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30+ of the best Slack communities for tech recruiters
Mike posted a topic in Open Discussions
Though it's an office favorite for instant-messaging coworkers with thoughts only a Baby Yoda GIF can convey, celebrating big wins with dancing blob emojis and taking a quick break in your company's #random or #cats channel, what does Slack have to do with tech recruiting? Slack doesn't just put more laughter in your workday or prevent your inbox from getting clogged. It's also a place where you can network, share and get advice from others in your field and even source top tech talent—without ever leaving your desk. How? Beyond internal comms among employees, the platform also has topic- and interest-specific digital communities that are open to the public (via invite) where members share knowledge and insights, and can DM each other directly. So whether you're looking to talk shop with other recruiters, source tech pros for those hard-to-fill roles or streamline your hiring process, we've curated 30+ of the best Slack communities for tech recruiters to join (or create)—and why you should. Beyond chat: Why recruiters should join a Slack community Your job as a recruiter isn't just to post job openings and wait for who comes along. It's to get involved in the tech recruiting community and build strong relationships that could lead to your next hire. What better way to start making those connections than by joining a Slack community? If you don't already use Slack as a tech recruiter, there are lots of good reasons why you should: Get real-time advice from experts in the HR world. Ask questions, request feedback or bounce around ideas with people who've been there, done that. Meet new friends and mentors. Network with like-minded hirers who have the same challenges and can share their solutions. Discover and share useful resources. Make recommendations, share your experiences and discuss industry news and tips. Find the tech talent you're looking for. Post job listings, share candidates with other recruiters and connect with developers, designers and other tech pros where they hang out. Streamline your hiring process. Collaborate on writing job descriptions, arranging interviews (and trading interview notes) and onboarding new employees. More cat GIFs. Table of contents Slack communities for recruiter discussions Slack communities for sourcing tech talent Bonus: Slack for streamlining your hiring process 600+ tech hirers tell us how they attract top talent: download the report now The best Slack communities for recruiter discussions To get you started, we've rounded up some of the best Slack communities where you can meet others passionate about recruitment, learn about new tools your peers use and find the inspiration you need to make better hires. 1. #DBR Short for Dragons, Beers and Recruiters, #DBR is a community for in-house recruiters to share tips, experiences (both good and bad), candidates and insights. The community also gets together in real life with monthly drinks and learning events in Shoreditch, London. Answer a few questions to get access to the community. 2. Hacking HR A global community of HR change-makers, Hacking HR is where you can chat with people who are passionate about the intersection of the future of work, technology, people and organizations. Its primary channels are #diversityandinclusion, #hrtech, #peopleanalytics and #resources. Get instant access to the community. 3. HRtoHR No need to attend an expensive recruiting conference in a faraway city. HRtoHR is where HR professionals learn from each other in real time by chatting about best practices, new tools, everyday challenges and more. Get instant access to the community. 4. #People Connect with 5,000+ HR professionals, managers and people interested in organizational psychology, jump in on Q&As and AMAs, and solicit feedback and advice. Popular channels include #culture-chat, #employee-experience, #problem-situations and #interviewing. Answer a few questions to get access to the community. 5. People Geeks With over 8,500 members, People Geeks is a place to talk about workplace culture, learn about the latest in people analytics and share candidates, open roles, articles and advice. You'll also find location-based channels for cities across the world so you can connect with those in your local area. Get instant access to the community. 6. PeoplePeople Join this community to meet talent industry experts from around the world, share ideas about the changing recruiting landscape and take part in AMAs with recruiting influencers. Channel topics run from #culture-tactics to #interestingarticles to #networking (which automatically matches you with someone else in the channel each month). Get instant access to the community. Source: PeoplePeople7. Recruiting Innovators A dedicated space where over 1,000 sourcers, recruiters and hiring leaders discuss HR trends, technology and the latest recruiting innovations. Topics of conversation range from career advice (e.g., switching from corporate to agency recruiting) to recommendations for hiring tools (e.g., psychometric test platforms, ATS). Get instant access to the community. 8. techrecruiter A smaller community of just over 250 members, techrecruiter's channels touch on employer branding, candidate experience, recruitment marketing, sourcing techniques and more—but for tech hiring specifically. Get instant access to the community. You can use Slack communities for sourcing tech talent, too Unlike noisy social platforms, Slack is pretty quiet when it comes to recruiter activity. That means your outreach will likely get more engagement than it does on more common sourcing channels. And since there are Slack communities for nearly every niche, language and framework in tech (with thousands of active members you can message directly), there's no shortage of talent to tap into. Use Slofile—a database of public Slack groups—to search for a Slack community centered around a role or skill. Not only will you learn more about these roles and skills, but you'll also get to see how members talk about job hunting so you know how to approach potential candidates, as well as collect valuable insights for more personalized outreach. If you're looking for PHP or JavaScript developers, for example, you could join a community like WeLearnJS or PHP Chat. Or since WordPress is mainly based on PHP and JavaScript, you could also join WP Developers' Club or WordPress + Slack. Here are a few Slack communities you might want to join depending on the talent you're looking for: Bot Developer Hangout clojurians Elm Erlang FEDs on Slack (front-end development) GraphQL Microsoft Developer Chat (.NET, SQL Server, Azure) Postgres Product School PySlackers Ruby developers You could also join a tech-focused Slack community based on the location where you're hiring (nearly every major city has one): #techlondon Chicago Tech Cleveland Tech DCTech Denver Devs Irish Tech Community NashDev NYCTech phillydev Vancouver Developers Want more places to find tech talent? Check out our list of the best Slack communities for tech pros for 22 more groups to join based on the role you're recruiting for (e.g., mobile developer, UX designer, product manager, QA engineer). Or, browse through the tech category on Slofile: https://slofile.com/category/Tech. Bonus: Create your own Slack channel to streamline the hiring process Another way to take advantage of Slack as a recruiter is to create your own internal Slack channel to keep track of the hiring process. While it's not quite the same concept as a Slack community, creating your own Slack channel can make the tech hiring process faster and more efficient. Start a private channel for each role you need to fill (#hiring-[job title]) and invite everyone on your team who needs to be involved in the process. Pin the job listing at the top and include a plan for how you'll go about filling the role. This might include setting deadlines, adding interview notes and feedback, sharing promising candidates and storing HR documents and candidate resumes. Source: Recruitee.comOther ideas include encouraging employee referrals by creating a channel where you announce new job openings to a company-wide audience or creating an #onboarding channel to make sure new hires don't feel lost or confused in their first days and weeks (and to boost retention). Slack: An overlooked recruiting hack There's no question: Slack dominates the workplace. As a recruiter, you're probably already using it to chat to your team (and react to messages using your favorite memes)—but you can use it for much more than that. Join a few Slack communities that pique your interest to network with (and learn from) other recruiters. What roles are you hiring for? Get involved in a group you think your ideal candidate might be part of—whether it's based on role title, skills or location—and start to form connections. And finally, cut down the amount of time it takes you to hire by using Slack channels to recruit smarter. The post 30+ of the best Slack communities for tech recruiters appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
The latest cloud computing trends shaping the job market
Cloud isn't just a tool anymore, but a way of life. As of 2019, the worldwide public cloud services market sits at $214.3B and Gartner predicts it'll hit $331.2B by 2022. If so, growth of the cloud services industry will be about three times that of overall IT services. These days, migrating to the cloud is a priority for companies of all sizes (an estimated 83% of enterprises will be in the cloud by 2020 with 41% running on public cloud platforms). And with leading public cloud providers battling to be number one, acquisitions and partnerships are emerging, like IBM's $34 billion acquisition of RedHat as well as Microsoft Corporation's and AT&T's recent announcement that AT&T's 5G network will run on Azure. But even with a promising outlook, the cloud computing market isn't immune to fluctuations. We used Indeed.com data to find out how the overall market is affecting the job market to answer questions like: Are candidates searching for clouding computing jobs more or less in recent years? Are there even enough jobs to go around? (Rest assured, there are.) Cloud computing trends: a snapshot of candidate and employer activity Even with a dip in recent job seeker activity, the cloud computing job market looks bright. According to Indeed.com, in the four-year time period between October 2015 and October 2019, the share of cloud computing jobs per million increased by 54.92%. During that same time, the share of searches per million for cloud computing jobs grew by 20.71%. Looking more recently, we see less growth on both sides of the job market. From October 2018 to October 2019, the share of cloud computing job postings per million on Indeed rose by 12.17%, while the share of searches per million for these jobs decreased by 2.61%. Less job seeker and employer interest is no indication of a major slowdown but may suggest a natural plateau after years of aggressive growth. Amazon Web Service, Inc., for instance, is a prime example of somewhat slower, yet stable gains. AWS increased 35% in Q3 2019, despite that quarter seeing the lowest growth in the last five years. Join Seen for free to get matched with a cloud computing role that'll put you on cloud nine How leading cloud computing providers are faring AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform drive the cloud computing industry, and each cloud provider has seen impressive growth over the last several years. But which one leads the way in terms of job postings and searches? In the four-year stretch from October 2015 to October 2019, the percentage change in job seeker searches increased for all three: AWS by 157.77%, Azure by 130.41% and Google Cloud by 908.75%. The most recent year, however, tells a slightly different story. That's when searches for both Google Cloud and AWS dropped (by 9.22% and 5.5% respectively) while job seeker interest for Azure rose by 15.39%. The percentage change in job postings is similar to that of job searches. From October 2015 to October 2019, all three providers saw growth. The share of job postings in that time period increased for AWS by 232.06% and Azure by 302.47%, while Google Cloud saw the biggest jump at 1,337.05%. Between 2018 and 2019, the number of job postings for AWS climbed 21.07%, Azure by 30.59% and Google Cloud by 40.87%. Want to know where cloud computing roles pay the most? Check out our list of the 10 top cities for high cloud engineer salaries. Learn these in-demand tech skills, give your cloud career wings With less job seeker interest than job postings, there's a chance you have a slight competitive edge as a tech candidate. But you still need to continually develop the right skills to stand out from the rest and seal the deal at your next cloud interview. When looking at job titles containing "cloud" on Indeed, AWS tops the list of tech skills in demand for those roles, followed by Java, Python, Azure and SQL. But how important is it to know all of these skills if you specialize in a particular cloud computing platform—i.e., do you need to know Azure if your primary focus is Google Cloud Platform? For the most part, yes. Employers hiring specifically for AWS, Azure or Google Cloud roles all want tech talent skilled in AWS, Python, Azure and Java. This means that if you want your cloud engineering career to take off, you should be familiar with each. But while four out of the top five in-demand skills are the same for each platform, a different skill rounds out each list. Indeed data tells us that AWS job postings want candidates skilled in Linux, Azure jobs are looking for SQL talent and Google Cloud needs Google Cloud Platform expertise. Where will your cloud computing career take you? As it turns out, having your head the clouds isn't such a bad thing. The cloud computing industry has proven it's more than a fleeting trend as companies make the shift from hardware-heavy systems to remote cloud servers—and our data proves it (along with the continued revenue growth of leading cloud providers). And less job seeker interest coupled with higher employer demand signals it's a good time to step into a cloud computing career or take yours even higher. The post The latest cloud computing trends shaping the job market appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
How to become a product manager (when you're a software engineer)
