- Find someone who works for the company (on their website, or linked-in, whatever). Tell them who you are, and ask if there's any jobs available. They'll probably send you to a hiring manager, along with some kind of recommendation. If you've already been vetted by a team member, you're streets ahead of all the anonymous resumes the hiring manager gets.
- Go to a meetup, conference, or some other industry event. Talk to people.
Everyone with a job knows a hiring manager, and the hiring manager will trust them more than all the job seekers banging on their door.
This might fail if you want to work for Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. I've heard Apple employees tend to get stalked a lot by people who want to work for Apple, so they've got the same kind of defences that hiring managers have. You'd probably need to really stand out to convince them you're the kind of person they should introduce to their boss. But these companies already have pretty active recruitment. You want to target the companies with poor recruitment (i.e. most companies).
Most companies kind of know they need more staff, but can't be bothered going through the process of advertising, weeding out hundreds of unqualified candidates, then having to pick between the 2-3 good candidates who get on the shortlist. It's almost as stressful for them as it is for the applicants. If a good candidate presents themselves before they've bothered advertising, they'll often take them without bothering to advertise (expensive), weed through the chaff (time consuming), and picking from the shortlist (stressful) ... all of which creates the risk that they'll either not find the right person, or hire someone who doesn't quite fit simply because they felt they were the best of a bad bunch. And if they don't like you, it's easy enough to say "sorry, no positions are currently available".
> Find someone who works for the company (on their website, or linked-in, whatever). Tell them who you are, and ask if there's any jobs available. They'll probably send you to a hiring manager
Have you actually tried that? Did it work?
I tried getting an introduction 2 foreign tech companies in Japan. One from an ex-coworker and another from a friend of a friend. In both cases the position was not in their team, and they told me there was nothing they could do for me, I'd have to apply by sending my resume via the company's website. Which I did, and then got no response.
And these were people I know and am in good terms with, e.g. I have met person1 several times since he left the company, and have been to person2's place. I wouldn't even bother contacting a random person.
To be fair, I have managed to get introductions at 2 other companies, but in both cases they weren't highly-sought tech companies.
My (admittedly limited, but not null) experience with Japanese business culture suggests that things may be a bit different there. From my understanding, it takes a very long time for trust between businesses (in my case), or between businesses and employees to be forged. The people you talked to may not have had enough pull yet to make anything happen outside of their own teams.
Sorry if it wasn't clear, but I'm talking specifically about Japanese branches of foreign tech companies like Google and Facebook (though the actual companies were different).
> My (admittedly limited, but not null) experience with Japanese business culture suggests that things may be a bit different there.
On the contrary, if a Japanese company is hiring and I know someone who works there then I'm 99% sure my resume won't be redirected to /dev/null. Very likely I'll get an interview, otherwise at least a polite but human-written refusal letter.
Japan I think might be tough for that. As an example of culture shock for me, I remember being introduced to X where they would name the most immediately recognizable company which X had worked for. That was the default. As opposed to say, who they worked for now, or their talents or achievements.
More knowledgeable HNers can probably chime in here, but my impression is that in Japan particularly, respectability and credentialism are played very hard.
I think this is good advice with a very major footnote. You can't reach out to somebody the first time inquiring about introductions or jobs. That will piss them off and they will ignore you.
I had an acquaintance from college write me one day and ask me how I was. I wrote back to say hello, thinking he wanted to reconnect. In his next response he started asking me about connections for summer internships. I didn't respond. Not intentionally, just because I realized he was trying to leverage me for connections and I had no interest in talking further. In retrospect I could've been more helpful as I've been helped a number of times by people I did nothing for, but realize that most people don't like to feel used.
Of course you ultimately want to help yourself, but to be effective, you've got to start further upstream. Spend time getting to know the person, what their interests are, and see if you can first help them. Once their barrier is down they are going to be a lot more helpful.
Sure you can. Just don't reach out to an old friend who you've lost contact with. That just seems sketchy.
Being upfront ("I'm looking for a job, and I'd like to know what kind of platform you guys are using / what kind of skills you are looking for ...") is also good. As long as you're polite.
If a stranger asks you for help, your first response will be "sure, why not?". You're not trying to leverage a friendship by cold calling some guy at a company - it's just business. Cold calling friends, on the other hand, can seem sketchy. If you do want to cold call a friend, it's probably better to ask advice.
Actually, it's probably always better to frame it as advice, since the people you cold call won't want to give you a firm answer.
- Find someone who works for the company (on their website, or linked-in, whatever). Tell them who you are, and ask if there's any jobs available. They'll probably send you to a hiring manager, along with some kind of recommendation. If you've already been vetted by a team member, you're streets ahead of all the anonymous resumes the hiring manager gets.
- Go to a meetup, conference, or some other industry event. Talk to people.
Everyone with a job knows a hiring manager, and the hiring manager will trust them more than all the job seekers banging on their door.
This might fail if you want to work for Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. I've heard Apple employees tend to get stalked a lot by people who want to work for Apple, so they've got the same kind of defences that hiring managers have. You'd probably need to really stand out to convince them you're the kind of person they should introduce to their boss. But these companies already have pretty active recruitment. You want to target the companies with poor recruitment (i.e. most companies).
Most companies kind of know they need more staff, but can't be bothered going through the process of advertising, weeding out hundreds of unqualified candidates, then having to pick between the 2-3 good candidates who get on the shortlist. It's almost as stressful for them as it is for the applicants. If a good candidate presents themselves before they've bothered advertising, they'll often take them without bothering to advertise (expensive), weed through the chaff (time consuming), and picking from the shortlist (stressful) ... all of which creates the risk that they'll either not find the right person, or hire someone who doesn't quite fit simply because they felt they were the best of a bad bunch. And if they don't like you, it's easy enough to say "sorry, no positions are currently available".