Winning Job Applications

What you should know before your next interview

By Kevin Ko

Author of Hired Fast: The Junior Developer's Guide to Getting a Job

https://kokev.in/hired-fast

Topics

1. Hiring empathy

2. Ways to stand out as a candidate

My History

• Dev Bootcamp Graduate April 2013
• MUBI, July - Sep 2013 (Fired!)
• AnyPerk, Oct 2013 - Jun 2015
• Leap, Jun 2015 - Present

Running a Marathon

Two Halves: Preparing and Running

Preparing:

1. Nutrition/diet   

2. Tooling (shoes)

3. Practice             

etc.

No one shows up to a marathon and runs 26 miles without preparing.

But we do this all the time when we interview.

Why This Matters

Engineering applicants per month:

• CrowdFlower: up to 15 (bootcamp grads)
• AnyPerk: up to 50
• Realm: up to 90

Total Google applicants:

2 million per year

(http://www.forbes.com/sites/stanphelps/2014/08/05/cracking-into-google-the-15-reasons-why-over-2-million-people-apply-each-year/)

The Typical Application

• Rejected without an interview
• Even if you get an interview, you're just another one of the two million

You want to be introduced like "we have this candidate we're really excited about..."

The Typical Application

You want to show off your skills but:

1. Interviews aren't a full gauge
2. HMs won't read your entire life's story
3. HMs won't look past one repo, if any

Getting Ahead:

Impress Hiring Managers with techniques no one else is using

Empathy

Imagine reading multiple applications a day:

• The same sample projects
• No key differentiators
• Everyone claims the same traits
• Sooo many bootcamp grads

Hiring Managers want to feel like their organization and time is being respected

How to Impress

At AnyPerk:

1. Read our/my blog posts and referenced it in the interview
2. Created a working application that addressed a weakness in their skill set
3. Showed up unannounced to the office and handed their CV directly to the CEO

Demonstrate you're not just copy/pasting applications.

The Direct Value Approach

Nina Mufleh and Airbnb 

nina4airbnb.com

The Direct Value Approach

Loren Burton and Airbnb 

http://thewc.co/misc/loren-wants-to-work-for-airbnb/

Instant Attention Approach

Philippe Dubost and Amazon 

http://phildub.com/

Natural Fit Approach

I did this with Uber (on accident)

Two engineers reached out to me afterward

Natural Fit Approach

Feross Aboukhadijeh and YouTube Instant

Hint: Build something using their API, e.g.:

https://www.twilio.com/blog/2015/03/how-my-dog-sends-selfies.html

Upfront Work Approach

Great for other, non-dev disciplines:

1. UX Designers
2. Pen-testers
3. Biz Dev/Sales

Why it Works

• No one ever does them
• Demonstrates that you're a great fit
• Allows you to show off more than what's in your portfolio
• Frames you as more than just a junior ($$)
• Positive momentum into the interview

Creativity and Time

Getting a job is easy if you're highly experienced

Until then, you can use skills you have now to help land your dream job.

Creativity and Time

You have the creativity and time right now. Sometimes these approaches will only take 5 minutes or a day, but have high ROI.

5 Minutes: "Hey this is broken, here's a fix"

A weekend: "I built this site that helps people do X using your API"

(P.S. I go over many more approaches and examples in my book)

Questions?

Email: kevin@kokev.in

Twitter: @kokev

I wrote a book called Hired Fast: The Junior Developer's Guide to Getting a Job:

kokev.in/hired-fast?promo=meetup

($10 off promo via query parameter)