00:00 I know a person with a master's degree
00:01 in computer science that is delivering
00:03 pizzas it's tough out there right now
00:05 you've applied to so many jobs they all
00:07 blend together into one big giant entity
00:09 that you both can't stop thinking about
00:11 and also hasn't called you back you
00:13 spend all this time going to school and
00:15 there aren't any entry-level jobs or
00:17 maybe you just got laid off the
00:18 severance package is about to run out
00:20 and the bills are starting to pile up
00:22 the job market was so hot just 18 months
00:25 ago what happened I know it's rough out
00:27 there so I made this video to help if
00:29 you're new to the channel my name is
00:30 Steve win and I'm an L7 principal
00:32 software engineer basically I make
00:34 videos that I wish existed when I was
00:36 coming up in the industry I've never
00:37 really had to search for a job because
00:39 I've spent my entire 18-year career at
00:41 Amazon but I have been on the other side
00:43 of the table reviewing resumés doing
00:45 phone screens and conducting interviews
00:47 I've conducted over 850 technical
00:50 interviews for Amazon I'm a bar raiser
00:52 and I've trained over a th000 people
00:54 within the company on how to conduct and
00:56 assess talent and I've seen a ton of
00:57 failure modes that are really pretty
00:59 easy to avoid so I'll share these
01:01 lessons with you in this video before I
01:03 get to my first point let's compare two
01:05 hypothetical people in a thought
01:07 experiment Alice and Bob both are recent
01:09 graduates and are looking for jobs in
01:11 today's tough Market Bob has machine
01:13 guned his resume to hundreds of job
01:14 openings after he wakes up in the
01:16 morning he spends his days applying to
01:18 more jobs scrolling videos online
01:20 working on a leak code question about
01:21 dynamic programming that he's been stuck
01:23 on all week and playing video games Bob
01:25 is pretty sure that he's doubled maybe
01:27 triple applied to some jobs but it
01:29 doesn't matter because they haven't
01:30 called them back anyways then there's
01:32 Alice Alice has a spreadsheet to track
01:34 all of the jobs she's applied to before
01:36 she applies she spends a bit of time
01:37 understanding what each company does and
01:39 what their needs are in a column on that
01:41 spreadsheet she is constantly updating a
01:43 resume and has several versions based on
01:45 what type of role she's applying to she
01:47 keeps a log of all of her job search
01:49 activities like every time she's reached
01:50 out to her network or when she hasn't
01:52 heard back from referrals she's also
01:54 systematic about the coding problem
01:55 she's done and spends a bit of time
01:57 learning The Core Concepts behind
01:59 problems that give her her trouble she's
02:00 always on the lookout for skills that
02:02 might make her more attractive to
02:03 employers currently she's learning all
02:05 she can about AI even though she didn't
02:07 really study it in school Alice gets
02:08 started at 8:00 a.m. in the morning and
02:10 she's done with her work by lunchtime
02:12 afterwards she does whatever she wants
02:14 given what you know about Alice and Bob
02:16 who has the better chance of Landing a
02:17 job I would bet my money on Alice and
02:20 that's my first point you increase your
02:21 chances of Landing a job by staying
02:23 organized and being disciplined treat it
02:25 like a part-time job that leads to a
02:27 full-time job if you do it well taking a
02:29 structured and disciplined approach
02:31 doesn't mean going into monk mode it
02:32 just means taking a couple hours of the
02:34 day seriously getting dressed in the
02:35 morning getting organized by tracking
02:37 your activity or spreadsheets and focus
02:39 on growing and showcasing your skills
02:41 when the market starts to pick back up
02:42 you want to be ready to go nobody knows
02:44 when that will be but it will happen
02:46 when Bob gets a call back for an
02:47 interview he's going to have to cram to
02:49 prepare as opposed to Alice who has kept
02:51 her interviewing skills warm during the
02:53 dry spell looking for a job especially
02:55 your first one is an ambiguous and
02:56 chaotic process you combat ambiguity and
02:59 chaos with structure and discipline I'd
03:01 like to take a moment to thank today's
03:03 video sponsor dice the process of
03:05 Landing a job has two discrete phases
03:07 Landing the interview by getting noticed
03:09 and then performing well enough for the
03:10 interview to land an offer I've teamed
03:12 up with dice to provide a comprehensive
03:13 set of resources for both of these phes
03:16 if you're looking for a job right now