Lots of people are breaking into tech with non-tech backgrounds, but what if you want to make a transition within tech from software engineering to product management? The good news is that as a software engineer, you're in a great position to move into product management. You have deep knowledge of the tech side of how products are built, know what it's like to work closely with product managers and have plenty of transferable skills you can take with you. But as with every career change, you can't just snap your fingers and be in a new role—even with all the advantages a SWE background gives you. It takes a lot of planning, learning, exploration and, let's be real, courage. So to help you build a career roadmap for transitioning from engineering to product management, we talked to five product managers (many of whom have made the switch themselves) to get their takes on what it really means to be a PM and the best ways to move into the field. Table of contents Do you really want to be a product manager? Immerse yourself in the product world Stop thinking about code, start thinking about the customer Let your internal network know you're interested in product management Pick up PM-related tasks in your current role Show off transferable product management skills (and fill any gaps) Do you really want to be a product manager? Before making any big moves, think about the motivations behind your career switch and if your goals, skills and personality match up with the realities of life as a product manager. Why do you want to change careers? Bruno Wasconcellos Roncolato, a product manager at Seen by Indeed, transitioned from software engineering to product management because he loved the technical side of his work, but also had a passion for the business side. He was fascinated by the psychological aspects of how you sell to people and why they use things. He also wanted to flex his strong communication skills more often. So for him, making the switch was about following his passions and natural talents. Matt Collins, who's now involved in product management for software products, previously worked as a software engineer in Paris for a number of years, but says, " started to feel I wanted more of a say in what we were creating rather than how we were creating it." Another software engineer turned product manager, Jacky Liang, says, "My true passions intersect design, engineering, strategy and people. The more I read about product management, the more I knew it was the right fit for the next step in my career." So before you make any career moves, assess why you want to be a product manager by asking yourself the following questions: Why are you drawn to product management? What don't you like about being a software engineer? Would you be happier as an engineering manager or director of engineering? (The typical career path for a SWE) Are you good at explaining, persuading, negotiating and mediating? Do you enjoy solving customer problems over writing code as an individual contributor? Envision yourself in the role Before making the switch, it's also important to think about some of the key differences between engineering and product management. As a PM, a big part of your job will be communicating across teams. You'll be responsible for more decisions, spend more time in meetings and focus on what to build rather than how to build a product. Instead of solving technical problems, you'll need to figure out what's going to be built next sprint, next release, next quarter, next year, etc. Another key difference is that product managers aren't told what to do. Instead, they figure out how to solve problems with very little direction. As Adam Ullrich, senior product manager at Indeed Hire, says "A lot of work on the tech side begins with a specific stated problem/prompt. But in reality, many of the environments we're exploring are uncertain—you only see a piece of the puzzle." Feeling accomplished can also be a much slower process. As a software engineer, you probably get a rush when you hit compile and your code works, or when you complete a sprint. But as a PM, a successful outcome can take several months or even years. According to Wasconcellos Roncolato, "As a product manager, you have zero authority, but you have to be a very strong influencer." So even though you'll have full responsibility for a product, you'll probably have no real power to change things. Can you imagine yourself succeeding in this type of position? Tip: To further envision yourself in the role, think about (a) what you admire about your current PM and (b) what you would improve upon. Join Seen for free to get matched to a role in product management Immerse yourself in the product world Decided this career path is for you? Start expanding your knowledge of product management. Wasconcellos Roncolato recommends learning some of the lingo by reading up on agile, scrum and kanban. From there, it depends on which branch of product management you're interested in: technical or marketing. If you're interested in product marketing management, read up on marketing psychology. If you want to stay more technical (a great option for those with a tech background), learn about the problem space from a business perspective. Beyond that, read books and blog posts to stay up to date on new products and technologies, product management, UX design and growth hacking. Collins highly recommends reading Inspired (2nd edition) by Marty Cagan, calling it "the best book about product management that I know of." Other blogs and books to check out include: Product Hunt Hacker News Mind the Product Product Coalition Cracking the PM Interview Don't just consume content, create it yourself: Build a personal brand outside of work by blogging about product management, writing product case studies or publishing your thoughts on the industry. Stop thinking about code, start thinking about the customer As a product manager, getting close to the customer is as important as being close with the teams you're working with. In fact, a study of product management job postings found that 49% said they were looking for PMs who can empathize with customers. "Product managers need to be able to develop a deep understanding of the target customers of their product and how the product can help them," says Collins. "This means assembling information from a wide range of sources, including observing and interviewing customers themselves…" What are you helping your customers accomplish? Why are they using your product and not a competitor's? Shifting from a code mindset to a customer mindset is important, but harder than you might think if you're coming from a tech background. "It's easy to get excited about the technical part of a problem instead of the product/value part," says Ullrich. "Avoid that at all costs and build the thing that'll get you learning the fastest—however ugly and suboptimal the code might seem. In an uncertain space, you'll throw most of the code away anyway." You need to learn to prioritize features based on the value they provide your customers or users, instead of engineering dependencies. Otherwise, having a tech background might actually work against you. Take it from Roman Pichler, web developer turned product management expert, "Don't interfere with the development team's autonomy by making technical decisions, which can be tempting for product owners with strong technical skills in my experience." So learn to think from the customer's point of view. How? Collins suggests you just start talking to your users. "If you do this already, do it more. Try to really, deeply understand how your software fits into their lives and, as a result, what small changes could have an outsized benefit for them." Spend actual face time with your users and customers by asking a PM or someone on the sales team if you can tag along on their next customer visit. Read or answer customer support tickets to build empathy. Building your own product on the side can also help you start thinking more about the customer (i.e., you'll perform customer research, prioritize requirements for an MVP, design and build it, show it to customers, ask for feedback). These side projects will "let you develop the skills you'll need as a product manager and be a great thing to talk about in interviews to show you're serious," says Collins. Let your internal network know you're interested in product management Try to make the switch at your current company if you can. You already know the product, the code behind it and how things get done at your company—and that's a big advantage. Look at it this way: If you're a software engineer at a small startup and your goal is to become a product manager at a FAANG company, don't quit your startup job and immediately start applying for PM roles at Facebook or Netflix. These roles are probably out of reach without direct PM experience. Instead, work to get a product manager role at your current company to build up your resume, and then apply for a PM role at your dream company. Get the ball rolling by talking to your manager during your next 1:1 about your career goals. Lots of companies will help you develop a formal plan to structure your career path into a product management role. Tell your co-workers, especially the product managers, that you're interested in making a career change. Set up informational interviews with PMs on your team to pick their brains about their typical week (you'll probably find there's no typical day) and find out what it's like to be a PM at your company. Pick up PM-related tasks in your current role If you don't have product management work experience on your resume, it can be hard for hiring managers to see you in the role. So find a way to work your product management muscles at work. After all, it's easier to switch to a product manager role if you can develop PM-like thinking. If the informational interviews with your team's PMs went well, ask if you can help them by taking on lower priority work they don't currently have the bandwidth for: Ask if they need help with a competitive analysis or research assignment. Get involved in a roadmap or feature prioritization discussion. Join in when they're interviewing users. Suggest the addition or removal of features. Sit in on product design meetings. Ullrich also suggests incorporating a product management mindset when working on your current software engineering projects. "Get clarity on what problem you're trying to solve for the user and be a partner in defining the solution approach, not just the code," he says. "Ask questions to help the team conceive of simpler alternatives that get out faster—e.g. does this need to be publicly accessible or can we get most of the benefit for a simpler subset of the population on the internal network?" Show off transferable product management skills (and fill any gaps) You might be surprised at how many of your tech skills are applicable to your new career. Here are some of the top skills a product manager needs to have (so you can identify gaps in your knowledge), as well as how you can make your engineering experience sound relevant to product management. The PM skills you need to master Software engineers have a great deal of hard skills, but shifting your attention to your soft skills is essential when making the switch to product management. These skills include empathy, strategic thinking, organization, prioritization, self-sufficiency and scrappiness. Communication is one of the most important. According to Wasconcellos Roncolato, "A good PM is a person who errs on the side of excessive communication, rather than lack of it." In fact, 71% of companies want PMs that can clearly write and articulate ideas. He also says that PMs must be open to criticism and accept that they'll fail and be wrong a lot. Beyond that, you have to be a trustworthy person, as people will only open up about the good, the bad, etc. if they trust you—and that's how you make better products. Repositioning your tech skills as product management skills One of the hardest parts about shifting careers is tailoring your resume to your new role and highlighting the right experiences in interviews. However, your tech skills give you a huge advantage. In fact, Wasconcellos Roncolato says that having a tech background actually got him into the field of product management. But how can you spin your resume to reflect PM skills (without years of PM experience)? According to Liang, "Whereas an engineer would list the languages and features [they've] implemented, a PM resume focuses on the leadership and impact they have had in an organization or project." In other words, focus on the soft skills. Here are some of the transferable skills you can take with you from software engineering to product management: The ability to communicate effectively with engineering teams: 95% of product manager job postings require PMs to work alongside software engineers, so lean on your strengths and embrace your ability to speak the same language as engineers. As Wasconcellos Roncolato puts it, "Your technical skills will help you translate whatever business requirements you have into a better conversation with engineers." Analytical skills: According to Collins, "As a software developer, you tend to get pretty good at analysis—investigating why a piece of software is behaving strangely, for example. These analytical skills lend themselves very well to product management where you often need to look at problems from a number of different angles, figuring out how to have the greatest impact to improve a product for your customers." Creativity, innovation and curiosity: Take it from Ullrich: "I think a big part of product management is maximizing the rate at which you can learn. I think tech skills are incredibly valuable because they enable you to conceive of different approaches that might get you learning faster." Planning and resource estimation: With an engineering background you can estimate times more accurately, make better tradeoffs and have a much better idea of the level of effort needed to implement an idea. "Having a tech background makes it possible to quickly estimate how complex or trivial an implementation could be," says Ullrich, "In the best case, you can redefine how to explore a new area in a way that sidesteps the complexity." Making the switch from software engineer to product manager Many software engineers are able to successfully transition into product management due to their transferable skills and extensive experience with tech teams. But you still have to put in the work to land a product manager role. Passion is the first step. As Collins says, "The more you believe in what you're working on, the more motivated you'll be to really understand your users and the problem you're solving for them, and the better the product you'll end up creating." The post How to become a product manager (when you're a software engineer) appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
