evening workshops and events to refresh some skill sets. I even hosted a bootcamp alum happy hour.
2. Update my resume. I needed to make sure that my latest position was listed on my resume with details about what I did, dates, and projects that I worked on. I also updated my LinkedIn, Hired, and AngelList profile. Finally I made sure that my references were up to date with recent and relevant persons that could speak to my abilities and skills.
3. Sign up for unemployment. Technically I did this on my third day but sooner is always best. I currently live in the state of California and I was thankful to find that the process was fairly easy to set up and navigate. From initial sign up to my first unemployment check, it took around two weeks time.

📊 Overview

Here are some overall stats from my two months of job searching:

• I applied for a total of ~200 jobs
• From those ~200 applications, I heard back from ~20 companies
• 7 tech phone screens
• 6 coding challenges
• 5 on-sites
• 3 job offers
• 1 chosen company

Clearly you can see how this funnel works. The more companies that I applied to, the greater chances that the numbers further down the funnel would change.

I will note that I looked exclusively in San Francisco. This means not the Bay Area (such as Oakland, down the peninsula towards San Jose, or any remote work). I focused on full stack or front end positions working with either Javascript or Ruby on Rails. At one time, I considered freelancing but ended up focusing on full-time positions with a company/organization.

📇 Resources

I applied for jobs nearly everyday and typically 4–5 jobs a day. Some job resources and networks that I used:

• Tech Ladies — Such a great resource! Sign up for their newsletter with access to their job board and get on the Facebook group. A lot of meaningful conversations and support came from some amazing women found in the Tech Ladies community.
• Social Media — I feel fortunate to be connected with a lot of amazing people already in the tech industry. I received several DMs about potential opportunities via LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. I’m also connected to a few communities on Slack that have job board channels that I could look over and discuss with those that posted. (GDISF, Ruby on Rails Link, GA Alum, and Women in Tech)
• Job Boards — AngelList, LinkedIn, and Indeed are great for finding a variety of jobs with various start ups of all sizes and types.
• Hired.com — Though I did use this, I didn’t have much luck with Hired since most, if not all of the companies, were looking to hire someone with senior level experience. I was assigned a Hired advocate that seemed to be juggling several applicants at one time. She often forgot information that I had told her and I received a lot of duplicate group emails. In theory, this service is nice to have but for specific kinds of candidates. I was given the impression that I wasn’t very valuable.

Out of the 5 on-sites that I attended, only one of the companies came to me by referral. The rest were from cold applying.

The final three companies that made an offer came from AngelList, Indeed.com, and a direct apply from a company site.

📓 Pre-Interview Prep

My last position had me working with Ruby on Rails. There was simple jQuery in the front end but no other framework. Prior to this position, I worked on full stack Javascript applications in a support context.

I knew that I wanted to take advantage of this time and find a front end/full stack position. Because of that, I needed to invest some time in learning a front end framework in order to be more marketable. And so I considered three frameworks:

1. Angular
2. Ember
3. React

First Angular: I had worked with Angular1 briefly while I attended my bootcamp. I’m certain that the framework has evolved a lot further from that point but I wasn’t as excited by it as much as the other two.

Second Ember: To be honest, Ember intimidates me. I realize that it’s the current 🔥 and it’s a completely desirable skillset but I was given impressions of it being too heavy-handed and over-encompassing. (Similar to the first time I ever typed a rails scaffold command and saw the end result project…SO MUCH STUFF.)

Lastly React: I had a taste of React while working for my first company as a support engineer and so my general curiosity directed me towards this option the most. The framework is actually a library and fairly lightweight. There’s a lot of great online resources and I was also able to find some free evening workshops on it in SF.

Besides learning a new technology, I also spent some time going back through simple data structures and manipulations. Some questions that I asked and made sure how to answer:

• What’s a loop? What are different kinds of loops?
• Creating objects and arrays. Being able to manipulate them.
• Primitive data types
• Scopes
• OOP and functional programming concepts
• High level understandings of Big O and optimization

I googled a few tech interview questions and practiced them on my own. I saved answers in gists to review later. I did all of my technical interviews in Javascript since I’m most comfortable with that language. (I liked using repl.it for testing) But since I hadn’t worked with it in a while, I took the time to learn more of the jQuery API as well as ES5 & 6 functionality and features. I took an entire workshop that specifically went over the reserved keyword this, closures, arrow functions, etc.

🖥 Tech Screens and code challenges

There are two kinds of interview processes prior to an on-site: Live coding sessions and take home challenges.

• Live coding sessions happen where both an interviewer and interviewee enter a live coding session. Each person can write code within a shared screen and see what the other person is typing in real time. Interviewees are meant to talk aloud through the problem they are trying to solve. Most (good) interviewers will often gently prompt the applicant along the way.
• Take home coding challenges are problem sets that interviewers ask interviewees to solve in the form of a project. Usually interviewees are given a specific amount of time to finish the challenge and submit it for review to the interviewer to discuss later.

I struggle a lot with anxiety and stress of live coding. I forget simple things in the heat of the moment and too often I cannot solve the problem within the time constraint. It’s true what most say: it does get easier with time and practice but even still, I will always prefer a take home challenge over a live session. Most of my interviews involved a coding challenge thankfully. This gave me such a better feeling about the company and gave me the impression of how understanding they were towards the interview process.

But when prompted, I still pushed myself to partake in a few technical phone screens and live coding sessions. Being uncomfortable and pushing myself outside of my coding comfort zone was good in unexpected ways. I had shared a recent experience about a failed technical phone screen on the Tech Ladies Facebook that I’ll share here:

A hiring manager had asked me to solve a technical problem within a shared coding session. The question wasn’t too difficult nor out of the relevant job scope. But being as nervous and anxiety-ridden as I was, I forgot basic things like variable reassignments and loops. I took up the entire amount of time and did not end up solving the problem for her. Shortly after the tech screen, I received an email that said along the lines of “we’re sorry but we do not wish to move forward”. I felt pretty defeated and frustrated. I knew that I could solve the problem asked!

And so I did just that. I took some time and solved the problem. It took less than an hour for me to solve it without pressure or stress. Since the hiring manager seemed to already make a decision, I sent her the final solution and explained how my stress and fears got in the way during our call. I explained further that I’m working on that stress but accept where my skill sets were currently. What was I to lose? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After I sent the email I felt better. That evening I got a response back from the hiring manager. She was really impressed by my end solution and thanked me for my transparency about the call. She re-invited me back in the interview process and asked for me to complete a simple take home coding challenge! I felt really happy and reassured that she extended another opportunity and in a way to really showcase me in the best light.

After completing the challenge and undergoing my on-site, I was given a job offer. It would be the one of the final three offers I received.

I understand that technical phone screens are just a large part of the interview process. But when possible, I think it’s best for companies to provide an option for a tech screen or take home challenge. Not all people can perform under the pressure of live coding nor does poor performance in a live context mean that a candidate is unqualified.

👉 I hope that some hiring manager will read this and understand that.

🚀 Recruiters and hiring managers

Besides one stellar recruiter who truly loves his job and is very good at it, I believe that I interacted with the weirdest and most unqualified recruiters out there. I truly mean that. I really couldn’t believe the levels of unprofessionalism that I received from some recruiters.

I have a running joke that I should write a book about all of my weird experiences. Sure, I get that they’re busy and that misunderstandings can happen but I don’t get how they feel that they can just 👻 me or straight out lie. It felt like they were doing everything BUT be transparent on their end.

From the mundane to the illegal, I’ve had recruiters ask me all kind of inappropriate questions:

• “…Yeah but what are you?” — In reference to me being Asian.
• “How did someone like you manage to get a job in tech?” — An off-hand comment on my non-traditional background
• “How much did you make at your last job?” — Illegal in the state of California

And when the tables were turned and when I got to ask questions:

• “You mean, like, vacation time?” — In reference to when I asked about their parental leave policy.
• “…I lived on an island 8 miles off the coast of Ireland for a year when I got our of college, so at the minimum you need to talk long enough to hear some of those stories.” — When I asked what the next steps would look like with a hiring manager.
• “Let’s schedule our next talk on Tuesday” — A response I received when I gave my availability for any day BUT Tuesday.

One time I asked a hiring manager about the diversity of the engineering team in terms of skillsets. The manager went on to provide me each team members gender, age, and then took a stab at their race. It was absolutely revolting and racist to hear. I was mostly like this the entire time:

My biggest frustration with recruiters came from lack of transparency.

👉 If any recruiter is reading this, please know that:

1. I don’t want to keep bothering you on any updates of the process. So please, provide me some context or ideas on next steps.
2. Don’t make up excuses for why you cannot schedule my next interview with a team member when the reality is you do not want to hire me. Don’t waste your time or mine.
3. Make sure you’re on the same page as the hiring manager. In one day, I received an invite from the hiring manager for an interview and a “we don’t wish to move forward” email from a recruiter.
4. Don’t ghost a candidate. It’s rude. I’ll remember. I’ve already told other potential candidates to stay away from your company.
5. Pay attention to your Glassdoor reviews. I read them. I take them seriously. Even if you think I shouldn’t, have answers/reasons ready when I ask about them.

🏰 On-sites

After all the research, the emails, the phone conversations, the coding challenges and screens, you reach a point where a hard earned on-site is offered to you. It’s still equally nerve-racking to interview and perform during an on-site. (White boarding anyone?) But it’s also a great opportunity to really understand the company, ask deeper questions, and imagine if you can really see yourself working there.

Some things that I like to keep in mind:

1. Commute. Was it fairly painless to get to the office?
2. Office layout. Where do the engineers sit? Are you in a windowless and grubby room? Do you have vast sweeping views of the city? Does business and engineering feel connected or separated?
3. Itinerary. What am I doing during this on-site? Who am I meeting? For how long should I expect each sit down to last?
4. Staying hydrated. Bring your own water bottle or always ask for water. Very often I was never offered water or offered a small glass as courtesy. Bringing my own water was just one small way to remove any thirsty situations.

👉 If there are any companies reading this, please be mindful of your candidates time.

• If an on-site is scheduled during a meal-time, provide a meal for your candidate. One of my worst on-sites that I had went over on time and ended up going from 10–2pm. (Originally it was supposed to go from 10–12pm) By the end, I had a terrible headache and was light-headed from not eating. Not my favorite impression of the company.
• Don’t bring in a laptop unless absolutely needed. I find it so rude when an interviewer brings in a laptop and ends up distracted by Slack messages, etc.
• Be on time. I came to your office on time, I expect the same courtesy. During an earlier on-site, the CEO came in 30 minutes late and stayed for about 10 minutes. We were interrupted occasionally and she was completely distracted during the entire time. I ended up getting a question cut-off with a hasty apology and a rush out the door. Thanks?

💸 Offers and negotiation

After my on-sites, I often felt more at peace and less stressed. In my mind, it’s out of my hands from that point. The most that I can do is to follow up and express my excitement towards a final decision.

I never expected to receive three offers all within the same time frame and I feel very fortunate to have had those companies express their excitement in me with offers.

My end decision came down to these points:

• Company mission. I wanted to get behind a real cause and mission that I really can believe in and advocate for.
• Role and responsibilities. My biggest desire was to remain full stack. But if possible, I wanted a role that allowed a bit more focus in the front end.
• Tech stack. I took the time to learn a new technology and I wanted to work on an application that used it.
• Mentorship. I don’t ignore where my skill set and experience currently lie. I know I’m fairly new to the industry. I wanted to work with a team of people that had enough resources to provide me support and mentorship in my budding engineering career.
• People. Ideally, I did not want to work alone as a the sole developer. I also did not want to work with hundreds of other engineers. The middle ground is struck where I could work on a small team of engineers and where my contributions would make an impact.

My last point is Salary. Before any of my job offers, I had an ideal number in mind towards appropriate compensation. This helped to inform me when negotiating.

• My first offer was $43k less than my ideal number. (Or 63% of what I was expecting) And this was after negotiating. I admit, I was a bit shocked and disappointed to hear that. Had the organization come up to to meet at least 70% of my ideal number, or an extra $8k, I would have signed with them. I still feel quite sad about this lost opportunity since I felt best aligned with them. But had I taken the job, it would have been a $18k cut from the job that I was laid off from. They also had traditional “benefits” that seemed outdated, especially in comparison to benefits found in the tech industry. Some things included PTO accrual and a 3-month wait until I could contribute towards a 401(k) were very undesirable to me.
• My second offer was 9% or $10k over my ideal number. Again, I was shocked but in a very different way. I recall during that interview process, the hiring manager had asked me what my expected salary range would look like. I had only mentioned that I was interested in the industry standard based from my skill set and experience. I think having told this company that I already had an offer also pushed them to make such a hefty offer. It certainly gave me leverage towards my last offer.
• My last offer that I received began 83% or $20k less than my ideal number. I was a bit surprised. The number fell below a range that I had previously seen on a job post. No one during the interview process had asked me what my salary expectations were and I was mostly using the job post as my compensation foundation. I’ll admit that the offer came expedited because I was on a timeline with the other two offers. I imagine that there was not enough time to properly put together a number that fully made sense. Thankfully, they were very receptive and open to negotiating with me. I felt heard and they reassured me of my value. In the end, I was able to advocate for myself successfully and bring the offer up to my ideal number!

I ended up signing a contract with the company that made me my last offer. The company hit all of my points of interest and I was satisfied with the offered salary. I’m excited and beyond thrilled to begin my new journey with my new company.

In regards to the other two companies: I would have taken a pay cut for the first company had they come up a little bit more in a range that was sustainable. And unfortunately, I didn’t feel that the second company had checked off all of the points that I was looking for in a new company regardless of the higher compensation.

🎉 Conclusion

The last two months has taught me so much. I took a lot of initiative and I pushed myself through challenging situations. I became a stronger engineer and overall communicator. I learned to respect my own value and skill set as a software engineer.

Some last minute advice to anyone currently stuck in this kind of situation:

• Don’t become a shut-in. If you’re like me, you might feel an unrealistic urge to lock yourself in a room with your computer and learn, learn, learn! I grew an irrational sense of fear whenever I took a break from learning while I was unemployed. I feared that the second I would stop, I would lose knowledge and become irrelevant. It’s more important to remain balanced than continue drinking from the fire hose of knowledge.
• Exercise. I took up yoga while unemployed. The last time I tried yoga was over a decade ago and I recall hating it. Yoga has been a great way for me to regain my sense of perspective. I now thoroughly enjoy it! It allows me to get out of my mind and back in my body.
• Reward yourself. After every dreaded tech screen/phone call, I would always reward myself. Usually that meant going out to get a 🍩 or ☕️. But it could be any act of kindness for yourself by yourself.
• Talk about it. I’m fairly introverted. I often don’t talk much when learning new things. I find that I have to take time to absorb whatever is happening around me and I often find myself working independently. This usually results in me never asking for help from others. But during this experience, I remained open to receiving support from those around me and I asked for help when needed. I can’t recommend it enough. Know that it’s OK to lean on those around you. ❤️

🤞 Above all, I wish the best of luck to all of those searching!