Job Hacking

Are you ready to answer?

Matt's post Career Poll: Biggest Silver Lining of Job Market? is a great read for anyone who is about to interview for a role.

Why?

Because you are undoubtedly going to have to answer all 5 of these questions, or variations, in any reasonably good interview process. And probably more than once.

Regardless of whether you love them or hate them, start prepping your answers now!

Do you know where you should work next?

Two words for you: Size and Awards.

First, Size. Seth talks about the Atomic Theory of Business Size. The Organizational Behaviorist in me likes this theory, it explains a lot about why a business is the size it is, and helps leadership to plan for business growth (or resizing). It also helps candidates sort out where they ought to go next. For example, I'm not good in big companies, but I am good in smaller, rapidly growing firms. If you've had experience in both places, think hard about which size companies you've worked at and been the happiest and done your best. My guess is that one of the commonalities will be the size of the organization.

Second, Awards. Industry awards are actually a pretty good indicator of which companies are succeeding. The people who vote on these awards are either industry insiders or journalists with deep background covering the industry. They know the real thing when they see it. 

Take a look at this list from last night's WTIA's Industry Achievement Awards:

• Commercial Product or Service of the Year: Isilon and Docusign (tie)
• Consumer Product or Service of the Year: Swype
• Service Provider of the Year: HasOffers
• Best Early-Stage Company of the Year: Ground Truth
• Best Seed-Stage Company of the Year: SPARQcode
• Innovative Manufactured Product of the Year: DarkStar
• Best Use of Technology in Government, Non-profit or Educational: Open Data Kit

All of these award winners have a great product. And, my guess is that they are all looking for people to join their teams, most certainly Software Engineers. At minimum, I can vouch for one on this list. Swype is looking for Mobile Software Engineers who are pretty darned good with C++.

But here's the thing, these companies are all in different stages of growth, different sizes. You might be great at a firm like Isilon that's around 400 FTE, but miserable at Swype, which is around 65. Or maybe the reverse is true! 

Check for Size and Awards as you look for your new role. They'll help you make the right career step.

I'm betting on Collaboration

I'm a news junkie, and a history junkie, too. I also like doing a little forecasting here and there from time to time, and this is one of those times.

For all you startup people out there, Collaboration is the word.

There are several trends shaping up right now which will play out over the next several years in the U.S. which will alter how we work. They are:

• Much increased oil prices, thanks largely to the Arab uprising (tightening supply) and massive economic growth in China and India (increasing demand).
• Outstripped demand for Software Engineers. 
• Data Security. Acutally, the desire by the Chinese Government to steal every piece of amazing technology out there.

As much as I think that everyone on a Dev team ought to be in the same room together working on their software, these trends will tend to push against this optimal solution. It's time to think hard about how to achieve those milestones, and drive the revenue those venture investors want, while not having your team all cramped into a small, cheap office. 

Should you set goals?

Yes, you should.

For some reason, Q1 of 2011 has turned out to be a long conversation about goal setting for me. I'm talking to my management team about it, I'm introducing it to our company, I'm talking to candidates about their goals (or lack thereof), and I'm talking to my former colleagues about their career aspirations, and you guessed it, their career goals. Then there are the discussion with my wife about the goals for her forthcoming book and writing career, and the discussion with my Boy Scout Troop about goals surrounding the inevitable leadership transition. Goals, goals, goals! 

Most people get that they need to set goals. But... they get turned off by all the focus on business-only goals. For those people, a great post from SideWise Thinking on goal selection. Hopefully, it will open a few mental doors regarding your potential futures!

Want a job at a startup?

I've been recruiting for several roles of late (C++ Mobile Software Developer, Build Engineer, System Admin, Release Project Manager, etc.), and every resume seems to hold some surprise or nugget of truth that all job-hunters should know about. While some of these nuggets are really cool, amazing ideas, the majority are not. 

I was thinking about these things when I ran across a pretty darned good blog post today, How to Land Your First Startup Job and Leave Corporate Life Behind. Written from the perspective of several hiring managers, and geared specifically towards technical-types, it's a wealth of good ideas and tips to help you land that role. I would call it a must-read for people looking for a role at a startup.

One quibble with the title of this article: Very few hiring managers at a rapidly growing startup want candidates from large-scale companies, especially candidates whose resumes show a 'fat-dumb-and-unhappy' look to them. One key red flag is the candidate who has been at a large company in only one role for more than 5 years. That person is, at first glance, probably not growing their career. Revise your resume to suit, or kick yourself in your ass and turn your career around!

What is the difference between a start-up and a new business?

What is a start-up? How is it different from any other new business?

The best way to think about it is that when a business is formed, it's new, and funding can take shape in almost any way. A start-up is a sub-type of new business, and when it happens, the type of investment is fairly narrowly defined, and the expectations for success and failure are much more dramatic.

There's a great post over at I, Cringely about, oh, Innovation (yes, with a capital 'I'), I guess. Within it is a very clear description of the difference between a standard-issue new business, and a startup. 

Knowing which one you are in, or about to get into, and how to describe it to different audiences may well be the fulcrum on which your future success rests.

re: The best way to deal with getting fired

Penelope said it, just read it!

Politics, and I don’t mean the Tea Party kind…

I was having dinner the other night with a buddy of mine who is a Data Architect for a mid-sized firm, and he made a great workplace observation: The more political a company is, the less time they have to focus on growing the business.

Duh, you say.

Turns out this is important as maybe you fit in a political environment, or maybe you don’t. 

My observation is that startups are not so political as most of the staff is completely engrossed in creating the business. And businesses with a high percentage of supervisors to staff are very political. Of course, all businesses have a political dimension to them, starting with the board’s relationship with the executive team.

So, think hard about joining that company which may have a political dimension unlike yours. Generally, it’s a bad match if you are a doer and you end up in a company where political intrigue rules the day.

Just look at what you've done!

Seth has an interesting post about Bill James and recruiting. 

After pushing my way through hundreds of resumes and linkedin profiles over the last several weeks, I can tell you that the world is wonderfully short on resumes and profiles with descriptions of shipped product. If you state what you shipped, and the outcome of that work product, you'll be ahead of at least 95% of your peers - and your resume or profile will stand apart from the crowd.

Here are some examples to help you along:

• As an SDE on the core dev team, shipped versions 1.0 and 2.0 of 'Jimmy's Amazing Click Express', along with several dot releases. Was principally responsible for the Click-Engine feature, which was the primary revenue generator. Improved revenue generation by 50% from v. 1.0 to 2.0 by adding several patent-pending SMO algorithms.
• Closed 5 deals my first year, resulting in $1M in revenue, and exceeded my target by 25%. Closed 10 deals in my second year, with $4M in revenue, earning top salesperson of the year for my team.
• Added 25 people to the company in my first year, all of which were graded 4s by their immediate supervisor on a scale of 1 - 5 with 5 being high. Average grade for all employees was 3.0 for this review period. 

You can do it - it's just describing what you achieved.