How to source tech talent on Stack Overflow
There will likely always be a talent shortage in tech, especially since only 15.2% of developers were actively looking for a new job in 2019. But that doesn't mean happily employed tech professionals aren't willing to talk about new opportunities. In fact, almost three-fourths are. So where are the nearly 60% of developers who make up this passive candidate pool? With 50M+ unique visitors every month, Stack Overflow is the online coding community where people of all skill levels go to solve coding problems, learn new tech skills and collaborate with fellow techies. Unlike traditional sourcing on job boards, professional networking sites or even GitHub, uncovering (and wooing) the right candidates on Stack Overflow isn't always straightforward. However, with a few simple strategies, you can find the tech candidates that other employers are missing out on. Note: While there are a couple of paid options for sourcing tech talent on Stack Overflow, we'll be covering how to do it for free. Is Stack Overflow better than a resume? Resumes alone aren't always the best indicator of a person's experience and skills (particularly soft skills). A Stack Overflow profile, however, can give you a better idea of what a candidate can actually do, instead of what they want recruiters to see. This can help alleviate the burden of trying to spot exaggerations or false claims on a resume, which 40% of employers say is their biggest hiring challenge. As a popular Q&A site for developers to find, ask and answer programming questions (similar to Quora, but for tech-related questions only), Stack Overflow shows off a person's open source projects, favorite technologies, personal blog posts, peer-reviewed answers to complex programming questions, the communities they're involved in and much more. And since coders here aren't necessarily looking for a job, it's also a great place to source candidates who don't already have an inbox overflowing with recruiter messages. Hundreds of tech hirers tell us how they attract top talent: download the report now How to source tech candidates on Stack Overflow Unlike GitHub and other alternative sourcing channels, Stack Overflow's internal search is very limited. You can't search for candidates by location and even Boolean "X-ray" searches on Google don't return results like they did a few years ago. This is good news, though, since by using the techniques below, you'd be one of the few recruiters sourcing on the platform (or at least doing it effectively). Search by questions and answers Since location isn't a valid search parameter, this first method works best if you're sourcing remote workers, if your company offers relocation packages or if you're based in a popular tech hub. Start by going to https://stackoverflow.com/. In the search bar, type in the programming language(s) you want a candidate to know in brackets. These are known as "tags" and you can search by one, or as many as you'd like. For example, if you're looking for a candidate who knows SQL, Python and pandas, you'd type " [python] [pandas]" into the search bar. This returns questions that contain those tags (604 in total for this particular search), which you can whittle down by adding more detail to your search query. Adding "answers:4" to your search query, for instance, will return only the questions that have at least four answers, which narrows our results down to 18 questions. You can also add "score:3" for questions with a score of at least three. (Question scores are calculated based on the number of upvotes minus the number of downvotes.) Your search query should now look like this: "[sql] [python] [pandas] answers:4 score:3". This gets us down to a much more manageable eight results. You can then filter to see the questions with the most votes. If you're searching by just one tag, you can also click on "Top users" to see the top answerers and askers for that tag, both in the last 30 days and of all time. On the right-hand side, you'll also see related tags (i.e., people who know this skill might also know these skills), which you can use to expand your search. You've found some questions, so now it's time to find potential candidates. Click on a question and navigate to a user's profile—either the person who asked the question, or someone who answered it. We'll talk about what you should be looking for in a user's profile in the next section. Write a custom SQL query While Stack Overflow's search function can be tricky to customize, all of the site's data is available on the Stack Exchange Data Explorer, which offers a query tool for analyzing that data. But don't worry. You won't need to hire a SQL developer to try this method. Shane Gryzko, a UX designer with a background in software development, created a SQL query you can use to find candidates based on both location and skill. All you need to do is type in a location and any tag in the search menu and you'll get a list of the top users for that skill in the location where you're hiring. You can also create your own SQL query for Stack Overflow using a query generator. All you have to do is enter what you're looking for (e.g., location, skill, experience level) and it will create a SQL query for you. Then, copy/paste the query into Stack Exchange Data Explorer and run it to get a list of candidates that match your requirements—no actual coding required. What to look for on a Stack Overflow user's profile When you find a few prospective candidates you like, qualify them for your open role(s) by looking through their profile. You'll often find a short bio that describes what they do and what their job title is, their location, social media handles, etc., but here's what else you should be paying attention to in order to make sure a candidate is a match. Asked (and answered) questions Toggle to the Activity tab on a user's profile to find out what questions they're interacting with, including how many questions they've asked and answered. You can sort by number of votes to see their most popular questions and answers, or by date to see their most recent activity. This can give you an idea of the depth and breadth of their tech expertise. If they've only answered two questions, for instance, they may not be as experienced as someone who's answered 50. If they've been active for several years, they might be more experienced than someone who's only been answering questions for the past few months. Looking at a potential candidate's questions and answers can also give you insight into their communication skills and style, including how they explain complex concepts, address others and ask for advice. In the example answer below, you can tell right away that the person has a deep understanding of the subject matter just by the way it's written. The best part? You don't have to understand any of the tech concepts yourself. Not only that, but reviewing questions and answers can give you something to talk about in your initial outreach message. If you notice that a user has answered several questions about parsers, for instance, you could say something like: "I can tell from your Stack Overflow profile that you know what you're talking about when it comes to parser libraries and grammars. That's exactly what we're looking for in our Principal Software Engineer role that just opened up at Company ABC." Top tags Within the Activity tab, you can also see a user's top skills and technologies, which are reflected by the top tags in their profile. Click on each to see the questions they've asked and answered with those tags. To get an understanding of their level of expertise with each skill, look at the numbers to the left and right of each tag. The small number to the left is the number of votes the user has received for questions and answers with that tag. To the right is how many questions they've asked or answered with that tag. Badges Stack Overflow users can earn bronze, silver and gold badges for answering questions, asking questions and more. Here's a list of all the badges available on Stack Overflow, along with how many have been awarded to give you an idea of a badge's rarity. For example, the Great Question badge (a question score of 100 or more) has been awarded 36.2k times. Since stack Overflow has 11M+ registered users, it's a pretty rare badge. You can find a user's badges within the Activity tab under Badges. Reputation points Users can earn (or lose) reputation points when fellow coders upvote or downvote their questions, answers and edits. That means people with high reputation scores ask good questions and provide valuable answers, as reviewed by their peers. You can use reputation points to measure a candidate's knowledge, as well as how trusted they are within the tech community. For reference, reputations range from 1 to 25,000+ (one person on Stack Overflow has a reputation of over one million). An "established user" who's been participating on the site for a good amount of time has around 1,000 points. You might even see a label next to someone's name that indicates their reputation ranking (over the past year or all time)—i.e., "top x% this year" or "top x% overall." This can give you an idea of how they rank against others. Keep in mind that while users with five- or six-digit reputation scores typically have industry-leading expertise, their high visibility might also mean they're being inundated with recruiter messages on a daily basis. In contrast, those with reputation scores in the lower thousands will probably have less experience, but be more receptive to your outreach. Reaching out to Stack Overflow users Stack Overflow explicitly tells its users that they won't get "recruiter spam." So to avoid being flagged, contact potential candidates outside the Stack Overflow platform (e.g., Seen, LinkedIn, GitHub, email) and never leave job solicitations in the comments section of a question. Before reaching out, you might also notice that a lot of Stack Overflow users don't use their full name or choose to go by a screen name. All you have to do is look on the far right side of a user's profile to find their Twitter, GitHub and/or personal website, which you can cross-reference to find their full name and contact info Once you've found a way to contact them, it's time to craft an outreach message. Since no one wants to feel like they're part of an email blast that's been sent to hundreds of people, follow the basics of effective cold outreach. It could mean the difference between a candidate responding to your message, or ignoring it. Disclose the company you're recruiting for, make sure the role is relevant to the candidate's interests and write like a human. Be sure to personalize your message to immediately set a rapport with the candidate (e.g., "I saw your answer on Stack Overflow…"). You could also add links to members of the dev team's Stack Overflow profiles. A sourcing channel overflowing with tech talent Tech candidates are in such high demand that you can't rely solely on traditional sourcing methods to find the talent you need. The key? Source passive tech pros who aren't visiting job boards or actively applying for roles by meeting them where they are: Stack Overflow. The good news is that many tech candidates on Stack Overflow are highly receptive to recruiters for two main reasons: (1) Most haven't already been inundated with recruiter emails and (2) They'll appreciate more personalized outreach from you thanks to unique insights you gathered from their user profile. You can also find the candidates you're looking for with Seen, which provides a way to source both active and passive candidates by skills, experience, location and more. The post How to source tech talent on Stack Overflow appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
FAANG hiring managers share how to answer behavioral interview questions
Mike posted a topic in Human Resources
Today's post comes courtesy of Blind's new service—Rooftop Slushie—a career consultancy platform where employees at big tech companies provide interview, resume and offer evaluation advice. Like Blind, Rooftop Slushie is a move to increase transparency in the workplace. Verified professionals anonymously share information to help others make better decisions in their professional lives. Making a career change soon? Hold up—we've asked a handful of senior FAANG employees heavily involved with the hiring process to help you with your next behavioral interview round. Take a look at what they had to say (usernames have been used to protect anonymity, but you'll find the companies on the user's profile page). What's your weakness? "Please don't take the Michael Scott approach and turn this into a backhanded compliment ('My biggest weakness is that I care too much'). I'd highly recommend giving an honest answer, and one that is as specific as possible and not handwavy. This shows that you're self-aware and are able to independently identify areas for personal growth. Everyone has areas they need to work on and the interviewer knows this. Some potentially good answers: (1) I've been happy with my unit tests for regression coverage, but would like to invest more in systems-level integration testing to protect against things like service downtime and API version changes. (2) As a manager, I'm learning how to strike a balance between delegating enough, and not too much or too little. I want to stay hands-on, and trust in my own ability to deliver, but it's also important that I give my team technical opportunities. On the other hand, I don't want to delegate too much since I like to lead from the front." — Dios, Engineering Manager "You need to pick just one weakness, and when thinking about your answer, keep in mind these two overarching principles: (1) Your weakness is fixable and you need to let the manager know that you know how and are actively working on improvement. (2) Your weakness should hint about your strength. Weakness does not necessarily mean you are not good, it can be because you are so good at something at the expense of another, which is your weakness. Simple examples: productivity vs. quality; great team player vs. speaking up." — Max, Software Engineer Tell me about a project you worked on. "For all significant projects you've worked on, explicitly highlight what YOU contributed, and what you built, even if it was as part of a team. We want to understand YOUR contributions, and what value you delivered to the project. Have concrete metrics, understanding of the timelines involved, as well as trade-offs made. The best answers also reflect what you could have done differently