My job search is (hopefully) coming to a close. Here are some of my notes to myself for posterity.
- Bring a compact digital camera when interviewing. I’ll be going to a lot of places I don’t normally go to. There’s usually something interesting to photograph.
- One recruiter notes that the financial firms that pay the best in Boston are Risk Metrics, Fidelity, Thompson, Charles River Development, and Wellington. I didn’t interview at any of them.
- Useful web sites:
- LinkedIn. Very useful, lots of good leads.
- jobs.joelonsoftware.com. RSS feed filterable by zip code. Where I got one of my final two companies.
- Monster. The biggie job board. Never got around to using it since it has a reputation of having a lot of chaff. I had enough leads otherwise.
- Career Builder. Another biggie job board. Again, never got around to it.
- BostonWorks. The Boston Globe’s job board. More locally focused. Never got around to it.
- ITA Software. Reputation for doing interesting things, hiring smart people, and having a hard interview process. Again, never got around to it.
- It took me a while to get my résumé into a decent state. Friends were very helpful in whipping it into shape content-wise. I also improved my résumé typography. The main thing I didn’t do, suggested to me by a friend:
The importance of stressing the value added. That is, “What was Company / Institution X able to do after you got there that they weren’t able to before?” I think this is one thing that your current resume is sorely lacking. Was the company or its products able to suddenly process twice as many transactions? Roll out all of your products on time and under budget?
- Questions to ask the interviewers. Start of interview:
- When the interviewer inevitably asks, “So, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself.” respond, “Well, first why don’t you tell me a bit about the job so that I can tailor my answer to your particular needs right now?”
- What would the first three goals be for the person who takes this job?
- What are the biggest hurdles to overcome in this position?
- What type of person do you think will be most successful in this position?
What a hodge-podge. At some point I’ll post my interview schedule. I have to figure out how to anonymize some of them so I can freely comment.