03:17 you need to leverage as many resources
03:19 as you can especially high quality and
03:21 free ones if you're struggling with
03:23 resumé writing you're not alone I've
03:25 seen so many terrible resumés in my
03:26 career and they were all bad for
03:28 different reasons there's a lot can go
03:30 wrong dice has dozens of articles on how
03:32 to craft effective resumés especially
03:34 for Tech professionals your CV or resume
03:36 is probably the only interaction that
03:38 you'll have with many of the employers
03:40 that you apply to you probably want to
03:41 have several versions and you want each
03:43 of them to stand out the articles are
03:45 filled with templates samples and advice
03:47 on how to create RS that will pop and
03:49 will land you your next interview there
03:50 are also dozens of articles on preparing
03:52 for the interview side of things some
03:53 articles that caught my eye are six ways
03:55 to blow a job interview how to research
03:57 a manager before the job and one on how
04:00 to leverage your personal projectss and
04:01 stories when looking for your first tech
04:03 job the last one is especially useful
04:05 for people straight out of school links
04:07 to these articles and more can be found
04:08 in the description thanks again to dice
04:10 for sponsoring today's video and making
04:12 all of these resources available for
04:14 free before I highlight my second Point
04:16 let me tell you the story of how I got
04:17 my job at Amazon after college in 2006 I
04:21 had a terrible time looking for work I
04:22 was a good programmer and had a solid
04:24 grasp of data structures and algorithms
04:26 but because I lacked a computer science
04:28 degree and any relevant job experience I
04:31 wasn't getting any callbacks the only
04:32 thing on my resume was when I worked at
04:34 Chuck-E-Cheese during high school during
04:36 my job search I was surprised to receive
04:38 a call from a friend let's call him
04:39 Connor who I hadn't heard from since
04:41 high school Connor was currently working
04:43 at Amazon and wanted to know if I wanted
04:45 to meet up for a drink the reason he
04:46 called was that he had just met a
04:48 cooworker Heather and discovered that
04:50 they grew up in the same town as I did
04:52 but attended different high schools
04:53 since it wasn't a large city they racked
04:55 their brains trying to find people that
04:57 they knew in common when my name came up
04:59 I briefly dated Heather way back when
05:01 and we parted on good terms and in high
05:03 school I spent many hours helping Connor
05:05 prepare for the AP Computer Science test
05:07 in college they went on to major in
05:09 computer science and ended up as sdes at
05:11 Amazon working on adjacent teams over
05:14 some fine craft Pacific Northwest beer
05:16 in a dingi dive bar in Seattle I
05:18 persuaded Connor to get me an interview
05:19 at Amazon since I spent so much time
05:21 back in high school helping him with the
05:23 AP test he was able to secure me an
05:25 interview and the rest is history the
05:27 reason I'm telling you the story is
05:29 because my second point the strength of
05:30 the connections you have in your network
05:32 can greatly increase the chances of
05:34 Landing a job you may be saying to
05:36 yourself but Steve I don't have a
05:38 network you get a network by getting a
05:39 job and I don't have a job it's a catch
05:41 22 well what I say to you is that you do
05:44 have a network everybody has a network
05:46 and so it's not a catch22 and I don't
05:48 appreciate the attitude networking isn't
05:50 about contacting everybody you know and
05:52 asking and begging for a job it's about
05:54 making sure your connections are strong
05:55 for people that you already know do your
05:57 family and friends all know that you're
05:59 looking for work this may involve
06:00 explaining to them what type of job
06:02 you're looking for Uncle Daniel may not
06:03 know anything about computers or the
06:05 internet but he knows a ton of people at
06:07 church and you can let them know that
06:08 you're looking for work also make sure
06:10 to keep your non- Tech connection strong
06:12 as well if you went to college or did a
06:13 boot camp you know people in the
06:15 industry reach out to them ask them for
06:17 advice and leads if they have a job ask
06:19 for a referral it's not weird everyone
06:21 that can help will help because in the
06:23 future the tables might be turned it's
06:25 not just about taking all the time but
06:27 also giving can you help people in your
06:29 Network maybe someone's trying to learn
06:30 how to code and you can help them maybe
06:33 you can introduce two people that you