to better improve the outcome of the project." — sHvN64, Senior Software Engineer and Tech Lead "Make sure you focus on what the challenges were, and how you overcome the challenges. The tricky part is to describe your project in such a way that is easy to follow and at the same time sounds complex enough. My personal experience is, many candidates' challenges were either hard to follow or did not sound challenging enough. Give enough context and avoid acronyms—the hiring manager may not be an expert in the area of your project! In the end, talk about what your takeaway is. What did you learn from the experience?" — Max, Software Engineer What do you do if you disagree with your boss? "Use data to win arguments. Can you tell a story about using product data to bring objective data to a subjective debate? Express empathy. Good answers will sound more like 'I think doing it this way is more in-line with our goals, and here's why', and less like 'I think you're wrong and that's a bad idea.' Highlight that debate and disagreement is healthy and improve teams. Of course there is a healthy debate and unhealthy debate. Make it really clear that you use disagreements as an opportunity to learn OR influence others, not to win arguments. Step back and understand everyone's point of view. Perhaps there's a good reason for the disagreement that you can learn from. Maybe there are other factors worth considering. This will help take some of the emotion out of the conversation and bring you back to a rational place." — Dios, Engineering Manager "This is a time to show how you are able to resolve conflicts at work and drive consensus with someone who is a power figure. To answer this question, you should first set the context on (1) what you disagreed with your manager's position, (2) how you didn't confront immediately and rather took a small pilot test to verify your hypothesis and (3) how you used data to convince them that your idea's worth exploring. For example, the manager says to focus on sales and acquisition of new customers when you want to woo existing customers as well. You notice an attrition of customers after the first few days, so you try an experiment to engage the existing customer base through product feature emails. You observe that these customers have a much higher retention and revenue in the long run. Ultimately, this allows you to convince your manager that the strategy should focus on both acquisition as well as engagement." — A, Product Leader Why do you want to come to our company? "The one thing that you need to show is how much you know about the company. A lot of times, managers ask this to gauge the interest of a candidate. If a candidate is highly interested in the company, the person should know a lot about what the company does and the latest news of the company. Make sure you read through the company's website, social media page and blogs. You can pick certain examples from what you read and expand around those examples." — Max, Software Engineer "Aim to have a specific and rehearsed answer. What about our company uniquely and specifically interests you? Are we using a cool piece of technology at scale? Building a product that you care about better than anybody else?" — Dios, Engineering Manager Why do you want to leave your company? "My strategy to answer this question is always very simple: stay positive and avoid the negative. I tell them that I do not want to leave my current company as I am enjoying my job a lot. Having said that, I am keen to learn more about the bigger scope, higher complexity and the interesting challenges in the role offered by the other company. I always mention my excitement after reading the job description, how it felt like a great next step in my career and how I am using the interview opportunity to better understand the details. Finally, even if there are other genuine reasons to make the switch (higher pay, better location, etc.), this is not the right time to mention them." — A, Product Leader The post FAANG hiring managers share how to answer behavioral interview questions appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
Get paid $15,000 to move? 9 places that'll pay you to live there
Would you trade the hustle and bustle of a big city (or the place you call home) for small-town living, a place without a big tech scene or even the arctic tundra…in exchange for up to $15,000, student loan forgiveness or free land? As tech workers flock to large metros like San Francisco and New York, quieter, more rural areas are facing slowing population growth or even decline. To reverse the trend, several places in the United States (and even remote Greek islands) are getting creative to entice workers, particularly tech pros, to move there and revitalize their economies. And instead of trying to woo big-name companies with millions in tax breaks, these places are offering individual workers thousands in incentives to either come and work for employers based in the area or bring their laptops and take up remote work. While these places may be smaller or more isolated than your typical tech hub, many have thriving, tight-knit tech communities—and bigger cities are often just a short drive away. So if you're looking to relocate (or are tired of battling traffic and spending the majority of your paycheck on rent), why not head to one of these nine places in the US that will pay you to move there? 1. Alaska Alaskans have been getting paid to live there since 1976—and it's not to cover the costs of thermals. The state's Permanent Fund Dividend divides 25% of the state's oil revenues each year among its permanent residents, even children. This amount averages around $1,200 per person each year, but has been as high as $2,072 in 2015. In 2018, each Alaskan received $1,606, which means a family of four received $6,424. Despite being the most sparsely populated state (and having winter temperatures in the -30°s and -40°s), Alaska's tech startup scene is warming up. Tech accelerator Launch Alaska, for instance, works alongside startups in the area to solve challenges surrounding food, water, transportation and energy. And in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, one entrepreneur bootstrapped her beauty startup in a log cabin, proving that remote work is possible here, especially if you love jaw-dropping views and plenty of open space. What's the catch? You must be a resident of Alaska for at least one year (and be present in the state for at least 190 days of that year) with no felony convictions. It's also important to take note of the cost of living, which is more expensive than many other states. Anchorage's COL, for instance, is 28% higher than the rest of the US. Join Seen for free to get matched with a remote tech role that lets you work anywhere 2. Hamilton, Ohio This Midwestern town is offering up to $10,000 ($300 per month for 30 months) to help young professionals pay down their student debts. Known as a "reverse scholarship," the city's Talent Attraction Program (TAP) Scholarship awards students after they've graduated, with the goal of turning the city's urban core into a more attractive place for young transplants to live and work—especially those still carrying student loan debt. Since it's less than a 45-minute drive from Cincinnati (ranked #4 for highest software architect salaries), Hamilton is close to all the amenities of a big city, but still retains its small-town charm with just 63,000 residents. Want to feel connected to a bigger tech community? Attend one of the many meetups, conferences or startup weekends in nearby Cincinnati or Dayton. What's the catch? It's only available to people who've graduated with a STEAM degree in the last seven years and who still have at least $5,000 in outstanding student debt. Plus, you can't already be living in Hamilton, and you must have a job lined up in Butler County (where Hamilton is located). 3. Harmony, Minnesota Looking to put down roots in a quiet town? Harmony, Minnesota offers cash rebates for people looking to build a brand new home (ranging from $5,000 to $12,000)—based on the home's final estimated market value. Dubbed the "biggest little town in Southeast Minnesota," Harmony isn't what typically comes to mind when you think of tech. In fact, the town of less than a thousand people is actually home to the largest Amish community in the state, a group not known for their modern tech adoption. Yet, Harmony is a great (and affordable) place to live especially if you're a remote tech worker. Minneapolis is only about 130 miles north if you crave the big city feel every once and awhile, and that means big tech events, like the Twin Cities Software Symposium, are only a few hours away. What's the catch? There are no restrictions or limits on an applicant's age, income level or residency, but you must agree to live in the home—i.e., you can't turn around and immediately rent out your new home or sell it. 4. Maine Through its Educational Opportunity Tax Credit program, Maine will help you pay off your student loans by deducting money from your income tax bill up to a certain amount, depending on your major and degree type. For those who graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2018, it's $377 per month. For instance, if you owe $2,500 in state income taxes but you paid $2,000 in student loans during the year, you'll owe Maine just $500. If you have a STEM degree, you'll also get a check in the mail if the amount you paid in student loans exceeds your state income tax liability. So if you owe $2,500 in state income taxes, but you paid $3,000 in student loans, you'll receive $500 from Maine. Looking to build a tech career here? Check out Portland, Maine, a quirky city just 100 miles north of Boston. With the highest concentration of life science companies in the state, it's the perfect place if you're interested in healthtech. The disruptive veterinarian app Covetrus, for example, was born here, as was the athletic training and fitness software company KinoTek, which uses motion capture and virtual reality to visualize the body's muscles and the movements they generate. What's the catch? It's not just lobster. You must be a graduate from any college in the US, starting with the class of 2016. In order to get the deduction, you also have to live and work in Maine for at least nine months of the year. 5. Marquette, Kansas Can't afford to buy a house in a big city? With a population of just 641, Marquette, Kansas is the perfect place to move if you're truly looking for small-town living or want to trade apartment living for your dream home—without breaking the bank. It's offering free lots of land (ranging from 11,000 to 25,000 square feet) to people who move there and build a house. A place where parents feel comfortable letting their kids play outside and walk to school, Marquette's peaceful, quiet community and low cost of living make it a great place to raise a family. But just because it's a tiny town doesn't mean you can't grow your tech career. While relocating to a town like Marquette is ideal for someone who works remotely, there are also opportunities in the nearby larger towns of Salina or McPherson, and Marquette is just an hour outside Wichita—the largest city in Kansas. What's the catch? To qualify, you must agree to begin construction on your home within 120 days and finish building it within one year. You also have to commit to living in your new home for at least a year. 6. Newton, Iowa When you build a new home in Newton, Iowa, you'll get $10,000 cash to spend on whatever you want, plus a "welcome" package worth over $3,000, which includes gift certificates from local businesses. A family-friendly community of 15,000, Newton boasts a cost of living that's 21.9% lower than the US average and is home to an active arts community, with an annual sculpture festival and over 90 displays of public art dotted throughout the community. Like some of the other small cities on our list, Newton is probably best for remote workers, but is well within commutable distance (30 miles) to Des Moines, the most populous city in the state and a leader in both agricultural technology and insurtech. What's the catch? This incentive only applies to new single-family homes worth $160,000 or more. 7. St. Clair County, Michigan St. Clair County, Michican is offering up to $15,000 (paid out on a quarterly basis) to help college grads with STEAM degrees pay off student debt through the county's Come Home Award. Part of the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI metro area, St. Clair County lies in the Thumb of eastern Michigan. The area is a great place for young entrepreneurs and tech pros due to its easy access to both city and country lifestyles. Plus, The Underground, a thriving incubator in downtown Port Huron, offers co-working spaces, seed money to fund startups and events, and workshops, which has made launching new businesses here a breeze. What's the catch? You must be a college graduate with a STEAM degree (earned in the last 10 years) and have student debt. You can't already be living in St. Clair County or be in the process of moving there, and you also must agree to live and work in the area and secure a job or create your own business within 120 days of receiving the award. 8. Tulsa, Oklahoma Already work remotely? Head to Tulsa. The city is offering remote workers $10,000 cash, a free desk at a co-working space in downtown Tulsa and networking opportunities through its Tulsa Remote program. You'll get a chunk of the cash upfront to pay for relocation costs, a monthly stipend and the rest when you finish your first year there. The city wants to attract tech professionals who can build up the area's tech and data science sectors in particular. We hope that this sparks more tech talent and gets entrepreneurial people to make Tulsa their home and pursue their career or ultimately start a new business," says Ken Levit, executive director of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, which funds the program. What's the catch? You must be over 18, eligible to work and live in the US and be able to relocate to Tulsa within six months. Plus, you must already be doing full-time remote work for a company based outside Tulsa County, or be self-employed. 9. Vermont When you think of Vermont, you probably think of colorful fall foliage, Ben & Jerry's or maple syrup. But it's also a great place for remote work (or finding a new full-time job). That's because Vermont pays remote workers $10,000 ($5,000 per year for up to two years) to cover their remote working expenses (e.g., relocation costs, computer, internet, membership in a co-working space). However, in 2020, the program will expand beyond remote workers to people who move to Vermont and work for employers based in-state. Also launching in 2020 is Hula, a 150,000-square-foot campus that will soon be home to offices with Apple and Facebook vibes. More than 25 businesses have already expressed interest in setting up shop here, including OVR Technology, a South Burlington company that adds scents to virtual reality. And if new, state-of-the-art office space doesn't convince you that Vermont's tech ecosystem is growing, check out the Vermont Tech Jam, an annual job fair and tech expo that showcases the state's most innovative tech companies. What's the catch? You must be a full-time remote employee who's incurred qualifying remote worker expenses. Or, you must move to Vermont on or after January 1, 2020 and work full-time for an employer located in Vermont. Is getting paid to move really worth it? Whether you're a new grad, buying your first house or looking to boost your savings, any of these nine locations could soon be your new home. But before making any big moves, consider how salaries in these areas compare with salaries in your current city based on cost of living. It's also important to weigh relocation costs against the city's or state's incentive. If the cost to relocate is higher than what they're offering, it may not be worth it. And while tech jobs might be harder to find in a sleepy town where demand for tech workers is a lot lower, remote work is a viable option, big cities are often just a short commute away and there are tons of Slack communities you can join if you want to talk tech. You never know, you might be surprised by how much you enjoy living and working in a place you'd never considered before. The post Get paid $15,000 to move? 9 places that'll pay you to live there appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
