technical interviews for high-tech professionals
=How to get a job in Silicon Valley=
The goal is to get your resume onto the manager's desk and have him/her notice it. If you understand this process, you'll have a better idea how to get it there.
No managers in their right mind will advertise a job in the newspapers.
They'll get hundreds of useless resumes from unqualified people and waste days in searching through these. They only do it if couldn't fill the position through referral.
Usually resumes are handled by computers.
Machines receive resumes. Machines store resumes. Machines search through mountains of resumes.
The resumes are scanned or copied into the resume database.
HR people use the keywords to search their database:"software + programmer + Unix".
The keyword search brings up several dozen resumes which contain all three words.
HR person will add more keywords to reduce the number of resumes.
From that, he/she selects the best candidates and hands the list to a low-level HR person who calls to see if you are available. The recruiter finally presents the best candidates to the manager.
Don't assume that the recruiter understands the job description.
HR recruiters are generally young, university-educated women with degrees in something else other than computers:literature, sociology, theology, etc. So they often haven't the slightest idea about specific technical details in your resume.
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Postage, envelopes, and time are expensive.
E-mail is the best way to send your resumes.
It's free to send 100 e-mails in one shot.
Use BCC: (blind carbon copy) instead of CC: (carbon copy). This lets you send a hundred e-mails and each one will be addressed to the recipient without all of the other recipients. -
On the pre-interview with HR recruter get the manager's
name and number "just in case something comes up". And then call the manager and discuss the job
to make shure it meets your expectation (skills,duties, salary range).So that you are not going to waste time in going to an interview, that may take an entire morning. Managers appreciate these calls; they too don't want to waste an hour on a pointless interview because a clueless recruiter sent your resume. - Recruiters are pressed for time, so they only glance at resumes. They generally only read the top third of the first page of your resume. So put your best information there. Some people make SUMMARY section in the front part of resume and highlight there their experience. Remember, the purpose of a resume is to get you a pass to the interview. Make sure to highlight only the relevant experience, you may have to adjust your resume for each job you are applying for.
- If you send your resume as an attachment, give it a name other than "resume.doc". There are less chances for your resume to get lost
among a thousand others if you name the file Mike_Chao_resume.doc", for example.
- If you have just graduated from college or have limited work experience, don't try to stretch out your accomplishments to two pages. One page should be enough. But for experienced workers it is OK to have a resume that goes beyond one page.
- When recruiter tries to set up an interview, be flexible and available: anytime, anywhere. Don't make conditions or talk about taking your cat to the vet. They just call the next person from the list.
- High managers as well only briefly scan the resume. Don't wait for them to ask: be ready to give three good, short points why you're perfect for the job.
The rules of business etiquette have always been important, especially during tough times for the job market like today. Sending just a plain resume without a cover letter tells the recruter that you are either not familiar with the rules of business etiquette, or you don't care. In both cases the result will not be to your favor.
After the interview, it is appropriate to send a "Thank you letter" or an e-mail to the hiring manager. It is usually a short letter containing something like "It was nice meeting you" and thanking them for inviting you to the interview. This should leave a positive impression of you and give you better chances among other candidates.
However, it is obvious that even a brilliant letter cannot cover poor technical skills.
There has always been a discussion concerning how long to stay at one company. If you had stayed only a year or two, the interviewer would wonder why. But some hiring managers, especially those at start-ups, are equally suspicious of people who had spent many years at one company. You probably have to prepare to explain why you moved or stayed.
You definitly don't want to look like a job hopper, and money is not the only interest you have. Demonstrate your professional growth! Show that you advanced professionally with each new position. That will persuade a future employer that you are not leaving for something better as soon as the job market picks up again, but will stay as long as you have the opportunity to grow.
Years of experience, spent at one company, is not always an asset for the interviewer. You may have to show you were not stagnating, that you are not lacking flexibility or ambition and that your professional experience grew every year.
This is a great resource! Sit down and make a list of people you worked with.Think of people who you had to contact,customers,vendors. These are all potential employers and sources of referrals to a new job. A resume passed along to a hiring manager through a contact is more likely to get read than a resume that is sent in blindly.
By the way, executive recruiter or executive search consultant is just another name for a headhunter. Many companies use their services because their own HR people evolved away from recruiting into administering benefit plans, government regulation, training.
There is a defference between headhunters and employment agencies: employment agencies find job for people, while headhunters find people for the job.
Now, the question is should you work with headhunter?
Why not? First of all their service is free for you.They are paid by the company that hires you.
So let them work for you, save your time!
Another good thing is that headhunters often have the inside information. You don't want to join the company that will be laying off in a few months.
Headhunters know the hidden job market. Some jobs they have are not advertised in papers.
Another advantage is that you can spew your salary expectations comfortably to hunters and let them do the negotiating for you, which definitely beats haggling with your future boss.
The problem is that some recruters just put your resume into their database and wait for the match, which may take long time.
Also sometimes they're pushy, only thinking about their fee . Well,don't work with such headhunters. Use the good ones and let us know - we will pass the word on.
