Ask The Headhunter

Couldn’t agree more. A long time ago somebody recommended Nick Corcodilos‘ book, “Ask The Headhunter“, and it changed the way I thought about job hunting. There’s a lot of great resouces on his site: https://www.asktheheadhunter.com

The current comments cover this well, if you need more, I strongly suggest http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/ and in general there's a lot of great stuff on his site, like the related "Death by Lethal Reputation" (http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/halethalrep.htm about a company). I'd also take a cue from his general advice about finding a new job: only work with recruiters you've specifically selected. Likely only the top in your area, e.g. in the '90s there were only 2 worth dealing with for normal jobs in the D.C. area.

Plus one for reading Nick (the author of 'Ask the Headhunter': http://asktheheadhunter.com/ The site has been 'online since 1995' and looks like it, but has a wealth of advice for taking control of your destiny when looking for a new job. This is my favorite piece on how to interview: http://asktheheadhunter.com/basics5.htm

This may have been covered already, but... The purpose of a resume is not to get you hired. The point of a resume is to catch someone's attention for long enough to keep you in the race, or get to the next step. A successful resume is one that will be NOT discarded by HR drones or automated resume scanning software. A successful resume will get you a phone screening or an in-person interview. If your resume is, as you said, awful, but you are getting to the interview stage then you are getting there DESPITE the quality of your resume. If you are not getting past the interview step, the problem is not with the resume (it's out of the picture). So "something" may be going wrong in your interviews. I don't have any ideas about how to go looking for what might be going wrong. Separately, I don't see any mention of the web site http://asktheheadhunter.com/ This guy has strong opinions that are carefully expressed. Many of his opinions contradict "common wisdom," which I often found eye-opening. He has a lot of interesting things to say. Poke around the site... read some articles, subscribe to the newsletter. It could be helpful.

Sounds like you've thought this through. Congrats to your fiancee for landing a great gig. You are a true partner for making this move. Since no one else has said it, find out which alums from your university are in Philly and set up informational interviews with ones in fields/jobs you find interesting. Everyone loves to talk about what they do/how they got to where they are. Key: follow up with a hand-written thank-you note. This is far more memorable than an email! (and do this for everyone who takes time to talk to you) I would also set up an informational interview with these Philly folks to get a better idea of the local scene: http://www.dreamitventures.com/ I totally get that you want a job-job, but they will "get" your background and may even put you in touch with one of their companies and/or introduce you to others in the Philly tech community. I'd also check out http://asktheheadhunter.com/ for advice on how to treat your job search the way a recruiter operates in matching companies and talent (essentially, you research the heck out of a place where you'd want to work and then show them how they need you). The "Ask the Headhunter" book is a bit repetitive but may be worth picking up as well. Best of luck! And don't be too hard on yourself. The process will most likely have its setbacks.

Why would they legitimately need this information? It's become a common practice especially among large, buraucratic employers. The Last 4 Digits are simply a unique identifier, used for quick (soft) reference in employment eligibility. You're just a number to machine at this point. HR Flunkies & Bozo Recruiters don't care if it turns you off or raises red flags about your security. Here's an excellent take on this by Nick Corcodillos >http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/7696/wanted-hr-exec-with-the-guts-to-n…

Reminds me of the approach of http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/ (if you ignore the 90' web style) is pretty interesting: find out where you want to wokr find out the problems they have show them you can solve the problems profitably

Yes, I learned this back in the day from the classic "ask the headhunter" series. Since then I've simply stated job/salary requirements to jump-ship and it hasn't been a problem. http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hasalary.htm

The best advice I've seen on how to structure an interview came from Nick Corcodilos of Ask the Headhunter [1] fame, from his book Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job [2]. If you want to show someone you can do the job (or see if they can do the job), do the job, or as close as you can get to it in an interview setting. Anything will be selecting for indicators that will be more or less correlated with job performance. [1] http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/articles.htm [2] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452278015/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&c…

The very idea of a website that encourages people to anonymously critique employers is ludicrous and irresponsible. I think its use is widespread because it makes money. That fact impresses HR executives and the public, leading them all to base business decisions on admittedly untrustworthy information. Just think about it: Any disgruntled employee or job applicant can trash a company publicly. An HR department can spam Glassdoor, singing its own praises. (It seems this happened with the company you quit.) Honest comments will get lost. Meanwhile, Glassdoor has no incentive to keep it all clean by making participants accountable. (The argument for anonymity is that people wouldn’t post honest comments if employers knew who they were. Duh. That justifies graffiti?) They make money with every posting. That’s how Glassdoor is like the job boards. In fact, Glassdoor is a job board. Like LinkedIn, the site uses the honeypot of “community” to lure you into an ulterior revenue model. https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/7453/can-i-trust-glassdoor-reviews

More than a decade and a half old now, Ask the Headhunter's "Death by Lethal Reputation" is an evergreen essay: https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/halethalrep.htm

This seems to be another example of the trend to AI based hiring, where the candidate interacts with zero humans until they have invested a huge amount of time and energy[0]. Good on you for telling them off. [0] https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/15129/before-you-risk-your-references

The standard advise is to never do an exit interview! http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/haexit.htm

>Acting shady hurts your brand. The Ladders has a long history of actually being shady, viz. "Liars at the Ladders" http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/newsletter/oe20090120.htm

An oldie but goodie: http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hasalary.htm There was a better one, which I can't find now.

You can turn an interview into real work: http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/gv981229.htm Nick Corcodilos was a pretty popular voice 10 years ago and was one of the first to give that sort of hiring advice.

So it has begun. A US recruiting company has (finally?) openly advertised to front-loading their human screeners (assuming they actually had used them previously; I have my doubts) with a chatbot that will "make hiring more human" by doing screening calls of applicants after they've submitted an application. This reminds me of a piece by "Ask The Headhunter" Nick Corcodilos - from 2018 - on having an AI do interviews on behalf of candidates [0]: I wonder if we can get Avatar Hank and Parker on a call, save and scrutinize their conversation for valuable insights. [0] https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/11783/interview-for-1500-jobs Curiously, in a perfect case of coincidence, a human (we assume!) 'Parker Miller' just a few weeks ago had something to say about shortsighted decision-making on human replacement by AI: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/parker-miller-ams_aistrategy-futureofwo…

the costs are roughly $4000 per employee per year. That's maybe 15% of their salary, probably less. You think that top software engineering graduates in New York City make $26k per year? Recalibrate! Recalibrate! I think the number you're looking for is "less than 4%". Remember that the office-construction expenses can be massaged by accountants to reduce taxes on them, and that an employee's (e.g.) $80k salary costs the employer considerably more than $80k, thanks to the employer share of things like Social Security and health insurance. To say nothing of the costs of recruiting a single employee. Note that a headhunter will charge you a cool $30k to recruit an employee with a $100k salary: http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics2.htm ...and who knows what kind of stiff that headhunter is going to try to foist off on you? The chances that the $4k per employee per year is paying off for Fog Creek are much, much better than you think.