How to beat the catch-22 of "entry-level" software engineer roles
It's the ultimate catch-22 of job hunting at the start of your tech career: employers are hiring for entry-level positions and looking for five years of experience. So when you're truly an entry-level software engineer, you're left wondering how you're going to get experience if no one will hire you. How can you prevent your lack of professional experience from overshadowing what you can actually do? You're bound to run into entry-level job postings that require a couple (or more) years of professional experience. On the other hand, many companies understand you have to start your software engineering career somewhere. Because of this: (1) job posting requirements can actually have more flex than you might expect, and (2) hiring managers can prioritize other qualifications in lieu of experience. Our advice to you? Don't lose hope. (And keep reading.) We're uncovering some of the mystery behind what hiring managers are actually looking for in entry-level software engineer candidates based on Seen and Indeed data, plus giving you actionable steps to further develop and sell the skills you do have. Entry-level software engineer roles explained What's "entry level" to one company can mean something entirely different to another. Below, find out how to determine which roles you qualify for—and which ones you should apply for anyway—along with what else employers want besides experience based on our survey of more than 600 technical recruiters, sourcers and hiring managers. Decoding "entry level" (and why you should apply anyway) Why do entry-level software engineer job postings want candidates with several years of experience or a long list of skills? It could be one (or a combination) of several possible reasons: The "requirements" are a wishlist. Job posting requirements aren't always hard requirements. This means that a candidate with the listed experience might appear more desirable off the bat, but any application that doesn't match up 100% isn't an automatic no. The takeaway? Don't be too quick to disqualify yourself. If you're confident you can perform the basic functions of the role and will be a strong asset to the team, apply. The company subs education for years of experience. Some companies consider years spent in school as years of experience. Five years of experience, for instance, might actually mean one year of experience plus a bachelor's degree. It's aftermath from the recession. The Great Recession (2007-2009) caused unemployment rates to skyrocket with one in five employees losing their jobs. During that time, workers had no other alternative than to accept lower-level jobs. This meant that companies could hire more experienced talent for less money, upping their requirements because they could get away with it. The labor market slowly recovered (particularly in tech, where it's now a candidate's-market), but the trend stuck. Join Seen for free to get matched to an entry-level software engineer role that'll make you love Mondays Aside from experience, most employers favor adaptability Years of relevant experience is a big decision driver when employers are faced with choosing between similarly qualified candidates. Based on our survey, 47% of small companies, 41% of medium companies and 45% of enterprise companies would agree, though startup companies don't prioritize years of experience quite as much (34%). So if you're one of two candidates with less experience than the other, you won't always come out on top. But you can if you sell your other highly desirable qualities. What do companies value the most? 70% of recruiters and hiring managers report that adaptability is the most important quality in tech candidates outside of the job description. Other qualities high up on the list include upskilling and the desire to continually learn, and more than half of employers want candidates with a workstyle that aligns with company culture. It's also worth noting that micro (1-19 employees) and startup (20-99 employees) companies are more likely to go for candidates that "express ownership, fit within the company culture, are flexible, have worked in various tech areas and meet the company's salary requirements." Want to know more about what drives tech hiring decisions? See the full report here. Develop your skills, show off your passion While you don't have control over the caliber of candidates that apply for the same role as you, there are plenty of ways to impress recruiters and hiring managers as an entry-level software engineer (even while you're still in college): Code on the side. Coding practice sites allow you to get in that extra coding practice to strengthen your skills and help you prepare for interviews. Win-win. Check out our list of 10 free coding practice websites to find out which ones are right for you. Build a portfolio of personal coding projects. The time and energy you dedicate to side projects is one of the best things you can do as an entry-level software engineer. From an employer's perspective, side projects signal that you're passionate, innovative and proactive in your quest to develop your skills and stay current with the latest technologies. Brand yourself. Demand for qualified software engineers outweighs supply, so tech recruiters are getting creative with sourcing by looking for candidates outside the usual spots like job boards. Develop a personal brand to increase your online visibility and showcase your personal coding projects as well as highlight your value and what makes you unique. Here's how to do it. Earn certifications. Certifications aren't only for seasoned tech pros (when earning them can boost your salary by the thousands), but for any stage of your career. Just know that while being certified might give you an edge over your competition, having one isn't always a replacement for education and skills. Connect with other tech pros. Networking turns into new opportunities that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. And when you make those connections, you have a new way to learn from others, get advice and gain mentorships. There's also a real possibility of landing on someone's radar who might recommend you for a role you want in the future. Slack communities, meetups, conferences and informational interviews are good places to start. Show off your soft skills. Employers on Seen are actively searching for candidates using soft skill keywords—hard proof that soft skills do matter. Our list of the top five most-desirable soft skills include communication, problem-solving and teamwork. The right way to build your entry-level software engineering resume You have the education, you code in your spare time, you registered a domain name to spotlight your personal brand. Now's the real test when it comes to applying for jobs: communicating your qualifications within your resume to get it past the ATS bots and into the hands of a human (then get you on the phone with a recruiter). Be honest. At a glance, sourcers may not know that your 10 years of C++ experience actually began in your childhood years experimenting with it on a pretty low level. But once you enter conversations with hiring managers and other software engineers (and they want you to crank out a line of code on the spot), gaps between what your resume says and what you can actually do will become clear. Instead, be honest about your level of expertise and express a genuine passion for learning. Format resume sections in the right order. Resume sections (e.g., education, skills) should be ordered in a way that brings attention to your qualifications and what you've achieved so far. If you graduated less than a year ago, put your education at the top, just after your contact information. Otherwise, move it to the bottom. Your skills section should also be close to the top. Next comes your professional experience and projects sections—the section that's most relevant to the job goes first. For instance, say you were employed by your university to provide admin support for the engineering department, but you also independently developed a web app in your spare time. If building a web app is more closely related to the role you're applying for, list it first. Get more information by checking out our resume guide and template for breaking into tech. Stay on top of trending skills. This will help you know which ones to put front and center. Here are the top tech skills employers want going into 2020. Using the job description as your guide, list in-demand skills relevant to the role near the top of your skills list. Always include projects. Especially if you're short on relevant professional experience. Along with creating a projects section in your resume, link out to your GitHub, portfolio or website in your contact information. Showing off your side projects is tangible proof to recruiters and hiring managers that you can do what you say you can. Don't skip out on your next big break Whether a software engineer role is labeled entry-level, junior or associate, you'll run into job postings that want more than you think you can offer. But instead of feeling stuck in limbo, adopt a proactive mindset and use this time to build up your portfolio with projects, hone your skills and practice answering common interview questions. Remember, don't pass over what could be a good opportunity because you're shy a requirement or two. Any time you come across a role that excites you (and you feel you have the skills to realistically take it on), go for it. The post How to beat the catch-22 of "entry-level" software engineer roles appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
A snapshot of UK tech jobs in 2020
The UK has thousands of years of rich history, from Stonehenge and Shakespeare to ancient castles and the Roman Baths. But it doesn't quite boast the decades-long history of tech giants and startups that mark more mature tech hubs, like the Bay Area in the United States. While the UK technology sector may lag behind the US, it's a different story compared to Europe, where London is widely regarded as the capital of tech based on density of startups, talent and investors (beating both Berlin and Paris). The UK's diverse industries—ranging from finance to fashion to food—are shaking up the tech world, creating even more tech jobs and contributing to a rapid growth in the country's developer talent pool, which is up nearly 20K since 2018 at 849,600 according to a report by Atomico. The UK tech sector even attracted more global investments in the first eight months of 2019 than it did during the whole of 2018. But despite all this, both British and foreign job seekers are actually losing interest in UK tech jobs in favor of ones in mainland Europe. To unravel why, we looked at Atomico's State of European Tech Report 2019 and new data from Indeed.com. Read on to discover who's searching (and not searching) for tech jobs in Britain, and how the country's tech talent pool is changing in response to economic and political factors. Searches for UK tech jobs fall behind the rest of Europe Searches for tech jobs in the UK accounted for 3% less of the total share of job searches (for both tech and non-tech jobs) from 2017 to 2019—the only European country to register a decrease in the share of tech job searches of the 11 countries Indeed studied. This decline is especially striking when you compare it with tech talents' interest in jobs in the rest of Europe. Over the same two-year period, for example, searches for tech jobs in Belgium increased by 76%, 45% in Portugal and 42% in Sweden. When combined with the major tech worker shortage in high-level roles and the prospect of being cut off from Europe's talent pool due to Brexit, this decrease in searches could make it even harder for British companies to source tech workers. However, it could mean less competition for job seekers looking to break into the UK tech scene. Americans losing interest in British tech jobs When we dive a little deeper into what's causing this dip in the share of UK tech job searches, the data reveals a reduced level of interest in Americans looking for tech roles across the pond over the past three years. In fact, the share of searches on Indeed's UK site from the US decreased by 3.5%, from 17.1% in 2017 to 13.6% in 2019. In contrast, the number of American workers searching for tech jobs in the rest of Europe (i.e., excluding the UK) actually rose a bit from 8.6% to 9.4% since 2017. This drop is likely due to uncertainty around the impact on immigration following the UK's decision to leave the European Union. According to Bill Richards, UK managing director at Indeed: "The slowdown in interest for UK tech jobs and the gains being made across Europe coincided with Brexit, suggesting the uncertainty about post-Brexit Britain could be eating into tech workers' desire to