In addition to the previous posts especially those about networking123 and leveraging recruiters4, here are some random tips on job hunting in no particular order of importance:

  1. Take screenshots of the job description of posts that you apply to — In a couple weeks or months after you’ve applied to 50-300 jobs, you’ll start to get interview invites. They’ll likely say something like “We’d like to interview for the job that you applied for”. By then, they’ll have taken down the job post and it’ll be up to you to remember the details of the job that you applied to all those weeks or months ago… personally, I can’t remember details like that. So I keep a Google Doc of screenshots of the jobs that I’ve applied. The important information to track is the company, specific job title, and job description.
  2. Strategically order your interviews — If you have multiple interviews from different companies, schedule the ones that are lower stakes before the higher stakes ones. Give yourself time to practice interviewing. The same logic follows for strategically ordering your networking chats.
  3. Make an interview cheatsheet for yourself — Interviews usually fall into 2 categories: behavioral vs. technical. It’s easy to figure out the regular questions that you’ll be asked for each, e.g., “tell me about your background” “describe a recent challenge” “walk me through a project that you’ve done” You can either write out in advance and practice your elevator pitches, specific tailored points, and note your questions you want to ask, or you can also put this up on the your screen to the side of your video interview. Make both the video interview screen and your document small so that if you glance over, it won’t look like you’re reading. For whatever reason, even if you accidentally show your screen to your interviewer, honestly it shows that you prepared well. Even if you don’t use it, it’s a worthwhile exercise to put yourself through before an interview.
  4. Ask your friends for help when it comes to negotiations — Turns out that all my friends have a better understanding of money than I do. Coming out of academia, I had no idea what things were that were called RSUs (restricted stock options), options, strike vs. sell price, percent equity, AIP (annual inceptive bonus), top ups, vestings, black out periods, etc. I was worried that my friends would feel weird talking about money, but all of them have been incredibly generous with their knowledge.

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I’ll keep adding to this list as I learn more!

AI was not used to write, edit, or brainstorm this post. All mistakes and em dashes are my own.

  1. See Networking for introverts ↩
  2. See Networking misconceptions ↩
  3. See Writing networking emails: The basic formula ↩
  4. See Recruiters & recruiter calls ↩