Searching for a job – while keeping my stress at as low a level as possible

Does a job search need to be stressful? Can recruiters improve their game? Knowledge is power. Time is key.

I’m on a sabbatical (read, without an employee status) since April. More on what I’m doing (and not) during this time might follow in another post.

Here I’d like to focus on some interesting benefits my situation has had with respect to looking for a job, and I’ll also add a few observations on the current job and recruiting market.

Note that I’m not talking about searching for customers for my freelance business here, but about interacting with recruiters and companies looking to hire employees or contractors¹.

Context

My break from employment is not strictly a holiday: my intention was (and still is) to freelance a bit and otherwise experiment with things that may or may not lead to money being thrown my way (see the projects page).

Whatever I’m currently doing, the important thing is to know that I’ve budgeted my year so that I can hold comfortably until next year without revenue².

In parallel and as you may know, the economy is also doing funny things and some tech companies are laying off parts of their staff, making me wonder how the job market will evolve. If you’re wondering: no I’m not stressed (yet). Let’s see how this holds up until Christmas.

Search

Around a month ago I started applying to jobs that looked genuinely interesting. While doing this I also set my LinkedIn status to Open to Work to see what would come my way. This was with the following intention:

• getting a chance to stumble upon a really good match and get back into employment earlier than planned
• getting a feeling of how recruiting works at the moment for more senior positions – ie, should I start doing intensive leet-code to prep' or is my experience enough to get through the door?³ Am I even marketing myself correctly?
• understanding what rates and salaries I can realistically expect and what the available trade-offs are.
• build up a contact list I can rely on for when and if I’m really needing a job

It’s basically a research job, which I reframed as some intelligence work for my own amusement. Because, frankly, some recruiters (but not all!) make it necessary: I feel better when I’m asking myself “How do I make this annoying recruiter cough up the rates he’s recruiting for without needing to go through an annoying phone call?"

It’s amusing to see that basic manners can get you forward (at least with me).

Benefits of having time

Having both time on my hand and not needing to work immediately is very comfortable when looking for a job:

• I’m bad at negotiating and can probably improve the way I present myself in many different ways: that’s ok, as I’m not in need I don’t need to accept anything I don’t like. Every discussion that does not lead to me accepting some work is an occasion to learn something.
• Offers that look interesting to me are not that plentiful: having more time means a higher chance of running into something that is really interesting (not necessarily on the compensation side: some projects are simply more exciting than others…)
• I can widen my search parameters a little bit, as I have the time to look at what comes my way. For example, I don’t mind setting up profiles or registering on the various internal platforms that certain recruiting use⁴, as well as perusing the few e-mails I get everyday from LinkedIn alerts.
• I can be direct and stop the process as soon as I see it won’t be a match – no need to hedge anything by keeping other options available at the moment.

Speeding things up

Having time does not mean I enjoy wasting it, so I’m also improving on a few things in my process. What I’ve learnt so far and have started applying boils down to this:

• Quickly find out what tier⁵ the company is in: if they are only competing in the local job market their compensation will likely be too low without them being even aware of it. Unless they can throw in other benefits (part-time, flexibility, etc.) or the fit is absolutely great, it likely won’t be a match.
• Make expectations clear from the beginning: not necessarilly the compensation – some bigger companies obviously are competitive and numbers are discussed after we’ve estalblished a fit – but other conditions such as: working remotely, flexible work hours, part-time, etc.
• Ask recruiters for details before getting on a call with them. I have some canned responses that I use that basically say “what industry are you recruiting for, what responsibilities come with this job, what is the team structure and what is the pay range”. Interestingly a good third of recruiters won’t even reply to this.

What’s next?

In short: I don’t know!

And this is what makes it exciting.

Are You Hiring?

Then get in touch with me! I can’t promise I’ll be interested for the job or available, but I’m always genuinely curious what kind of roles businesses are currently recruiting for.