work in the UK." Another possible reason for American tech workers' disinterest in British jobs is that the UK has much lower tech salaries than the US. San Francisco tech workers, for instance, earn almost double compared to their UK counterparts—even when adjusted for COL. And since salary is often a huge motivator (and overseas relocation costs can add up quickly), many American are content to stay in the US, especially as equal wages on both sides of the Atlantic doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon. Despite US-based workers' losing interest in British tech jobs, the UK remains the most popular EU country for Americans taking their talents to Europe—even in the context of political uncertainty caused by Brexit. Overseas talent from Asia gaining interest in UK tech jobs Even though American interest in UK tech jobs is cooling, interest from tech pros in other parts of the world has remained strong. In fact, the UK appears to be attracting more overseas talent, with one in 10 clicks on UK tech jobs originating from abroad. Clicks from countries outside Europe make up 6% of total clicks on those jobs, which is a slight increase since 2015. A large portion of these clicks have come from India, home to a large pool of tech workers. In fact, more than a fifth (20.9%) of all searches for British jobs made by India-based job seekers were for tech jobs. India, along with the US, is among the countries with the highest number of visa applications for the UK's technology sector. And with the debate over immigration in the US (and crackdowns on the H1B visa), the number of clicks from Indian nationals on US tech jobs was down 8% from 2018 to 2019, which shows that as interest in US tech jobs is decreasing, tech job seekers in India are increasingly turning to the UK for jobs. This interest from India also comes on the back of a new UK-India Tech Alliance, signed in 2018, to keep immigration policies frictionless between the two countries, boost tech collaboration and promote the growth of tech skills in the fields of AI, machine learning, big data and cyber security. Despite more searches for tech jobs in Europe, the UK wins in tech diversity Progress with gender diversity has stalled across the broader European tech industry, despite public attention surrounding the issue and interventions from companies and the government to help move the dial. In fact, diversity in tech continues to be a major issue (and may actually be decreasing). According to Atomico's report, 92% of funding went to all-male executive teams in 2019 vs 89% in 2015. However, the UK tech sector has the most diversity out of all the European countries Atomico studied—at least when it comes to tech founders. Its survey of more than 1,200 tech founders from across Europe found that 21% self-identify as female, with the UK and Ireland having the highest gender diversity. Britain also has the highest number of immigrant tech founders (43%). And while the overwhelming majority (84%) of founders in Europe self-identify as White/Caucasian, ethnic diversity is highest in the UK, with 20% of founder respondents self-identifying with a minority ethnic group. While it has a more diverse tech scene than other European countries, Britain's tech sector is still in the middle of a diversity dilemma when it comes to gender and ethnicity, without much change over the years. And with Brexit raising question marks about the free movement of people within the EU, only time will tell if workplace diversity grows, remains stagnant or gets worse. The UK's changing tech talent pool While some tech workers seem to be falling out of love with the UK tech scene, particularly Americans, and diversity is still a problem, it's not all as bleak as it might appear. Plenty are still excited to bring their talents to the area, even with impending Brexit. From London to Manchester to Bristol and beyond, British tech innovation (and venture capital funding) reaches every corner of the UK. And the country has now created the third-most tech unicorns, behind the US and China, which is impressive given that they're both about 40 times bigger than the UK in terms of land mass. "Overall searches for UK tech jobs may have dipped," says Richards, "but there is still much to shout about the sector. Britain remains a hotbed for tech innovation, with global investment still pouring in, and the country remains a world leader for creating tech unicorns and attracting a high-skilled global workforce." The post A snapshot of UK tech jobs in 2020 appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
Paying off student loans? 14 companies that offer debt relief
Mike posted a topic in Graduates
Graduation is absolutely a reason to celebrate, but you know it's coming: the day you hand over your fresh earnings to start paying off student loans. But you don't have to stay in school just to prolong the inevitable wave of student loan bills. Whether you're taking steps to land that first job pre-grad or recently flipped the tassel, there's a new way to pay down student loan debt faster. Companies are tacking on an additional (and rather enticing) perk to employee benefits packages: student loan repayment programs. And as the trend continues to catch on, the number of companies that help you pay off this debt is only going to increase. Start (or continue) the search for your first job post-grad right here. We've rounded up 14 companies across all industries hiring for tech talent that will give you money to put towards student loans—and get you closer to the light at the end of the tunnel much sooner. Abbott Laboratories Abbott Laboratories is a global healthcare leader using new technologies to help people live healthier, longer. At Abbott, you'll get the chance to build products that better manage diseases, make accurate diagnosis, solve chronic pain and more, or find yourself fine-tuning its recently launched web-based STARLIMS software system. Abbott Laboratories' student loan benefit goes by the name Freedom 2 Save and is tied to the 401(k) program. As long as you're putting 2% of your paycheck to shave down student loan debt, Abbott will contribute 5% of your pay to a 401(k) account—all without you having to put a cent into your retirement account. Open tech roles at Abbott Laboratories. Locations Headquartered in Chicago, IL, with offices in Alameda, CA, Dallas, TX, Austin, TX, and Minneapolis, MN. Aetna As a healthcare insurance and benefits company, Aetna gives people the tools they need to better manage their health and wellness. Working at Aetna, you'll focus on solutions like hybrid cloud infrastructure, AI, machine learning and mobile technology to support the company's mission to "promote wellness, health and access to high-quality healthcare for everyone." Aetna's student loan repayment program matches student loan payments up to $2,000 per year with a lifetime max of up to $10,000. To receive this benefit, you must have earned a US-based degree within three years of applying. Open tech roles at Aetna. Locations Headquartered in Hartford, CT with offices in New York, NY, Boston, MA and more. Carvana Carvana is changing the car buying experience altogether: no open car lots, haggle-free experiences and peace of mind with a 7-day money back guarantee. Join Carvana and be part of revolutionizing the car industry by working on source code web services and apps or replacing legacy systems with next-gen enterprise apps. Caravana announced in 2018 that it'll contribute up to $1,000 each year to pay down your student debt. Open tech roles at Carvana. Locations Headquartered in Tempe, AZ with offices in San Francisco, CA and more. Chegg Chegg is a student-first, interconnected learning platform that provides an array of educational tools, from textbook rentals (digital and physical) to on-demand 24/7 tutor access and step-by-step expert instruction through their Chegg Study product. If you thrive in an agile environment and want to shape the lives of students across the globe, Chegg might be just what you're looking for—and the perfect place to hone your tech chops as you build and optimize customer-facing web apps. Chegg helps pay off student loans with its Equity for Education program. Employees with roles considered to be entry-level through manager-level who have been employed at Chegg for at least two years will receive up to $5,000 each year. For those employed at the director or vice president level, Chegg offers up to $3,000 annually. Payment is for all education debt and is not dependent on having received a degree, continuing until all loans are paid off. Open tech roles at Chegg. Locations Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA with offices in New York, NY and more. CommonBond CommonBond offers loans to new students and refinances loans for graduates, giving students a better way to pay for higher education. And with its business program, CommonBond puts together customized solutions and products to help other companies turn student debt relief into a company benefit. Being in the student loan business, CommonBond knows first-hand how much of a crowd-pleaser student loan repayment programs can be—which is why it gives employees up to $1,200 to help pay down student loan debt. And no lifetime maximum means that as long as you're employed with CommonBond and have loans, you'll receive assistance. Open tech roles at CommonBond. Locations Headquartered in New York, NY. Estée Lauder With a number of prestige brands that fall under its umbrella, including Origins, Clinique and MAC, The Estée Lauder Companies has become a mega leader in the beauty industry. The company recently consolidated moved its IT group to a two-campus model across Melville and Long Island City, and is putting an even greater emphasis on using technology like AI, data analytics and 3D printing to drive growth and engagement. For eligible Estée Lauder Companies employees, the company will contribute you'll receive $100 per month to put towards student loan debt, which caps out at $10,000 total. Open tech roles at Estée Lauder. Locations Headquartered in New York, NY with offices in Long Island, NY and more. Fidelity Investments Fidelity Investments guides people and businesses towards financial success by providing investing tools as well as customized insights and guidance from industry experts. The company puts tech high up on the priority list, spending about $2.5 billion a year on tech and experimenting with blockchain, AI and virtual reality. Fidelity's Step Ahead Student Loan Assistance program gives eligible employees up to $2,000 per year for a maximum of $10,000. This benefit also gets you access to online tools that'll help you better manage your student loan debt. Open tech roles at Fidelity Investments. Locations Headquartered in Boston, MA with offices in Merrimack, NH, Durham, NC and more. Hulu One of the most popular streaming services today with a growing lineup of original content, Hulu lets you watch thousands of your favorite shows and movies all in one place. From running its ad platform (one of the largest on the web) to implementing algorithms used across Hulu systems, become a "Hulugan" and embrace innovation and unconventional thinking. If you carry student loan debt, Hulu offers $1,200 annually to help pay it down. Open tech roles at Hulu. Locations Headquartered in Santa Monica, CA with offices in Seattle, WA and more. Live Nation Live Nation is a live entertainment company that's brought over 30,000 shows to life (and sells 500 millions tickets in one year alone) to get artists on stage for the world to see. As a Live Nation employee, your work gives you the opportunity to impact millions, like by perfecting its software to turn ticket-buying experiences from hassle to painless (and keep fans coming back for more). If you've been on board for at least six months, Live Nation will match your monthly contribution to student loan debt of up to $100 monthly, up to $6,000. Open tech roles at Live Nation. Locations Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA with offices in Scottsdale, AZ and more. Nvidia Nvidia's invention of the GPU sparked the growth of the gaming market and completely redefined modern computer graphics. Today, Nvidia is changing how companies across industries operate with any of its many products, like it's AI- and deep learning-powered self-driving cars, or NVIDIA Volta, an accelerated computing platform that enables data centers to accelerate workloads. Whether a full- or part-time employee, Nvidia offers to repay student loans if you've graduated within the past three years. You can receive up to $6,000 each year, for a maximum of $30,000. Open tech roles at Nvidia. Locations Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA with offices in Austin, TX and more. Peloton Peloton's at-home fitness solutions merge high-design with modern tech to empower people to meet fitness goals from the convenience of their own home. And when you join the Peloton team, you'll have the opportunity to create and support these products that inspire others, whether building out its web and ecommerce apps or maintaining the CI/CD automation infrastructure. Peloton announced in 2017 that it will contribute $100 each month to help you whittle down student loan debt. Open tech roles at Peloton. Locations Headquartered in New York, NY. PwC PwC delivers assurance, tax and consulting services, providing tech expertise across enterprise architecture, IT infrastructure, business applications and beyond. And because PwC knows that modern tech drives transformative change for business, you'll help companies incorporate tech-driven strategies into their day-day-day, like automation, machine learning and data analytics. PwC's student loan repayment program provides $1,200 a year towards payments, up to $10,000. Open tech roles at PwC. Locations Headquartered in London with offices in New York, NY and more. SoFi SoFi offers student loan refinancing, mortgages and personal loans to drive people towards financial independence. Join SoFi in its newest office in the heart of Seattle's tech sector (or one of its nine other locations) for the opportunity to work on any number of its products, from SoFi Invest, a platform that offers automated investing in stocks, to SoFi Money®, a cash management account that earns you money. SoFi's student loan assistance helps pay down debt by offering you $200 each month (no yearly cap). Open tech roles at Sofi. Locations Headquartered in San Francisco, CA with offices in Seattle, WA and more. Unum Unum is an insurance company that gives millions affordable access to benefits through the workplace. With a strong focus on customer experiences, Unum combines a forward-thinking mindset with technology, in turn receiving the 2018 Xplor Application of the Year Award for its "innovative approach in consolidating data centers, automating over 2000 applications and creating a process for ensuring efficiency and document integrity." At Unum, you're able to trade unused paid time off for student loan payments. As a new employee of Unum, you'll receive 28 days of PTO in that first year with the option to carry over five days of unused paid time for debt relief. Open tech roles at Unum. Locations Headquartered in Chattanooga, TN with offices in Columbia, SC and more. Land a new gig, get relief from student loan debt There's about $1.52 trillion in student loan debt in the US, leading new grads (and those who've been in the workforce for a few years already) to question the future of their finances. But just because you're swamped with student loan bills now doesn't mean it'll be like this forever. One of the best ways to pay off student loans is with a company's student loan repayment program. Find an employer with this kind of benefit to not only get that nagging debt off your shoulders, but to reach your financial goals sooner than you thought possible. The post Paying off student loans? 14 companies that offer debt relief appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
