SWE High Leverage Job Search Plan

Recently I spoke to a Software Engineer who wanted some advice regarding his job search.

Initially he was extremely nervous given all the headlines out there, with another company announcing layoffs pretty much every other day.

He reached out, we scheduled a call, and it turns out he was in a much better spot he initially thought he was in.

We came up with a plan to passively look for a new job, build his network, and then get more aggressive each month that passes by.

Background

• Software Engineer: Angular, Typescript, 6 years of experience

• Location: Greater NY area, currently working hybrid, ok working hybrid

• Comp: Undisclosed for this post, but making a solid amount, not looking for anything drastically more

• Only 2 employers. 2 years at first company, 4 years at current.

• Motivations: Ideally looking for an overall better opportunity. Ideally more meaningful work (currently in media industry). Would stick to something similar if more money though, it depends.

• Pain Points: Current work is getting stale and not challenging enough

• Leverage:

  • Not worried about layoffs, nothing planned at company at least

  • Lots of cash in the bank either way

  • He reached out to his prev manager prior to Media Company who said he would try to hire him back or refer within company

Situation

Let’s call this guy Joe.

Joe was nervous because he has been applying places the past 4 months and hasn’t had much traction.

First thing I said to him was:

• “Joe, when was the last time you looked for a job?”

• “2020”

• “Remember the monicker the Great Resignation?”

• “Yea”

• “You see the layoffs going on today?”

• “Yea”

• “Different times brother!!!”

Joe was beating himself up because he wasn’t able to find a job as quickly as he did. Not to take anything away from his background, but that literally was the greatest candidate market of all time. Companies were increasing headcount like their lives depended on it and were hiring like crazy.

It’s a different era right now, the employer’s era. And even when the candidate market comes back, it will look nothing like we saw in 2020-2022.

On top of that, his process was just randomly applying to jobs on linkedin. Not the most efficient way to do things either.

So for the first half of the call, we went over how he’s actually in a much better spot than most people because

• He’s not worried about layoffs, meaning he can bide time to look for the right role without rushing things

• He has two major forms of leverage

  • Cash in the bank in case he was fired right now

  • Prev manager will try to hire or refer into company

Action:

Since he doesn’t need to make a move today, tomorrow, or even next month, we decided to take things slow and focus on a network to supplement his application process.

Remember, things currently are stale. If he absolutely hated his job and it ate away at his mental health then we’d obviously take a more aggressive approach, but that’s not the case here.

Essentially we split the time he spends on his job search in half:

• One half will be focused on building a network

  • Starting with online relationships on linkedin & X. Comments, replies, turned into DMs. Joining the conversation and building relationships.

  • Bonus points for getting more aggressive with cold reach outs to prev alumni and coworkers who moved onto other companies.

• The other half of his job search will be applying to jobs, then reaching out to potential job posters to make things more targeted

  • Applying directly on company websites, not linkedin easy apply

  • Reaching out to the job poster directly and sending his resume with a personalized message

  • If no job seeker, trying to identify a few close matches via linkedin and doing the same thing

Result

Not sure yet, it’s only been a week! But with someone like this, you don’t measure job search success by speed. You measure it by if they end up in the right spot over time.

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If you’re looking to get your resume/linkedin reviewed or book a career coaching call, you can reach out here:

I also have an ebook that I put together that gives you everything you need to put your best foot forward on your job search