06:34 know with similar interests and career
06:36 trajectories if you don't believe me
06:37 about leveraging your network go ask
06:39 people you know about how they got their
06:41 jobs it's not just me a sizable amount
06:43 of folks will tell you the same thing
06:45 that they got their shot by using
06:46 connections from their Network a
06:48 referral from someone you know is the
06:49 path of least resistance to Landing an
06:51 interview who you know is greater than
06:53 what you know but people can't help you
06:55 if you don't reach out and tell them and
06:57 if you get a referral please make sure
06:59 to follow follow up since the economy
07:00 has been in a downturn I've received a
07:02 ton of requests for referrals at Amazon
07:04 and I'm happy to help I tell them all
07:06 the same thing go to the job's website
07:08 and find an opening that's a good fit
07:09 email the link to me along with your
07:11 resume so I can submit a referral now I
07:13 can't guarantee an interview but I can
07:15 follow up internally to make sure you
07:16 get a call back because I can follow up
07:18 with the hiring manager or recruiter and
07:21 out of all of the people that reached
07:22 out to me only one person has actually
07:24 sent me their resume and that person
07:26 hasn't followed up to ask me about the
07:27 status of their application it's going
07:29 to require some follow through but not a
07:31 lot so it's important to leverage your
07:33 network and to stay organized before I
07:36 get to my last point I want to tell you
07:37 a story about someone I interviewed I
07:39 went into the interview thinking that it
07:41 was going to be a slam dunk they were a
07:42 referral from someone I knew and I
07:44 trusted at work they came from another
07:46 highly respected tech company and were
07:48 applying to the same role and level at
07:50 Amazon the team they were applying to
07:51 worked on the same type of backend
07:53 systems that he had experience in it was
07:55 essentially the same Tech stack and it
07:57 totally made sense why they were leaving
07:58 their old company he needed a mental
08:00 health break and he was stuck working on
08:02 maintaining a large and wonky code base
08:04 the new team had an aggressive road map
08:06 and wanted to ship a bunch of new stuff
08:07 so he took 6 months off to recharge and
08:09 to travel but here's the thing he
08:11 completely bombed the interview every SE
08:14 at Amazon has to demonstrate that they
08:15 know how to code and it was clear to me
08:17 that this person knew how to code but he
08:19 didn't spend any time preparing for the
08:20 interview and it wasn't just my
08:22 interview it was Apparent from the
08:23 entire Loop that he didn't prepare at
08:25 all he had let his interview muscle
08:27 atrophy and that's my third point you
08:29 have to keep your interviewing skills
08:30 warm even if you aren't getting any call
08:32 backs remember there are two phases to
08:34 getting a new job Landing the interview
08:36 and Performing well enough in the
08:37 interview to get an offer and at the
08:39 start of your job search you probably
08:40 went all out with preparing for the
08:42 interview because of the lack of
08:43 callbacks though you've let your
08:45 interview preparation laps the secret is
08:47 to leverage the science of learning and
08:49 memory if you're familiar with the
08:50 ebbing house forgetting curve you'll
08:52 know that relearning something that
08:53 you've learned in the past is going to
08:54 take much less time than if you started
08:56 from Square One what you relearn is also
08:58 much more likely to be retained for
09:00 longer the more times you review it so
09:02 it's important to set time away every
09:04 day to review things that you should
09:05 already know pick some random leak code
09:07 questions to make sure that they've been
09:08 committed to long-term memory and
09:10 schedule a mock interview every month or
09:12 so with some friends that are also
09:13 unemployed maintenance of things that
09:15 you've already learned is going to cost
09:17 like 5 to 10% of how long it took to
09:19 learn something originally but if you
09:20 let your form lapse you'll be like the
09:22 guy I interviewed who is really well
09:24 qualified but decided to skip any
09:25 preparation during his time off which
09:27 was a waste of time for involved if you
09:30 found this video useful you need to make
09:31 sure that you're well prepared for
09:33 Behavioral interviews too it can be the
09:35 difference between getting down leveled
09:36 and losing out on hundreds of thousands
09:38 of dollars during the offer phase so
09:39 check out my video on how to tell a good