Mike started following Complete Guide to Tech Interviewing and What a good resume should look like December 16, 2019
What a good resume should look like
Mike posted a topic in Resumes
In doing some of my research, and preparing for a Google interview, I came across this post by Gayle McDowell. She started careercup.com and has some excellent tips on how to make a resume shine. https://careercup.com/resume
Complete Guide to Tech Interviewing
Mike posted a topic in Tips & Tricks
Just got this from Indeed. It's a good read. https://go.beseen.com/tech-interviewing-complete-guide/ ----------- Hi Michael, It doesn't matter if you're a new grad, self-taught coder or seasoned pro, the tech interview process can break anyone into a sweat. That's why we created the ultimate tech interview guide. It's jam-packed with insights and real examples to help you go from applicant to top candidate: The phone screen: What interviewers look for (and what you should look for). The interviews: How to answer common questions and make sure the role is right for you. The tech challenges: From take-home coding assignments to whiteboarding, what to study, how to approach (and solve) problems and what to do if you get stuck. The waiting: Wash away post-interview jitters with actionable steps. Do you actually need to send that follow up email? Don't wait—prep for your next interview now. Read the guide to ace every stage of your tech interview and land the job that'll take you further. Enjoy! The Seen Team
[Report] Taking the pulse of tech hiring in 2019
Mike posted a topic in Recruiters
There's no way to sugarcoat it: Tech hiring is hard, whether you're new to tech recruiting or a tech hiring superstar. In fact, employers use an average of five different resources to fuel their tech talent search. And even though there's been a heavier emphasis on more (and faster) tech skills training in recent years, top-notch tech candidates can still be elusive, with recruiters commonly referring to them as "purple squirrels." So to figure out how companies piece everything together to make great hires (and help you supercharge your tech hiring along the way), we surveyed hundreds of technical recruiters, sourcers and hiring managers on the hunt for this rare talent. In our new report, Solving the tech talent puzzle: How companies (of all sizes) make great hires, we take a snapshot of what tech hiring looks like in 2019, revealing the major differences (and overlaps) when it comes to hiring tech talent at micro-companies with a handful of employees all the way to enterprise companies with 500+. Download the report now to get insights to boost your tech hiring strategies in 2020 and beyond Using this survey data, in combination with Indeed's treasure trove of tech job posting data, we'll uncover intriguing insights about tech hiring in a time when the tech skills gap is starting to close, including: The core tech roles that all companies are hiring for—regardless of size 11 candidate qualities tech employers find most impressive (outside the job description) The 15 biggest hurdles companies face when it comes to tech hiring (and how to overcome them) How employers choose between two awesome tech candidates Which companies struggle the most to hire the right tech talent (and why) Click here to get the report and learn more about how companies are sourcing, attracting and hiring tech talent in an age where nearly every company is a "tech company." The post [Report] Taking the pulse of tech hiring in 2019 appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
The one question to get more out of employee referrals
Great people tend to know other great people. When you're set up on a date by a friend you trust, you know your date is likely to be a match (and a real person) because they've been pre-screened. With online dating, though, you only know what your date has chosen to share on their profile, and it's not always accurate. Same goes for employee referrals. If a current employee is willing to stake their reputation on someone they think is a match for your open role, that candidate is more likely to be qualified. After all, top performers like to work with others who have similar qualities. Along with a faster time-to-hire and higher ROI, referred candidates are also less likely to ghost you (and less likely to leave once they're hired). So to find out how to get more mileage out of your employee referral program, Seen by Indeed recently sat down with Ted Prendergast, manager of technology recruiting at Red Ventures, for a webinar. One of Prendergast's goals for 2019 was to increase referral hires in tech by 100%, which he ended up reaching six months ahead of time. How did Red Ventures do it? Below, we're breaking down five simple strategies that'll help you get more out of your employee referrals (and the single most important question you should be asking) so you can replicate Red Ventures's success and start leveraging your current employees' networks to build high-performing tech teams. 1. The one question you should be asking tech employees Don't wait for referrals to just happen. Sit down with engineers, product managers and other tech employees and instead of asking "Do you know anyone who's looking for a job?" ask "Who would you work with again?" This is the one question Red Ventures asks current employees who've been with the company for between three and 12 months, as they're likely to have the most referrals. But you could even ask this question as part of the onboarding process for new hires to see if there's anyone from their previous company that they'd love to bring with them to their new team. This question is great for generating warm leads (which Red Ventures says leads to 43% higher response rates over cold leads), since you can then approach prospects by saying "[Employee Name] who you worked with in the past is here at [Company Name] and thought you might be a great match for us." To boost candidate response rates even further, encourage current employees to handle the initial outreach themselves. Candidates on Seen have an 80% response rate, on average. Meet them today. 2. How to turn a like into a referral Referrals don't just have to be friends, family or former coworkers. In fact, they can be distantly connected (the fourth cousins twice removed of an employee's professional network) or even complete strangers. In fact, Red Ventures has seen a lot of success by using an unconventional strategy to turn strangers into referrals. When an employee publishes original content on Medium, LinkedIn or Twitter, Red Ventures combs through the likes, claps and comments to identify any promising candidates. The employee who wrote the article then sends each prospect a quick message asking if they'd be interested in working at the company. The idea is if someone is interested in a certain tech topic, they might also be interested in (and qualified for) a similar role. This method works because employees enjoy building their network with people who enjoy their content and "likers" are often willing to chat about opportunities. Red Ventures reports a response rate of nearly 100% using this technique. 3. Unlocking your employees' online networks Tap into your employees' networks to source qualified, connected referrals. If you're trying to fill a cloud engineer role, for example, look up your company's current cloud engineers (or employees in related roles) and search through their LinkedIn connections to find professionals who match your open role. Since nearly 40% of tech hirers say getting misleading, inaccurate or dishonest information from candidates is their primary hiring challenge, ask employees about potential candidates' skills before you even send your first message. Would they recommend them for the role? Do they know them in real life? Are the experiences on their profile legit? If they seem like a good match from both your perspective and the employee's, encourage the employee to reach out and initiate the conversation, as candidates are often much more likely to consider a job opportunity brought to them by someone they're connected with. Identify prospects that aren't in job-search mode: Taking this more proactive approach to employee referrals can also help you reach a largely untapped pool of passive candidates (62% of developers fall into the "passive candidate" bucket) since most employees only refer candidates who they know are actively looking for a new job. 4. Share your open jobs (and make them shareable) When employees only kind of know what roles are open, the results can be underwhelming. And employees shouldn't be expected to constantly check your company's intranet to see which jobs are open within the company or outside of their team. So to get better referrals (and keep referring top of mind), communicate your hiring needs. Send out an internal email on a weekly or monthly basis—or include a section in the company newsletter—that spotlights your top open jobs and what you're looking for in a referral. Include pre-written social copy or any other recruiting materials (e.g., company tour videos, photos of the office) that they can share with their network of followers on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The easier you make it for your best and brightest to refer the right candidates, the more likely they will. For example, Booking.com tracks referrals through its ATS so that when employees share open jobs on their social media accounts, they get the credit when someone clicks on the link and applies for the role. 5. Offer a referral incentive employees actually want We've talked a lot about encouraging employees to reach out first. But what's in it for them? You have to give them a reason to step away from their code, daily standups, strategy planning meetings, etc. to message a referral. Companies typically offer between $1,000 to $5,000 for each referral that ends up getting hired. Red Ventures, for instance, offers a $2,000 referral bonus to incentivize referrals. Some employees have even earned $10K-$15K by making several hires in a year. Cloud infrastructure company DigitalOcean offers $3,500 per hired referral, plus an additional $1,500 charitable donation to fund a cause of the employees' choice. And because a person's network might be homogenous (i.e., people tend to refer people who are similar to them), lots of companies are pushing for more diverse referrals by offering bigger payouts. Intel, for example, doubles its referral bonus when the company hires underrepresented minorities, women and veterans through referrals. Your referral bonus doesn't have to stop at a cash award. Referrals save you time and thousands of dollars, so consider supplementing any monetary bonuses with something creative and memorable, like tickets to an event, a meal delivery subscription, company-branded swag, quarterly prize drawings, company stock, an extra day off with pay, etc. You can even put up a leaderboard and publicly share stats on the number of referrals received and hired to spark some healthy referral competition. Crowdsourcing your tech sourcing With the number of jobs advertised online jumping to a record 7.3 million and the unemployment rate for tech workers hitting a 20-year low, there's more competition than ever before for tech candidates' attention. To keep up, you need to work smarter (not harder) to recruit top candidates. That means experimenting with tactics that'll get you more out of employee referrals—from asking the right questions to elicit better referrals, to zeroing in on tech pros who've liked an employee's tweet to looking beyond active job seekers. And while it's true that employee referrals don't always bring in the highest amount of applications, this collaborative hiring method more than makes up for that in increasing metrics like quality, average hiring time, retention rate and cost-per-hire that'll help you hit your goals. The post The one question to get more out of employee referrals appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
This is who's breaking into tech
