I Got a New Job and I Learned Even More About the Job Search Process

I started a new job this week! Now that I’m getting settled into a new position*, I wanted to share some insights about how my job search went this time around. I’ve written about getting a job or changing jobs before (you can see this article and this article), but those posts were geared more towards people who were fresh out of college or who have limited experience. I have been working in the technology consulting industry for five years now and there were some major differences in the process. So if you have a bit of experience and find yourself in the market, read on. If you’re a fresh grad or trying to get a position in a completely different industry, the articles I linked earlier in this paragraph are probably a better resource. 

One thing that didn’t change from before, and that remains crucial, is an up-to-date resume and LinkedIn - especially LinkedIn. When I first started even considering changing jobs,  I updated my profile with all my new experiences and I made sure to add all the skills I had gained and my major areas of interest. By making these sections as detailed as possible, I was increasing my chances of appearing in front of recruiters searching for candidates related to those skills or keywords. Keeping your resume up to date also helps you run through the exercise of what you’ve accomplished and then you have a clean copy on file to promptly hand over whenever you’re ready. 

Other than that - pretty much everything was different. 

First of all,  I was different. I had about five years of professional experience, highly recognized professional certifications, and, most importantly, I had a much better idea of what I was looking for in my next move.

Another major difference was that I unlocked a new category of job opportunities. This category consists of jobs that came to me, rather than jobs I had to find on my own. I noticed a huge uptick in the number of people reaching out to me on LinkedIn last year. I’m pretty sure this change occurred because I finally had over three years of experience under my belt, as well as some widely recognized professional certifications*.  Sometimes these inquiries were from recruiters from staffing firms, but often they were in-house recruiters for companies I was actually interested in. This made a massive difference in my search because I simply didn’t have to try as hard to find interesting opportunities. I did, of course, do some searching on my own, but most of the time I just had to sift through my LinkedIn inbox. I ended my job search having received five offers, and four of those came from a recruiter contacting me directly, whereas one was a referral I asked for from my network. None came from opportunities I had found on my own. 

Something new I had to learn because of this was that not every opportunity that comes to my inbox deserves my attention. When I first started fielding these, I would feel this weird pressure to at least talk to every recruiter that reached out to me even if the position did not seem in line with what I was looking for. As a result, I ended up on a lot of phone calls discussing positions that I didn’t even want. I was trying to prevent any opportunity loss by taking every call but really all it ended up doing was stressing me out and taking up more of my time. I did this for the first month of my search and then ended up making a list of non-negotiables that a position must have for me to even consider it and that helped me make snap decisions on any opportunity that knocked at my door. It felt weird to say ‘no’, so many times, but ultimately it allowed me to spend more time and energy searching for and interacting with the opportunities I was truly interested in. 

This also made me much better about reading between the lines when companies would try to sell themselves to me. Now that I was a little bit more experienced, I was better at being able to tell when companies were selling themselves too hard, dancing around topics that they knew were negatives, and discerning what was relevant information and what was just their standard fluff. For example, every company is going to go on and on about their amazing culture. But I know now to ask about professional development, benefits, work/life balance, and to talk to people currently in the role to actually discern if this is true or not.

Lastly, when I did finally get offers I was interested in, I was much more prepared to negotiate than in the past. I had actually never negotiated an initial offer before, but this time, I was ready. The first thing that prepared me was that I had finally looked up my market rate. I knew what I should be making MINIMUM, based on my experience and certifications. 

To find your own, you basically just have to google the position, years of experience you have, certifications/degrees, city, and then ‘market rate’. Mine looked something like this - “Consultant 5 years of experience with PMP Chicago market rate.” That’s literally it. 

This info helped me know what to ask for simply as a starting point. The second thing that helped prepare me, was the knowledge that recruiters expect you to negotiate. This is pretty common practice. My dad was terrified that negotiating would result in the company rescinding my offer, but this is extremely rare. In all actuality, interviewing people is expensive, so if they already like you, they will try and accommodate your requests so they don’t have to repeat the process. In the vast majority of cases, the worst they can say is - sorry but this is the best we can do. 

I ended up getting about 10-15% more than my base offers by negotiating. I would go back and forth with them until they finally said that the offer was their best and final. At the end of the day, I was able to remember that this is just a business transaction. I’m looking for the best experience for the most money, and they’re looking for the best worker for the least amount of money. I owed it to myself to ask and push as much as possible.

Overall, apart from the offers coming to me at a much higher frequency, the biggest difference this time was my confidence. I had a better understanding of what I wanted, my experience, what I was worth, and what I could ask for. This allowed me to first, effectively screen for opportunities that were truly in line with my goals. Second, it allowed me to stay calm and perform well in interviews since I was confident in my experience and was able to think outside the box on many questions. Lastly, it allowed me to push for as much as possible from my offers. While it remains to be seen how this new position will affect my growth, I can already say that I’ve never been this confident in making a career decision.

*I now work at AWS (Amazon Web Services) as an Engagement Manager. All opinions in this article are my own and do not reflect those of Amazon.

*I had a PMP (Project Management Professional) and AWS Cloud Practictioner Certification at that time