Job Hunting, Part 2: Application Tracking

A quick, shameless ad: I lost my job and I still have bills to pay, so I am on the hunt for a new position! I am specifically looking for a role as an Engineering Manager or Senior Engineer. My coding background is primarily in Ruby and JavaScript, as you can see in my portfolio, but I also have some experience with Python, Swift, and Java. If you are looking for someone to join your team, don’t hesitate to reach out using the social links.

This post is part of a series about my job search for an engineering role. This post will focus on tracking jobs you’re interested in. The first post is about how I rewrote my resume.

Finding Jobs

There are a lot of jobs out there, even though everyone and their mom is laying people off right now. Of course there are job boards on LinkedIn and Indeed, but even better sources are friends and family. Who do you know who has a position at a company that could hire someone with your skills? Talk to them and get the conversation started.

To be sure, I think there is also (some) value in applying to lots and lots of jobs blindly. There is a >0% chance that you will stick out to a hiring manager and be considered for a role you have no relationship with, while there is a 0% chance that you will be considered if you don’t apply.

However, I think the best chance you have at landing a job, and quickly, is to have some relationship with someone at the company going in.

The Spreadsheet

I have a spreadsheet for tracking jobs that I think I have a real shot at getting. If a friend mentions it to me, a job goes in the spreadsheet. If I get a phone screen, the job goes in the spreadsheet. If I find a company I’d love to work at and they’re hiring, I’ll start by reaching out to them to show that I’m passionate about that particular position. That job also goes in the spreadsheet.

Here are the columns in my spreadsheet:

• Company name

• Title of position

• Reference / point of contact

• Pay Range

• Interest (on a scale of 1-5)

• Status

• Link to job posting

These are all pretty self-explanatory except maybe “Status.” I define several statuses with integers at the start of the field’s value, so I can sort the spreadsheet by how close to an offer I might be at that company. For example, the first status is “1 (Reached Out),” and the sixth is “6 (Final Interview)”. Numbers for Mac automatically prompts me with these field values once I’ve entered them.

Referral Tips

In my experience, it is always a leg up if you can apply to a job and mention the name of a current employee in the application. Here are a few ways you might find such a name:

• Know the person from a previous job. One position I found was referred to me by a former coworker, and that coworker currently works at this company. This is probably the best-case scenario, because that coworker can attest that you are a great employee on your behalf (they probably wouldn’t refer you if you were a lousy employee).

• Know a former employee at the company. For another position, I knew someone who used to work at the company and was well-liked by current employees. I think this helped me get my foot in the door, but it would of course be better if the employee still worked there.

• Buy a coffee for someone. Meet them physically in person, ask them about their job, and see if that can’t lead to a role at the company. This is a great strategy, but takes time. This has led to multiple job offers for me.

• Join Slack groups like Rands Slack or TechFriends. People are often referring each other from these communities because they have a proven track record of finding good people to work at good companies. This has led to several interviews for me.

So far, if I didn’t hear about it from a friend, a Slack group, or a recruiter, I have gotten zero interviews. If I heard about it from a friend or a Slack group, I usually get an interview. Recruiters are about 50/50 for me—sometimes a recruiter reaches out but the job has already been filled. It depends a lot on the timing.

As they say… it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Post number 78.

Job Hunting, Part 1: The Resume

I lost my job at Plan to Eat and I still have bills to pay, so I am on the hunt for a new position! I am specifically looking for a role as an Engineering Manager or Senior Engineer. My coding background is primarily in Ruby and JavaScript, as you can see in my portfolio, but I also have some experience with Python, Swift, and Java. If you are looking for someone to join your team, don’t hesitate to reach out using the social links!

…So that’s the ad.

Given that situation, I wanted to write a series about how things are going in the early stages of my search for an engineering role. I have seen some folks say they found a job a week after a layoff, and I have seen others say it took them weeks or months to find their next role.

This post will focus on writing a resume and what changes I made for my current job hunt. I’d love to hear from you if you found this advice helpful, if you think I’m doing something wrong, or if you think I’m missing something important!

The baseline software engineer resume

I think it goes without saying that updating your resume is a good first step to starting a job search. But resumes are an attempt to address a difficult problem, so they should be considered carefully.

The problem is, how do you effectively communicate that you are an accomplished professional and the best candidate for a role in one or two pages? Worse, how do you do it when you know your resume is one of dozens and will likely be skimmed?

In the past, I have always written resumes by copying how other people in engineering roles do it. From top to bottom:

• Contact information at the top (name, general location, email, phone, website, GitHub, LinkedIn)

• About Me: a short paragraph about yourself

• Work Experience: usually a list of jobs with bullets beneath each describing things you did there

• Education: like work experience, but probably less detailed

• Skills: a list of technologies or soft skills you feel you are good at

• Additional Skills: I tend to include my Eagle Scout rank and First Degree Black Belt for some color

I still have this basic skeleton in my resume, but after doing some research, I came across an Indeed article that convinced me to change it in one key way: by using the STAR method.

STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result

In the “Work Experience” section, rather than just listing things that I have done, I focused on a few major contributions I have made at each company. Each contribution has a bold headline for readers skimming my resume, and bullets beneath it breaking down the Situation, Task, Action, and Result.

For example, I developed a Nutrition Facts calculator at Plan to Eat. This project took most of a year to complete and was one of the tougher challenges I have taken on in my career as a Ruby developer, so I make sure it is front and center in my resume. But rather than just saying I did it in a bulleted list, I describe it as follows:

As a full-stack engineer, I responded to a common customer request for a Nutrition Facts calculator by developing a "Calculate Nutrition Facts" button.

• Developed a service in Ruby on Rails to consider the recipe's ingredients, the number of servings in the recipe, and how to scale the ingredients to match the USDA's units before searching for results

• Added a "flag for review" feature so users can notate mistakes in the searching and scaling behavior

• Developed a machine learning admin interface to address the flagged recipes and other inaccurate data, allowing for the Nutrition Facts service to improve over time

• Received overwhelmingly positive feedback from longtime customers for the addition of the feature

As the STAR principle recommends, I describe the situation (I was a full-stack engineer), the task (developing a Nutrition Facts calculator), the action (writing the service and the admin interface), and the result (customers responded positively in support tickets).

My goal with the bold headlines is to make it possible to skim my two-page resume and still get a few essential bits of information out of it. Maybe the Nutrition Facts calculator is of interest to the hiring manager, but maybe my management experience is more important. Either way, they can read all of the bold headlines pretty quickly and only read the bullets beneath the ones they are interested in.

One or Two Pages?

Everyone’s work history is different. I would definitely not stretch your accomplishments out to fill two pages if you don’t have two pages of content, or crunch a ton of content into one page for the sake of it. I think two pages of easy-to-read content is better than one page of small font and narrow spacing.

For my first two positions as an engineer, I used a one-page resume. I moved to two in my search for a manager or senior engineer role. I think the STAR method and the structure I chose have made my resume detailed, yet easy to skim the content.

But what do you think of my updated resume? Let me know in the comments or on LinkedIn!

Post number 77.

On Fatherhood

I hear incessant complaining about children from numerous sources. Kids are expensive, you will be sleepless when they are young, they will grow up to hate you anyway, and, of course, they complain a lot.

Yeesh. I wonder where they got the complaining habit from.

Parenthood seemed like an essential part of the human experience to me before I was a father. Now that I am one, I can confirm that it is.

To be sure, I was anxious about it. Babies cry. Diapers cost money. Being tired sucks.

But I have seen my wife in excruciating, torturous pain in the herculean effort to make human life continue.

I have seen my daughter take her first gasping breaths, held her hand when she was all of thirty seconds old and entirely helpless, and wondered at how very fragile this new life is.

I have seen my daughter’s smile when she sees my face again after a long day at work, and I’ve known that the computer not doing what I told it to today is not such a big deal after all.

And I appreciate life differently now. I appreciate my own value as a human in a way that I couldn’t have previously.

These things remind me why I do what I do. I work to provide for my family, to have food and shelter and running water and video games and smartphones and cars and candy-filled Christmas stockings. I exercise and read and attempt to better myself so my body continues to function properly, so I can do this for many years to come. The great struggle to acquire a high-paying skill, land a high-paying job, stay healthy, love your loved ones, get enough sleep, maintain the house, pay the bills, all of it is for something. This work is for our future health and happiness, and for the potential in another, younger life.

Becoming a father ascribes meaning to life, pricey diapers and sleepless nights be damned. Yes, I would recommend it.

Post number 76.

Christmas Letter 2021

2021 was a crazy year, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But where 2020 was a bit challenging to reflect on positively (for obvious reasons), this year was… well.

Incredible.

Yes, in lieu of a more chronological approach to this year’s Christmas letter, I’m starting with the headline: our family grew just a little this year! Emma Deanna Rice was born on October 25, 2021 at Banner Health Center in Fort Collins at 6:42 AM.

Sometimes she’s friggin’ adorable:

 Sometimes she looks… kind of like Mini Me?

 But we love her all the time!

 As of this writing, Emma is almost two months old. She has learned to do… nothing, basically. Well, she can hold her head up a little. Sometimes she sleeps, too!

But it’s worth it. No, really. I think the things that get lost in translation between parents and not-parents when they talk about having kids are that your baby will be adorable, and your baby will be hilarious. You can probably guess that you’re all biologically wired up to think your baby is the cutest and most precious one in the world, but will anyone else sneeze so hard they poop in front of you this year? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

 All right, let’s let Emma take a nap while we talk about what else happened this year. Our work lives were mercifully uneventful this year. Aarica and I stuck to the jobs we had at the beginning of 2021 and made the most of them: Aarica is in the process of her fourth house transaction as a real estate agent, and I am wrapping up my first full year contracting with Plan to Eat, a meal-planning app available on iOS, Android, and the web.

A maternity photo from the pre-Emma era

We also pursued a few of our favorite hobbies and side projects. Aarica knocked out a few photoshoots with her fellow moms and moms-to-be, I wrote a couple of blog posts, and I made sure to remind everyone I’m a big nerd by posting about my playthrough of the entire Zelda series on social media. We even got a few workouts in, including some pregnancy workouts Aarica found in Apple Fitness+.

Yosemite was beautiful!

But if we exclude Emma from the conversation for a moment longer (she’s going to start fussing if we keep ignoring her), our babymoon in San Francisco was certainly the biggest event for us this year. We got to visit Yosemite National Park, Alcatraz Island, and even Apple’s crazy spaceship-looking headquarters in Cupertino.

Alcatraz prison cells

On the boat to Alcatraz

Fisherman’s Wharf panorama

It’s hard to get the whole spaceship into one photo

There was also a ton of incredible food; lots of fun to be had in Fisherman’s Wharf; some amazing art and history at the Legion of Honor, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Palace of Fine Arts; and a robot that made me coffee at the airport.

Lapisara Eatery’s Mussamun Curry was unbelievable

Sweet Maple’s phenomenal Millionaire’s Bacon and french toast

A souffle from L’Ardoise Bistro that looked too delicious to leave sitting there until we took a picture

The robot says hi!

A favorite from the Legion of Honor: “The Russian Bride’s Attire”

Golden Gate was relatively clear, but windy

The Palace of Fine Arts was very beautiful, but also very closed due to COVID

 We were also fortunate enough to celebrate some huge life events with our friends and family. TJ (Aarica’s brother) graduated from high school in Alabama in May, and Meghan (Dan’s sister) got married to Jake Clement in September. We enjoyed spending time with both sides of the family during these big events, and supporting our younger siblings - Meghan moved out and TJ moved in with us this year.

 All right Emma, all right. You get all the attention again. Aarica was quite thrilled that Emma was born before Halloween, so we could be Woody, Bo Peep, and Bo’s sheep while we gave out candy:

 And that also meant Emma got to meet Santa and Dancer in our neighborhood:

 It’s a miracle we got the briefest of moments to do these things, because her family can’t get enough of her!

Uncle TJ is always happy to help us get a fussy Emma back to sleep!

We’re glad Emmett had Mia to keep him company during these trying times! Although I’m not sure he agrees.

 Suffice it to say, Mom and Dad have their hands full. We’re so grateful for her, and for all our family and friends supporting us through these crazy times. I just have one favor to ask of all of you:

 Have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Post number 75.

Job Review: Opinion Columnist at the Rocky Mountain Collegian

What was the job?

My ninth job was an Opinion Columnist position at the Rocky Mountain Collegian. I did not really have a “beat,” per se, but I tended to focus on topics like technology, local politics, and mental health. I was even more crazy about Apple gadgets than I am now, if you’ll believe it, so there are quite a few articles on that subject hidden somewhere in the Collegian’s archives.

How much did it pay?

This was one of the worst-paying jobs I have ever had. I was paid $10 per 500-word article, which was a pretty good incentive to spend no more than an hour writing them.

Were there other incentives to work there?

As a longtime aspiring writer, it was exciting to be paid for my writing no matter the pay. Plus, my piece on living with bipolar disorder was the most popular opinion piece that year by far, according to my editor, which was an encouraging pat on the back. If I helped even one person cope with a mental disorder, then it was surely worth the menial pay. 

There was also a lot of flexibility in the job. My editor was another student who let me write about whatever I want, perhaps because the paper needed content more than it needed to stick to a particular subject. The team had a meeting maybe once or twice a month to discuss what topics we wanted to cover, but there was not much pressure to meet specific deadlines or metrics.

Would you recommend this job to others?

I would only recommend this job if you are confident that you want to pursue a writing career and you are currently a CSU student. Writing for the Collegian is a good way to build experience, but it is not a good way to make a living. 

If you choose to write for your college’s paper, press your editor and any writing mentors you have for advice on how you can improve. Since you are probably not going to be paid very well, make the most of the opportunity!

This post is part of a series I started on Novum Opus’s social media accounts. Want more like this? Let me know in the comments!

Post number 74.