Ever found yourself daydreaming of another career? Whether it's to find fulfilling work, earn a higher salary, solve bigger challenges or all of the above, more people than you might expect turn those dreams into reality. In fact, in a recent survey by Indeed.com, 49% of employees told us they'd made a total career change. And the tech industry is no exception. People are looking to break into tech and they're succeeding: 41% of surveyed tech workers said they've made a complete career switch. It's a great time to make the move with more employers willing to take on candidates with less traditional backgrounds and high-paying, fast-growing jobs not necessarily requiring a highly technical background (e.g. agile coach). If you're considering jumping into tech or find yourself in the middle of a transition, find some inspiration below as we dig into who has switched careers in the tech industry, why they did it and what it takes to get there. Why people switch careers into tech People gave us a lot of reasons for switching into tech. That might have to do with just how long they have to think about a new career: on average, people who moved into tech considered it for 12 months. That's two months longer than other industries. More people who switched into tech also talked through their plans with friends and family: 81% had conversations about their decisions compared to only 71% in other industries. So why do people shift gears? 89% of our respondents cited money, which was the number one reason, but they offered us plenty of others: Closely following a search for more money is wanting more opportunities for advancement (81%), with the top five rounded out by people looking for more challenges in their role (75%), wanting more flexibility (75%) or not being happy in their role (70%). Further down the list of reasons others offered were looking for a less stressful job or feeling their job was going to be obsolete. This reinforces that salary is important, but it's not a single dimension that attracts someone to a role. In surveys we've run to tech talent on Seen, we've also found the perks they actually care about can differ pretty dramatically. One thing to point out is that some people in tech reported they were looking to change careers out of tech in the next two years for a lot of the same reasons people switched into tech: unhappiness, lack of advancement, stress and money. If you're looking to switch, take the time to think about your motivations since tech isn't right for everyone. What—and how much—it takes to break into tech Only 36% of tech switchers reported enrolling in specific educational or training programs, a nearly identical portion as other industries (37%). As Indeed pointed out, this could be because of career changers moving into roles with transferable skills. Within tech, this could mean graphic designers moving into a UX design role or program managers moving into product management. Others are also likely taking advantage of company tuition reimbursement or in-house education, or going the entirely self-taught route. And of those seeking formal education? While bootcamps are growing in popularity, colleges and universities tie with certifications (both at 46%) as the main ways job seekers educate themselves in tech. Tech changers that invest financially in their education have to invest far more than other industries: an average of $38,507 compared to $15,715. The good news is that 81% of those in tech recouped their investment by the time of our survey (compared to 71% in other industries), with certain IT certifications in particular paying off in higher salaries. That said, you don't have to invest financially. 56% of tech career changers didn't have to invest any money to make the switch. HackerRank reported earlier this year that nearly a third of coders are self taught. Unsurprising with the amount of online resources to teach themselves and practice completely for free. Regardless of whether or not they invested, 83% of career changers into tech reported being impacted financially by their decision with only 39% saying it meant they took a pay cut initially (compared to 61% in other industries). Beyond the financial and time investment, it might involve relocation, too: nearly half of respondents said that breaking into tech involved moving to another state (or even country). That number is higher than other industries, which could be another reason those in tech reported having more conversations around their decision. The most important question we asked "Are you happier since making your career change?" 92% of people that switched into tech told us they were. But knowing the (multiple) payoffs doesn't make it any easier to break in. The first step to breaking into tech is figuring out what "tech" means to you. Tech might conjure up an image of a developer working in a code terminal, but the industry is also driven by those who design the visuals of an app, manage the security of a network, test hardware, guide product strategy and a slew of other career paths. Career coach tip: Don't know where to start? Ask people within the tech industry in a few roles you're curious about for an informational interview. It's easier than you probably think. While it may be called the "tech industry," nearly every single industry is being disrupted or enhanced by tech. And as this data shows, breaking into tech is by no means impossible. It won't happen overnight, but by putting in time, thought and energy, you can earn your spot in a (more) fulfilling tech career. The post This is who's breaking into tech appeared first on Seen by Indeed. View the full article
Top tech skills employers want going into 2020
Soft skills matter in the tech world, but if you don't know the right programming language or platform, you probably won't get the job. With so many tech skills out there (Indeed's Hiring Lab currently tracks 500+), which ones are the most in demand across the US? That's what the Hiring Lab analyzed in a new report on tech skills in the US. A team of economists and researchers looked at millions of tech job postings on Indeed.com in the five-year period between 2014 and 2019 to uncover which programming languages (and other tech skills) companies need most over time. Play around with your tech skills using our interactive tool to see how much they've changed in the last five years. We'll dive deeper into the the top ones below. Top programming languages and tech skills employers want the most To help you grow your career in the right places (and focus your job search), here are the top five trending programming languages and skills across all tech jobs. 5. JavaScript A front-end staple, JavaScript appears in 14.5% of all tech job postings on Indeed. Not only is it a highly sought-after skill, but it's also the most-used programming language, with 69.7% of professional developers coding with it regularly. The language has seen constant evolution, particularly when it comes to its libraries and frameworks. Angular is the most widespread, edging out Ajax in late 2016 and jQuery in mid 2018. In fact, in the last five years, jQuery's popularity fell by 33% and Ajax fell by 55%. It's not all on the decline, though: React.js, Vue.js and Node.js have all seen strong, steady growth since 2014. JavaScript isn't specific to one industry or role: Check out our guide to the top-paying JS career paths. 4. Linux Appearing in 14.9% of all tech job postings, it's no surprise why Linux is the #4 most in-demand tech skill. Linux serves up most of the websites and apps people use on a daily basis (it even has a stronger presence on Microsoft Azure than Windows). And it probably doesn't hurt that it lives on every Android phone and tablet in the world. As the most secure OS available (due to its open source development model), companies across all sizes and industries are looking for tech pros who understand the Linux ecosystem to cut down on the time (and cost) it takes to develop products and services of all kinds. In fact, Linux is now finding its way onto smart TVs, drones, refrigerators, thermostats and even supercomputers (all 500 of the world's fastest are powered by Linux). Automakers are even seeing the potential. Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), for example, is an open source project for developing in-vehicle technology for connected cars, including Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Toyota. Join Seen for free to get matched with a role that matches your skills 3. Python As of September 2019, Python appears in 18% of tech job postings, making it the third-most popular skill on the list. The language also boasts the fastest growth of any major tech skill the Hiring Lab looked at. In 2014, Python was the #15 tech skill, but by 2019 it has risen to #3 (an increase of 118%). A new mix of jobs, including data scientists and associated roles, like data engineers, data analysts and machine learning engineers, partially explains this growth. Since December 2013, for example, data science jobs skyrocketed by 256%. And as companies produce more and more data, Python is likely to continue this high-growth trajectory, especially since the language has been a data scientist favorite for years. It's not just the rise of data science jobs contributing to Python's success, either. Software engineers, full stack developers, QA engineers and several other roles increasingly use Python for its versatility, ease of use and speed of development. And for the first time, Python outranked Java as the second most loved language in 2019 (behind JavaScript). 2. Java Java shows up in 21% of tech job postings, making it the second most in-demand skill. Not just a mainstay of Android mobile development, Java has also been a popular skill for software engineers for almost 25 years. Since it's a "write once, run anywhere" (WORA) language, it works cross-platform, allowing companies to develop Java code on one system and run it on any other Java-supported machine. Because it's designed for projects that can scale up in size, the bulk of enterprise companies—including large players like Facebook, Netflix and Airbnb—and startups alike use it to build everything from ecommerce back-ends and machine learning environments to cloud apps and IoT tech. As a result of its versatility, rich ecosystem of tools and strong community, there are now 13 billion Java-enabled devices worldwide—which means demand for Java talent isn't likely to fade anytime soon. Have an upcoming Java interview? Boost your game by knowing the three main types of Java interview questions. 1. SQL SQL is the top tech skill of 2019, appearing in 22% of all tech job postings (and just squeezing past Java by about 1%.) Why? All companies rely on data and need to organize, understand and visualize it to make important business decisions. And SQL is the most universal database language, powering database engines like Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite. All kinds of tech pros use it, from developers who access databases to write a program to engineers who design databases to data scientists and analysts who turn thousands (or billions) of rows of data into insights that fuel business growth. Even non-tech teams, like marketing and sales, leverage it to inform decisions (without having to wait on the dev team). But despite taking Hiring Lab's top spot, SQL's share has actually slightly declined by 7% in the last five years, which could be partially explained by the rise of alternative database querying tools like NoSQL. Even still, as tech job descriptions show, SQL dominates the market and doesn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. Want to jumpstart a career in SQL? Our guide to the top five SQL careers will help you SELECT the one for you. The rise and fall of the most in-demand programming languages and tech skills The top five languages and tech skills employers are looking for in 2019 aren't necessarily the ones growing the fastest (or at all). Tech is never static, so let's take a look at which skills are experiencing the biggest growth and which are quickly falling out of favor so you can stay ahead of the latest trends. Note: Some of the languages and skills discussed in this section don't appear in the chart above since they weren't top 10 skills over the entire 2014-2019 period. Fastest-growing tech skills Stand out to employers by learning the following fastest-growing tech skills. Already know them? Highlight them on your resume to get a jump on the competition. Docker: Docker has had an impressive trajectory over the last five years. The containerization software was almost nonexistent in job descriptions on Indeed in 2014 (since the first production-ready version was released late that year). But in 2019, Docker has risen more than 40-fold, with employer demand actually outweighing job seeker interest. IoT: IoT (Internet of Things) as a skill shot up nearly 2,000% in the last five years, fueled by the sheer number of physical devices connected to the internet, including smart homes, connected cars, smart cities and wearable tech. Ansible: The IT automation platform that makes apps and systems easier to deploy only appeared in 0.1% of tech job descriptions in 2014, but now appears in 2.8%—a remarkable growth of nearly 1,300%. Kafka: Apache Kafka, an open-source platform for building real-time streaming data pipelines, is also experiencing explosive growth, up over 1,200% in five years. This reflects the soaring popularity in data science and the tech jobs accompanying it, including several rising quickly, like DevOps, data scientist and full stack developer. Fastest-declining tech skills As newer technologies, languages and standards enter the mainstream, older ones are being pushed out of the rankings (or even retired). Consider leaving these skills behind in 2020. Clojure: As a dialect of the Lisp programming language, Clojure is a cult classic with a small but passionate fan base, rather than a mainstream language. And due to its steep learning curve, lack of a strong library ecosystem and the fact that it requires higher CPU utilization (which drives up hiring and operating costs), employer demand for Clojure has dropped by 80% since 2014. EJB: Although Java is one of the top tech skills of 2019, EJB (short for Enterprise JavaBeans) is down 73% since 2014. One potential explanation is that other modern Java-based frameworks like Spring Boot (up 58% in the past year) are open-source, easier to use and less resource intensive. Servlets: Servlets are another Java-based skill fast becoming a legacy technology. Why? Developers using servlets have to write a lot of utility code to support their web applications, while other frameworks, like Spring MVC, automate the manual work, making it faster and easier to build web apps. JSP: Similar to what's happening with EJB and servlets, JSP (JavaServer Pages) is falling out of fashion as new choices for building dynamic web pages mature and become popular. While JSP is limited to simple, fixed interactions, newer JS frameworks like Angular, React and Vue.js offer richer web apps with lots of user interactions. Are you keeping your tech skills current? In the fast-moving tech world, keeping your skills up to date is critical for both finding a new tech job and investing in your career development. But it can be difficult to figure out what's a passing fad and what's here to stay, especially when it seems like new technologies are getting released (and older ones are being phased out) on a daily basis. So how do you adapt, pick up the right skills to power your career and stop falling for the latest short-lived craze or familiar name that's fading? Five years of steady (and sometimes explosive) growth signals that a language or skill is likely here to stay, at least until the next Python, Java or SQL comes along to disrupt the rankings again. The post Top tech skills employers want going into 2020 appeared first on Seen by Indeed. 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