Writing:
How I Got My Job
Here's a few tips on how I got my job as a software process improvement coach.
- Work on your job search at the same time every weekday. Leave the house and go to the library. They have study carrels there—nice and quiet with a door that shuts. You can make phone calls in there without disturbing others. Only do work in your "job-search" setting—nothing else. If you are doing this correctly, placing yourself in this setting should lead to work happening naturally, without strain.
- Track on a piece of paper whenever you check off a job-related next action (JRNA) from your list of things to do. At the end of the day, put into a jar the number of stones corresponding to the number of JRNAs you completed that day. Day by day, the jar fills up. When the jar is full, take a day off and celebrate with some kind of guilt-free pleasure.
- Join a Meetup.com group related to whatever career you are interested in. Go through the membership of the group person-by-person, and look them up in LinkedIn. Now you have a list of companies that may hire for that career, and you have a connection (through the group) with someone who works at that company.
- Make a LinkedIn profile for yourself. Write LinkedIn recommendations for others. If they accept your recommendation, request one for yourself in return. When requesting a recommendation, offer to write a draft recommendation of yourself for them to use as a starting point. Track LinkedIn link requests in spreadsheet, since LinkedIn won't tell you who you have already requested links from, if they haven't accepted yet.
- Target companies in markets that are expanding rapidly.
- List of companies that use Scrum: http://scrumcommunity.pbworks.com/Firms+Using+Scrum
- Good sources of info about particular companies: