The Insanity of Mind While Hunting for a New Job

I am almost 100% certain that each professional has to change or switch their jobs at least once (p.s. it is more than once in the majority of cases). The reason for this change can be any of the following:

The person has been laid off or fired.

The organization in which he was employed is shutting down.

He is not growing in his current role. He is stuck in the same role for a long time. (This long time depends on person to person.)

He is financially not compensated enough up to the mark he perceives his value.

He is being offered a better opportunity than his current one. (In this case, he might be happy in his current role)

Personal reasons. (Marriage, relocation to another city, and the list goes on….)

When a person changes his job due to any of the aforementioned reasons, the job hunt surely brings insanity into the mind of the person and obviously this insanity varies person to person. A person who has some experience in such a situation will probably handle the situation with more grace relatively to a person who is changing his job for the first time. It is just like they say The first step is always the hardest. The same applies for this scenario also.

I was a professional software developer and a few months back I found myself in the same situation and I fell in the category of first timers, duh!! By default, I was in a panic mode and didn't know how to tackle the situation at hand. But the same day I decided one thing that I was going to do once I get a new job and it was to write a post about it, share my experience(even though I had no idea how it was going to be) and help people who may face such a situation in future.

I am going to share my journey with you about that month and a half in which I worked my ass off and secured another job in a hope to help anyone who comes across this post, be they are facing such a problem now or along the way in future. I will discuss steps I took that helped me go through and cope up with the insanity of job hunting.

I can never forget the day I was told by my manager to start looking for a new job, it was my father's birthday. I was happy until 6.30 in the evening because for the first time I had gifted my father something expensive out of my pocket and he was so joyous when the gift presented him as a surprise. But all of my happiness faded in a matter of minutes when I was told to begin my job hunt. In the midst of this chaotic event, I was given an assurance that I have some time with me to find a new job and that gave me some sense of security and mental peace that at least I have some time to fight my way to a new job.

After this frenzy of an event, I started studying and preparing for job hunt by the standard template known to us software developers. I was somewhat calm because I knew from my conversation with my boss that I have time to search for a new job. But a turn of events happened in the coming weeks, due to some internal and not disclosable reasons, I was told to start serving the notice period. At that moment, it felt like that the floor beneath my feet is suddenly gone.

Here, I was planning my job search on the sole parameter of having enough time to mitigate out of the situation. I was psychologically prepared to go out and search for a new job but one heavy blow that I got was that I was told that I will not be receiving my performance bonus which was due at the end of month because of the escalation of my notice period. I felt cheated. Coming from a middle class family, my parents had to take up a loan for my education and these kind of bonuses help a fella like me to help get rid of these student loans as soon as possible. As every other individual with a student loan, I was planning on putting my performance bonus into my student loans to reduce them by a significant amount in a single strike. But I was devoid of that opportunity.

Nothing hurt me more than this not even when I was asked to search for a new job.

Given the escalation of the situation, I had to revamp my strategy to give me rapid results. I consulted my friends and family and presented them my situation. After hearing their advice and opinions, I formulated a path ahead for me and it worked wonders. I am going to share my strategy with you and I hope that it helps all of you out there searching for a new job or may need to search sometime in the future.

→ The first and the most important thing to do is make a base resumé. Your resumé should not be more than one page in any case. Any hiring or HR manager receives a great number of applications any given day and they don't have even a minute to spare to each resume. Yes, it's true. I can vouch on this because I happen to have some experience in hiring. Each resume is given a glance for mere seconds and its your job to stand out in those seconds from the crowd. So, making a long resume can obstruct your chances of being shortlisted. Keep your resumé short and to the point. Never lie on your resumé, if discovered you lose your credibility. I believe that these things must be present in your resume:

Your contact information(phone number, email, address is not necessary).

Your relevant experience along with your current organisation, designation and duration from which you are employed there. If you are an expert in multiple domains, please make sure that you read the job description carefully and put your experience related to that job at the top and if you have space left then showcase your other skills. For example, I am skilled in Node.js and Django backend frameworks, if I am applying for the role of a Django developer then I will put my experience that showcases my skills in Django first and then if space permits then experience in Node.js. You need to make sure to modify your resumé according to the job you are applying to.

Any other project that matches the job description that you have been doing in your free time must be mentioned. It showcases that you are dedicated enough and enthusiastic about things. It is definitely an eye catcher.

The last thing that is mandatory on your resumé are the skills that you are well versed in. If possible, rate yourself as amateur, intermediate, advanced and expert in each of the skill you mention. It helps recruiters filter your resumé in a faster way.

→ The second thing to do is make a spreadsheet or similar and start adding potential contacts of friends and family and connections in your network who can help you provide referrals in organisations they are working in and maybe pass along your resumé to their network. Always keep in mind that job applications received via referrals have a high conversion rate to secure interviews than applications submitted through careers pages of the organisations. Just make a list here, don't contact them yet.

→ The third thing to do is to make a list of your dream companies and see if any of them lie in list you made in step 2. If yes, keep them at a hand's distance for now and search for any connections in your dream companies for referrals.

→ The fourth thing to do is to purchase the following book (Applicable for software developers only).

Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions

Start this book from the beginning, please don't jump to problems directly. Instead of practicing algorithm problems on online platforms directly. I would highly recommend going through this book once and when once you are done you can go ahead and practice problems online. From my experience, I found that each chapter of this book contains wide variety of questions touching most of the kinds of a problem on a certain concept.

