I thought N: Name Recognition was going to go in a different direction. Frankly, what makes a bigger difference than having a known company on your resume (though that probably helps with respect to big Tech companies with known difficult interview processes, albeit for mostly the wrong reasons) is N: Networking. Getting a job through people I've known has worked for me since the last century.
For some reason, networking seems to be a dirty word in tech. I went through the same rigorous tech screening as anyone else would for a recent job, despite knowing from previous work experience a colleague that I would be working with in the new position.
I understand wanting to be able to cross your Ts and dot your Is, but why not save everyone a boatload of time and just go off a recommendation? I ended up getting the job of course but it wasn’t without jumping through hoop after useless hoop. It’s like they don’t even trust the people they hire.
One is that having a network of people you know and have worked with gets conflated with "networking" events where people looking for work mostly uselessly pass around business cards or whatever the modern equivalent is.
The other somewhat related thing is that people who don't have or don't like to make connections see people waltzing into jobs and resent it. (In my experience it really can short-circuit the interview process, but my sample size is pretty small in that I've tended to stay with jobs a long time and the connections I had were at the highest levels.)
> The other somewhat related thing is that people who don't have or don't like to make connections see people waltzing into jobs and resent it.
I suppose then they don't make the connection that this person didn't just "waltz in", but instead was actually interviewing for this job for years prior by showing competence enough that their colleague felt comfortable vouching for them.
There is value in connections, far beyond getting jobs. People who are unwilling to do that are just hobbling themselves. Why let them hobble everyone else in the process.
> Getting a job through people I've known has worked for me
Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I've worked at 10 different places since 1992, and I've gotten roughly half through referrals and the rest through recruiters/monster/linkedin/etc. By far the more pleasant experiences have been the "cold" ones that I didn't get through a personal referral.
I'm sure it varies. But the three different places I've worked since the mid-80s have been (post-grad school recruiting) through personal contacts. But then that's a lot different from 10 jobs in 10 years.