→ The fifth thing to do is make or refresh your profiles on job portals with your current information, experience, CTC etc. I would suggest the following platforms for this purpose:

LinkedIn (Take a premium, your reach increases multifold by this. Even the first month is free.)

Naukri or Hirist (These platforms help you to connect to consultants, but the conversion rate is very low here due to the number of applications received on a particular job posting.)

Instahyre (I found the conversion rate here very good, more than 50% and mostly startups are listed here.)

AngelList (If you are interested in working with early stage startups, this is the one for you.)

These are not all the job platforms out there, there are many other as well, if you don't like any of these, you can definitely use them as well.

→ The sixth and final thing that is to do is out of your control, i.e., getting calls for interview. The interview process varies organisation to organisation. Generally, before a Skype or on-site interview, there is a step of telephonic conversation either with HR or hiring manager to get to know you better. This call is meant to judge your personality, whether your past experiences and personality will be able to fit into their culture.

Until now things are out of your hands, but when you receive such a call, the ball is in your court. You have the power to control the situation from this point forward. It all depends on how you project yourself in front of the recruiter. There are a few tips to keep in mind this point onwards:

Be yourself, don't try to be someone fake in order to make them perceive you as a good fit for them. If you do this, this can hurt you in the future when you are working for them and they find contradictory evidence to your projected image. It can lead to clashes between thought process of you and the organisation and maybe even you manager.

Communicate your thoughts in the language you are more comfortable with. Let's say, if you are not that comfortable in English or you think you won't be able to communicate your thoughts in English, don't be hesitant to switch to Hindi or any other language common between you and the recruiter. If your interviewer is not comfortable in that language, he/she will let you know. Try to communicate in English then, cause unfortunately you are out of options here. The crucial thing here is to convey your thoughts very clearly. It is not mandatory to answer any question as soon as the interviewer is finished asking one. Take your time to answer, think of it is as a one time opportunity. So, you need to think carefully before anything comes out of your mouth. You can even ask for a little time to think about the question asked. Don't be shy to accept something you don't know. The worst you can do here is to answer something you don't know and incorrectly. This can lead to follow up questions and somewhere along the line, the interviewer will understand the reality and your chances will vanish for further rounds.

When asked about your CTC, please tell them what you got in your offer letter of your current job. Don't tell them the monthly salary you get in your bank account unless explicitly asked. If your current organisation gives you subsidiary on lunch or commute, then it would have been mentioned in your offer letter. Don't leave them out when discussing your current CTC.

When asked for expected CTC, research the market for role you are applying for to the location the organisation is located at. Never underplay your expectations. There is no problem if you go a little high in your demands but you sense a hesitation in your interviewer on hearing your expectations, tell them you are open to negotiations.

There is one thing that you will be asked always which is Why are you changing your current job? The interviewer asks this question to understand if you are a type of person who just gets bored of his job and likes to switch them after a short span of time or there is some genuine reason behind it. In my experience, it is always better to not tell them that you have been fired (if you are) instead you can say, you are stuck in your current role and not growing professionally. Telling the truth in such a scenario can hamper your reputation as a professional.

(For software developers only) When asked an algorithmic question in an interview, don't try to jump directly to the most efficient solution. Start with the first thing comes to your mind. Be expressive, communicate your thoughts with the interviewer. Discuss a brute force approach first, this helps the interviewer understand your problem solving approach. He/she can help you by giving some hints to make solution more efficient. You need to give them a chance to do so by communicating your though process.

Always keep in mind, the interview process is a two way street. They are here to know you better and you are there to know them better. Interview is a time consuming process so the interviewers try to examine you on the basis of their benchmarks and analyse your fit into their organisation. They never want to invest their time very frequently on the interview processes.

I mentioned to keep your referral contacts at a hand's distance. The time to reduce that distance arrives when you feel you are prepared enough for any interview. Contact them and ask them to put through a referral for you. The main reason to keep it at a distance until you are confident enough that you are prepared is that in case of referrals(almost all) you will at least receive a call or an email to have a telephonic conversation or directly onsite interview. It means that you are going to have control in your hands and you won't want to let go of that because of inadequate preparation. They are your best chances to conversion into your new job.

Now, coming to the final part of the post (Yeah I know you all will be thinking finally), I am going to share a little secret with you. You are not supposed to discuss this with the interviewer until unless the right moment arrives. So, here it goes. Once you are through the whole interview process and you are informed that you have been offered the job. First of all be happy, you deserve to be, your hard work has paid off.

But the struggle is not finished. Keep this process until you receive one more offer from any other organisation. What this will do is to provide you options to decide amongst the two. You can weigh in their pros and cons and most importantly if you are unsatisfied with the financial compensation with any of them, you can use the other as leverage to help you get a revised offer with better financial compensation.

Conclusion

I know that this post doesn't cover the full path of the interview struggle. But it covers the necessary ones. When you will give interviews, you will definitely fail (most of you, even I did) but the crucial thing is to get up and continue the fight. When you fail an interview it gives you insight unto yourself. It shows you places and skills where you are lacking, what you need to work on. When it has been some time that you gave an interview, you don't exactly know how and what type of interview processes are being followed these days. Failing an interview gives you a better understanding of it. Once in a while you will come across an interviewer who is altogether on a different tangent and will ask you things that are not meant to be asked. Think of such a person as an amateur interviewer and let it go.

Never give up. Never show anger to your interviewer.

Thanks for reading!